On Friday 22 November, the German trade union for mining, chemicals and energy – IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie – and the country’s federation of chemicals sector employers – BAVC – signed a branch collective agreement that is innovative in nature. Signed in Wiesbaden, the agreement applies to the 580,000 workers in the sector. Employees will benefit from a measure that does not exist in any other branch: a supplementary dependency insurance scheme, which will be entirely funded by employers. Furthermore, they will have access to a so-called ‘account for the future’, into which employers will pay 23% of the worker’s monthly salary from 2022. The money can be used to obtain more free time, added to their company pension or claimed in cash. On the other hand, IG BCE agreed to a moderate increase in pay as well as an exceptionally long duration for the agreement (29 months).
German consensus. With the signing of the ‘branch collective agreement on tomorrow’s world of work’, trade union IG BCE and the employer federation BAVC have confirmed once again their reputation for being innovative social partners, who are keen to devise solutions that are geared towards the future and which take into account the interests of employers and employees alike. The agreement appears to be a model of its kind, in terms of German consensus.
A response to demographic change. As desire
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