The Land of Brandenburg is facing a tremendous challenge: by 2030, the population in this region, located in former eastern Germany, should drop by 300,000 people, down to 2.2 million citizens. If nothing is done, 460,000 jobs should remain vacant in 2030. Other big problem: for years, the number of businesses leaving employers’ organizations has been increasing while the number of unionized staff keeps going down. With this erosion of collective bargaining, the low-paid sector has boomed. Yet, to obtain or keep new talents, Brandenburg needs appealing jobs, i.e. better paid. In this context, the Land’s administration, employers’ associations and unions signed, on May 31, 2011, a pact aiming to make the region’s social partners stronger in order to improve working conditions. Wolfgang Schroeder (SPD), Secretary of State at the Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, Women and Family Affairs in Brandenburg, accepted to tell Planet Labor about the origin and functioning of this rather uncommon alliance. (Ref. 130691)
The collective agreements system is eroding more in the east than west. Since the mid 90s, the number of businesses covered by collective agreements has been constantly decreasing across Germany (see article No. 130669). But this is even more true in former GDR than in the west. Thus, the number of employees working in a company covered by a collective agreement went from 63 percent in 1998 down to 48 percent in 2012 in the new Länder, while in the west, over the same period, the decline was 76 to 60 percent. However, according to Wolfgang Schroeder, in proportion, Brandenburg is hit even harder that other East German Länder.
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