“The results prove once again that collective agreements bring tangible advantages for the employees,” says Malte Lübker, co-author of the study and head of the department for collective bargaining and income analyzes at the WSI. “It is therefore worth fighting for a collective agreement together with your colleagues – even if the way to get there is often not easy.” is clearly committed to fair wages and regulated working conditions,” says Lübker. “That makes an employer interesting for job seekers – and can prevent the workforce from migrating to competitors who adhere to the collective bargaining agreement.”
Germany falls below the European benchmark
According to the conclusion of the study, strong trade unions and employers’ associations capable of acting are the basis for a renewed strengthening of collective bargaining coverage in Germany. But politics can also make a contribution by setting the right framework conditions. In neighboring countries such as Belgium, Austria and France, it has been so successful that well over 90 percent of employees are paid according to a collective agreement. These countries already meet a collective agreement coverage of at least 80 percent, which is set as a target in the new European minimum wage directive. All other EU countries – including Germany – will in future be obliged under European law to draw up an action plan with concrete measures to gradually increase collective bargaining coverage. The federal government should present this action plan quickly, effective legal instruments for this have been known for a long time, analyze the study authors Malte Lübker and Thorsten Schulten.
The federal government has until November 15, 2024 to implement the directive due to the two-year deadline. “But the federal government shouldn’t wait that long. Many concrete measures that this action plan could contain have been discussed for some time,” says Lübker. This includes a further simplification of the declaration of general validity (AVE) of existing collective agreements as well as regulations on adherence to collective agreements when awarding public contracts.
Further proposals can be found in a key issues paper that Labor Minister Hubertus Heil and the current Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz presented back in March 2021. This includes a nationwide minimum wage, which would create additional protection against “dirty competition” with dumping wages for companies that adhere to collective bargaining agreements. Another lever are tariff loyalty regulations for supply contracts in the healthcare and nursing sectors. A right of digital access for unions to the workplace would make it easier to reach and organize workers. There could be an additional incentive for employers to be bound by a collective bargaining agreement if deviations from statutory law governing collective bargaining are only possible for employers who are bound by collective bargaining agreements.
*Malte Lübker, Thorsten Schulten
Collective bargaining in the federal states: Lines of development and effects on employees, analyzes of collective bargaining no. 96, Düsseldorf, April 2023
