Very differentiated situation. This is the third large collective bargaining round this year, after metalworking and electrical engineering (see our dispatch No. 100156) and the civil service (see our dispatch No. 100185). After lightning negotiations, metal social partners adopted, on February 18, 2010, two months before the current agreement expired, a new collective agreement which provided, for 2010, for a single €320 bonus. In 2011, the 3.4 million metalworkers are going to receive a 2.7% wage increase. Also influenced by the crisis, the collective agreement signed on February 27, 2010 for employees of the Federal State and Towns provides for a small 1.2% wage increase this year and 1.1% in 2011. However, the IG BCE doesn’t want to get in line with these agreements or, worse, accept the wage freeze employers request. “We want more money” and an agreement “for twelve months maximum” warned Mr. Haussmann. Indeed, he thinks that the situation in the industry is “much more contrasting than in other sectors.” Some businesses are fighting bankruptcy. The situation of chemical businesses supplying carmakers is particularly critical. However, other firms, specialized in consumer goods, or pharmaceutical businesses, are doing well.
A few days to the beginning of collective negotiations in chemistry – they will start on march 16 in North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland, Peter Haussmann, in charge of collective bargaining for the management of the IG BCE chemistry union, warned that, in spite of the crisis, his union wouldn’t get in line with the moderate wage agreements recently signed in metal and the civil service. In addition to a “clear wage increase,” the IG BCE demands, for the 550,000 people working in the sector, gua
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