Germany: union competition in the temporary sector leads to a high pay raise for employees

Union race. In fact, the BZA employers’ organization announced, on January 26, 2010, that it signed a collective agreement with the DGB for the approximately 200,000 employees of the BZA’s member companies (see our dispatch No. 100084). However, key trade unions (IG-Metall and Verdi) present within the DGB’s temporary tariff committee said that this agreement wasn’t enough. And negotiations, started over one year ago, had to reopen. However, they took a new twist on February 12, when the small confederation of Christian unions (CGB) and the federation of temporary work enterprises (AMP) signed an “exemplary” collective agreement (see our dispatch No. 100149). Even though the DGB accused the AMP of being “in employers’ pay,” the latter managed to obtain an agreement improving many areas of the agreement rejected by Ver.di and the IG-Metall. To avoid losing face and to reassert its supremacy regarding wage negotiations, the DGB’s tariff committee had to obtain a more advantageous agreement than the rival union, which it brilliantly did.