Since March, the IG Metall talks with the employers for the adjustment of working hours in the East German metal industry to the West. Thirty years after the fall of the Wall, the East German metalworkers still work three hours longer than their counterparts in the West: 38 instead of 35 hours a week. The IG Metall has in the talks the “collective agreement future” as Proposed solution: the gradual and flexible introduction of the 35-hour week, according to the capacity of the companies, over a period of ten years.
But even the sixth conversation on the adjustment of working hours in the East German metal and electrical industry ended without result – after 13 hours of negotiation. Further dates were not agreed.
“After six negotiations, we find that employers do not want to harmonize working conditions,” explains Olivier Höbel, negotiator and district manager of IG Metall Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen. “We will continue to fight for a social equalization of working conditions in East Germany.”
Employers demand desired working time and money from the employees
Actually, the employers under the leadership of the employers’ umbrella organization Gesamtmetall had agreed to find a solution in the collective agreement with IG Metall in the first half of 2019. But instead of a binding plan to align working hours, employers presented claims. According to the introduction of the 35-hour week would not be binding, but only with the consent of the employer possible. What’s more, working hours should no longer be regulated in the collective agreement but in the workplace.
“This leverages the collective agreement completely, instead of strengthening it,” warns Höbel. “This calls into question the collective bargaining system as a whole: the payment of lay breaks, surcharges and days off. All this employers want to abolish in the East and also introduce the Saturday as a rule working day. As a result, employers’ suggestions would mean that employees could rely even less on reliable working hours than they had previously, and thus their pay would also fluctuate. “
In addition, employers demanded “cost compensation”: workers should pay for themselves every minute of working time reduction.
IG Metall warns employers against “deregulation fantasies”
On this basis, no agreement was possible for IG Metall.
IG Metall will continue to seek a solution. In recent weeks, employees in the East German metal and electronics industry have also put pressure on numerous measures for the introduction of the 35-hour week in the East, including an action week in early May and further action days in the last week.
“The blockade behavior of employers is a provocation. 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they want to keep the ‘social frontier’, “criticized Jörg Hofmann, first chairman of IG Metall. “If the decision on working time – as required by employers – is transferred to the company level, the already weak collective bargaining coverage in the East would continue to be undermined. Considering the influx of right-wing populists, Gesamtmetall should think twice about whether to make East Germany a parade ground for its deregulation fantasies. The IG Metall still stands for the strengthening of the collective bargaining agreement, especially in East Germany. “