Germany: a 6.5 percent wage increase and job security for the 18,500 employees of T-Systems, a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary

Employment guarantee extended until the end of 2013.  Punctuated by major warning strikes, the collective negotiations between Verdi and DTAG finally ended on May 15 with a last agreement, this time for the 18,500 T-Systems employees.  This agreement, signed after the two agreements for the employees of Deutsche Telekom’s headquarters (see our dispatch No.  120293) and of Telekom Deutschland (see our dispatch No.  120299), provides for a 6.5 percent wage increase divided in three.  The first increase, 2.3 percent, will be retroactively paid on May 1, 2012.  There will be two more increases in the amount of 2.1 percent on January 1, 2013 and September 1, 2013.  Employees from the lowest wage categories get a higher increase – 7.2 percent.  Signed for 27 months, the agreement will expire on March 31, 2014.  Besides, Verdi secured the prolongation until December 31, 2013 of the agreement barring economic layoffs, which expired at the end of 2011.  After the meeting on Tuesday in Berlin, Lothar Schröder, member of the union’s board, pointed out that T-Systems was the only IT company with an agreement like this.