In the run-up to the holiday period, services union Verdi has again called on its members at the German supermarket chain Real SB-Warenhaus GmbH (Real), which is owned by the Metro group, to stop work on Friday 11 December and Saturday 12 December in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Hessen. In this way the union is protesting the company’s decision, taken in June 2015, to suspend application of the sector’s collective agreements. Management however hasn’t changed its mind and wants to sign an ‘in-house collective agreement’ with the union, which Verdi argues will lead to long-term deterioration in both working conditions and pay for the chain’s 38,000 employees. According to Verdi this conflict is another illustration of how the retail sector’s system of collective agreements is eroding in Germany.
No salary rise for Real employees: instead an annual loss in pay of about €8,000. The conflict has been underway since June 2015 when management at Real announced it was retracting the sector’s collective agreements and that it wanted to sign an ‘in-house collective agreement’ (Haustarifvertrag) with Verdi. Management argued that the decision to step outside the sector’s collective agreements was because ‘distortions in competition’ ensued from companies not subject to sector collective agreeme
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