Putting an end to their rivalry in the industrial services sector (including logistics, maintenance, development), Germany’s two big unions, IG Metall (metals and electronics) and Verdi (services) announced on 12 January that they had concluded a cooperation agreement that sets their respective competences and details the scope of their collective agreements in the sector. This agreement aims to “avoid potential divergences” between the two unions, improve pay conditions and work for employees in industrial services as well as combatting abuses of recourse to services contracts.
This agreement comes after a long running conflict of interest between IG Metall and Verdi that broke out over four years ago. At the end of 2011, Detlef Wetzel the then number two at IG Metall announced the union had set itself a new priority: that in the face of a growing number of businesses who in order to cut costs were using an exaggerated level of outsourcing for their industrial activities, the union was intending to sign collective agreements on behalf workers in those companies provid
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