At a meeting at regional level in bad homburg near frankfurt, the employers’ association for the chemical industry in hesse rejected the IG BCE union’s demand for a 6.0 percent pay increase as unfeasible. The industry expects economic stagnation this year, with increasing risks.
Moreover, the approximately 550,000 employees in germany’s third-largest industrial sector had no backlog from previous years, said hessenchemie negotiator christoph obladen. "With the highest wage agreement in germany of 4.1 percent more pay, employees had a significant increase in real wages in 2011, despite the fact that growth rates have been falling since the middle of 2011."
The union demands 6.0 percent more pay for a term of twelve months. The head of the hessian-thuringian state government, volker weber, took a fundamentally different view of the economic situation: "the chemical industry in hesse is doing extremely well. A small dip at the turn of the year has been overcome. Almost all forecasts assume that the economy will pick up again as early as the middle of the year."
Weber opposed demands by employers to limit age-related time off that is guaranteed under collective bargaining agreements. Longer working hours are completely the wrong way to go. "Instead, it’s important to ensure good and healthy work and make working conditions attractive."The employers proposed an increase in the collectively agreed working hours and demanded a review of the age-related collective bargaining regulations. "These date back to a time when you had more labor than work," obladen explained. This other but already. According to association calculations, 57 percent of employees will be over 50 years old in 2016. The working time lost due to age-related time off would then correspond to around 2,500 full-time jobs for which there would be a lack of suitable junior staff.
The hessians were responsible for the nationwide kick-off for the approximately 550,000 employees of the german chemical industry. Hesse is germany’s third-largest chemical site after north rhine-westphalia and rhineland-palatinate, with around 230 companies and 92,000 employees. Collective bargaining will begin regionally, but will then be consolidated at the federal level as planned. The first round on the national level is for the 7th floor. May planned in hanover.