Germany: two temporary employers’ organizations merge before decisive negotiations on equal pay

Employers’ organizations in a hurry.  The BZA and AMP implemented the planned merger mentioned last autumn (see our dispatch No.  100692).  The new federation is located in Berlin and called the Federal Union of Temporary Employers (BAP).  “The key objective with this merger is to represent the sector’s businesses in an even more decisive and determined manner” declared Volker Enkerts, former BZA leader and first BAP leader.  “With ever increasing union assaults and an unpredictable political context, having a strong lobby is important” he added.  The BAP now says that it is the largest temporary employers’ organization in Germany, before its rival, the Group of Temporary Businesses (iGZ).  The BAP proclaims that it has 1,852 affiliated businesses for 3,692 subsidiaries.  The iGZ welcomed this merger, judging that, with the challenges to come, it was necessary for the iGZ to finally have an ‘equally strong’ interlocutor.  The iGZ is also claiming leadership with 2,035 affiliated businesses.  This small figure war shows the lack of serenity of employers’ organizations in this growing sector (860,000 temporary workers in March 2011).  Recently created, they were propelled at the center of a national debate on minimum wage and social dumping, stuck between regulatory pressure from politicians and unions.  Besides, some of the BAP’s members, formerly affiliated with the AMP, are under the threat of invalidation of collective agreements signed in recent years with Christian unions (see our dispatches No.  100890 and 110141).  Without nullifying the said agreements, the Federal Labor Court ruled, in December 2010, that employees had the individual right to press charges to make up for the pay difference between “CGZP wages” and “DGB wages” for about four years.  There is also the issue of the possible adjustment of the corresponding social contributions.  The financial risk is huge for many temporary businesses.