Germany: 2019 collective bargaining schedule

As the 2018 collective bargaining season comes to a close, some negotiations are still ongoing, for instance the Deutsche Bahn AG rail workers. However, even an incomplete review of the first six months places 2018 in the ‘fine year’ category both in terms of salary increases and  numbers of workers being impacted. Because more and more agreements span greater than twelve months, some of the country’s significant economic sectors, such as the metals sector, will not undergo negotiations in 2019. The Hans Böckler trade union foundation’s 2019 collective bargaining schedule does nonetheless note some sizeable sectors such as Chemicals, Interim employment, and Retail commerce. A total of some 7.3 million employees will be affected by the negotiations.
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2019 set to be a quieter year than 2018. With the Hans Böckler 2019 collective bargaining schedule now published one can reasonable expect 2019 to be a quieter year in terms of social conflict than 2018. The trade union foundation presented a very interesting interim first half 2018 review along with a set of 10-year forecasts: 8.5 million workers were concerned by negotiations during the first six months of 2018, agreements struck had an average life of 26.6 months, and agreements settled...

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