The Verdi and DBB civil servants’ union and collective bargaining union are demanding 10.5 percent more money, but at least 500 euros.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In the collective bargaining for the approximately 2.5 million federal and local employees, the employers presented an initial offer in the second round on Thursday evening.
According to Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), it includes, among other things, a pay increase of five percent in two steps and one-off payments totaling 2,500 euros. The unions immediately rejected the offer as insufficient.
The third round of negotiations is scheduled for the end of March.
An offer at this time is quite unusual. The collective bargaining rounds of 2018 and 2020 were each resolved in the third round of negotiations without the employers having previously made a concrete offer publicly.
Verdi, which also negotiates for the police union, the GEW education union and IG BAU, and the civil servants’ association have demanded 10.5 percent more money, but at least 500 euros a month. In the run-up to the second round of negotiations, which began on Wednesday, the employee representatives had put pressure on with warning strikes. Among other things, several large airports were largely paralyzed last Friday.
>> Read here: Why the municipalities will not get involved in a “social component” of 500 euros
Employers have made it clear that they think the minimum amount of 500 euros for all employees sends the wrong signal. As a result of the base, the percentage requirement increases to an average of 15 percent and at the top for the lowest salary groups even to around 25 percent.
The trade unions, on the other hand, sell the minimum amount as a “social component”. The high rates of inflation hit workers well into the middle class.
Instead, in view of the shortage of skilled workers, municipal employers primarily want to achieve improvements for employees in the middle and higher pay brackets, as VKA President Karin Welge said at the start of the first round of negotiations. They also call for specific solutions to be found for employees in hospitals, utilities and savings banks.
Wage development in the public sector is lagging behind
As the Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is close to the trade union, shows, the wages for federal and local employees increased by 59 percent from 2000 to 2021. They lagged slightly behind the overall wage development and rose much more slowly than in the metal and chemical industries.
>> Read here: Metal wage agreement reached – one-off payments and wage increases of 8.5 percent
The VKA points out that important investments, repairs and future tasks of the municipalities would suffer if a collective bargaining agreement did not take into account the federal government’s relief packages and the weakening inflation expectations.
The last collective bargaining agreement between the federal government and local authorities from 2020 was still under the influence of the pandemic. At that time, both sides agreed on special corona payments staggered by salary group and a two-stage percentage increase by a total of 3.2 percent.
More: Fear of the wage-price spiral: Despite falling inflation rates, wage demands are rising