Movement in federal state collective bargaining round - trade unions want agreement similar to that of the federal and local authorities
The chairman of the TdL and Hamburg's Senator for Finance, Andreas Dressel (SPD), expressed his confidence "that it will be possible to reach an agreement in the next few days". The employers would start the negotiations with the firm aim of reaching a good and fair compromise for the employees, which would also be feasible for the state budgets.
However, the federal states only want to base their employer offer on the structure, but not on the level of the 11.5 percent wage agreement for the federal and local authorities. The unions' total demands amounted to 20.7 billion euros and were not affordable for the federal states, said Dressel. However, he was confident that "we can come to a good agreement".
The trade unions Verdi and Deutscher Beamtenbund are demanding 10.5 percent more money, as they did in the collective bargaining round in the public sector at federal and local level in the spring. They are also demanding at least 500 euros more per month and a tax-free inflation adjustment of 3000 euros.
Verdi national chairman Frank Werneke warned the employers that there was no argument that state employees should be paid less than federal and local government employees. The wage agreement from the spring was also "the gold standard" for the state round. If the federal states tried to "maneuver around" in the current round of collective bargaining, it would be difficult.
More important than an agreement in the third round of collective bargaining before Christmas is the content of a collective agreement - "namely at least the collective agreement for the federal and local public services", said Christine Behle, Vice President of the German Trade Union Confederation.
He hoped "that the employers have realized that there is enough pressure in the cauldron", said Ulrich Silberbach, Chairman of the Federation of German Civil Servants, at the start of the negotiations. People in the public sector have never been as active in warning strikes as they have been in this round of pay talks. He hoped that politicians would see sense and find results at the bargaining table.
The collective bargaining round could last until Saturday. No further bargaining rounds have been agreed. There is no arbitration agreement between the bargaining parties. Failure could be followed by ballots and indefinite warning strikes in the federal states. Hesse is not a member of the TdL and will negotiate its own collective agreement from this year onwards.
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Source: www.stern.de
