The Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, Andrea Nahles has kept up momentum with multiple announcements on the content of her reform to temporary work and services contracts due to be presented this autumn. On the receiving end, employers’ bodies and temporary jobs agencies are vociferous in their reaction to the Minister’s drive to regulate temporary work pay and hours as well as prohibiting employers the use of temporary workers to sidestep the effects of strike action. In certain sectors such as the metals sector where unions have already negotiated advantageous collective agreements the selfsame unions see the law as useless because it is less generous than their previously negotiated provisions. Unions demand that the draft law does not encroach on their monopoly status during social partner negotiations.
Minister’s plans keeping up the pace. Andrea Nahles, the Minister for Employment and Social Affairs is without doubt one of the most active Ministers of the Federal Government in terms of legislation, and employers are starting to get a bit winded. After introducing a universal minimum wage, pensions for single mothers, the right to retire at 63 for those with 45 years of contributions and most recently the law on a company single union, Andrea Nahles continues relentlessly to follow the government’s program.
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