Germany: the congress of the employers’ organisation BDA confirms the exceptional understanding between the social partners

The employers want to fight for collective agreements. Dieter Hundt, BDA’s President, who was re-elected for 2 years, surprised everybody while announcing that his goal “is from now on to work for the strengthening of the sectoral collective agreements” by favouring the return of companies in the framework of collective bargaining. Besides, he also announced that his organisation was renouncing to one of the main claims of the past couple of years, that is to say to lay down by law the right to sign, against the trade-union’s opinion, collective agreements between the managements and the workers’ representatives. Even if the probabilities are weak that such a clause would be integrated in a law one day, the change of behaviour of the German employers is important: “we have reached very reasonable agreements in several companies, and consequently, despite the collapse of the turnover, we have been able to preserve the employment rate at the very best we could”, explained Mr Hundt, who hopes that “a new culture of collective agreements” is possible to reach. IG Metall described these explanations as “a remarkable signal” while asking the head of the employers’ federation to match his action with his words. “Now, we are waiting that the employers’ federations commit themselves on the field so that more companies would become members of the collective agreements” declared Jörg Köther, IG Metall’s spoke person. Ver.di, the services trade union, is also delighted. “In our opinion, the strengthening of the collective agreements is the best means to prevent social dumping”, considers Margret Mïnong-Raanedem, member of Ver.di’s board of directors.