On January 13, nearly one month after the negotiations failed, the food and catering employers’ organization (ANG) and the food and catering union (NGG) announced –surprising everyone – that they had defined the outline of a collective agreement introducing, for the first time, minimum wage in the meat industry. Presented at a joint press conference today, January 14, the agreement provides for the introduction of a single rate of minimum wage across the country. It will gradually go from €7.75/hour on July 1, 2014 up to €8.75 on December 1, 2016. The agreement covers the sector’s 80,000 employees as well as eastern European workers with a ‘service provision contract.’ This should be “the beginning of the end of wage dumping in the meat industry,” declared NGG deputy chair Claus-Harald Güster.
Restore the sector’s image. At a press conference, Valerie Holsboer, head of the ANG employers’ organization, explained this unexpected U-turn by the fact that both parties, notably the sector’s businesses, were highly determined. “We wanted a solution negotiated by the social partners, not imposed by the lawmaker. So we went back to the bargaining table in secret,” she explained, before adding, “We also wanted an agreement covering all workers in the sector: permanent or with a service prov
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