Germany: the employer federation BDA is drawing up a positive review of the branches’ collective agreement

After criticizing their inflexibility for a long time, the federation of German employers (BDA) recognized, during its annual congress on November 7 in Berlin, that the collective conventions, setting wages and work conditions of a branch's employees, had gained a lot in flexibility in the last few years. The BDA nonetheless wants to keep modernizing these agreements to guarantee that they will be maintained in the globalization context. (Ref. 061120)
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Company negotiations have more and more breathing space. “In the last few years, wage policy contributed, thanks to its evolution – on the whole quite gentle and with a newfound balance between branches’ agreements and the companies’ breathing spaces – to strengthen, in a decisive way, our firms’ competitiveness,” Dieter Hundt, president of the BDA, congratulated himself, during the congress that took place in the presence of the chancellor, Angela Merkel. He added: “I am convinced that we ar

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