Germany: IG-Metall and employers want to renew minimum wage in electrical engineering

A procedure renewed every time. This sector is mostly made up of SMEs, i.e. around 76,000 businesses employing nearly 310,000 people. They are mostly electrical engineers, IT experts and electrical machine makers. In German, this is one of the few sectors that has sectoral minimum wage, enforced in 2007 (see our dispatch No. 070763). However, agreements establishing such wages are limited in time and have to be revised. “We’re confident as to the outcome of our request, but it’s not a given. There’s no automatism” an IG-Metall spokesman told Planet Labor. Indeed, the collective agreement on minimum wage signed in March between the ZVEH employers’ organization and the IG-Metall needs, once again, the consent of the tariff committee (Tarifausschuss), that answers to the Labor Department and that is equally made up of union and employers’ representatives. Once approved by the committee, the agreement will then enjoy a “declaration of general obligation” (Allgemeinverbindlichkeit) and be imposed to all the businesses in the sector, whether or not their headquarters are in Germany.
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the collective agreement on minimum wage signed in March between the ZVEH employers’ organization and the IG-Metall needs, once again, the consent of the tariff committee (Tarifausschuss), that answers to the Labor Department and that is equally made up of union and employers’ representatives. Once approved by the committee, the agreement will then enjoy a “declaration of general obligation” (Allgemeinverbindlichkeit) and be imposed to all the businesses in the sector, whether or not their head

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