How can the erosion of collective agreements and co-determination be effectively stemmed? This question has been more than niggling the political and trade union worlds for a decade. In 2015 and subsequently in 2018 the then ruling governments sought answers by voting in and then modifying the ‘Law on negotiation of company collective agreements’, which prioritizes agreements with the greatest trade union representation. Today, however, as the number of companies applying collective agreements continues to wane, the government is looking for more and is mulling over fiscal incentives for companies that officially recognize sector collective agreements. The chemicals and metallurgy sectors’ employers’ federations however are struggling to agree on this ‘tax bonus’.
A decade of disagreement over trade union influence within companies. To what extent can the State support companies that apply sector collective agreements? Where does one draw the line between support and impediment of the freedom for the social partners to co-determine within the arena of work and salaries? Thus the topic being hotly debated in Germany since the Federal Labor Tribunal officially recognized, back in 2010, the right to have more than one collective agreement operating within a company, and which have been negotiated by different trade unions operating within the same company (c.f.
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