Quelle: WSI
: WSI Collective Agreement Archive
As the principal information centre on trade union policy on collective bargaining, the main task of the WSI Collective Agreement Archive is to track and analyse developments concerning collective agreements.
Besides publishing a monthly status reports on current agreements, the Archive also produces special analysis. The Archive has an internet website providing access to information on specific collective agreements and giving overviews of developments pertaining to collective agreements in all the major sectors. Every year the Archive publishes an annual report on current collective bargaining policy developments and a "Statistical Pocketbook on Collective Bargaining" with up-to-date informations and many longer time-series.
WSI Collective Bargaining Report Germany 2021
As in 2020, collective bargaining in 2021 was dominated by the economic consequences of the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the strong economic recovery led to a marked improvement in the economic context, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanding by 2.7% after the severe contraction of the previous year, uncertainties about the course of the pandemic caused by the repeated emergence of new mutations and the official measures taken in response to these served to suppress a stronger bounceback, leaving overall economic output still lower than before the outbreak of the virus. In addition, from mid-2021 a number of diverse economic factors came together to trigger a surge in consumer prices, prompting a public debate over the supposed risks of a wage-price spiral that culminated in calls on trade unions to moderate their wage demands. Over the course of the 2021 bargaining round, trade unions affiliated to the German Trade Union Confederation concluded new pay settlements for 12.8 million employees. A further 6.1 million benefited from settlements agreed either in 2020 or in previous years. By contrast, new settlements concluded in 2021 mainly involved branches in which no collective bargaining had taken place in the preceding year. One important exception to this was the metalworking and electrical industry, where the Covid crisis led to the conclusion of a short-term agreement in 2020, necessitating further bargaining in 2021.
Collective Bargaining Report 2021 (pdf)
WSI Collective Bargaining Report Germany 2020
The 2020 bargaining round took place in a context dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, the German economy shrank by 5.3 per cent for the whole year, a figure comparable with the 5.6 per cent drop in GDP experienced in the most severe recession before that during the 2009 financial crisis. Agreed pay rose by an average of 2.0 per cent in 2020, taking into account both new settlements and any carry-over provisions from previous years. Looking just at new settlements concluded in 2020, the context of the pandemic led to a much lower rate of increase than in preceding years. While pay rises under settlements agreed in 2019 or before ran at 2.6 per cent, newly-concluded rises in 2020 stood at just 1.5 per cent.
Collective Bargaining Report 2020 (pdf)
WSI Collective Bargaining Report Germany 2019
With a nominal increase of 2.9 per cent for 2019, agreed pay rose nearly as much as in the preceding year. Set in the context of the past two decades, this represents one of the highest rates of increase and was exceeded only, and then only marginally, in 2014 and 2018. Given the modest and falling rate of consumer price inflation of 1.4 per cent, real pay grew by 1.5 per cent in 2019.
Collective Bargaining Report 2019 (pdf)
WSI Collective Bargaining Report Germany 2018
In 2018 agreed pay rose by an average of 3.0 per cent which represents the second highest nominal rate of increase seen in the past two decades. In addition to that, several agreements concluded new options for individual workers to choose between pay increases or extra days-off.
Collective Bargaining Report 2018 (pdf)
Previous issues
Collective Bargaining Report 2017 (pdf)
Collective Bargaining Report 2015 (pdf)
Collective Bargaining Report 2014 (pdf)
Collective Bargaining Report 2013 (pdf)
Collective Bargaining Report 2012 (pdf)
Collective Bargaining Report 2011 (pdf)
Collective bargaining and possibilities for deviations at company level: Germany
This study describes and analyses the process of decentralisation of the German collective bargaining system. After two decades of differentiation and decentralization nearly all important sectoral agreements contain opening clauses which allow for deviation at company level. While at the beginning of this process most unions opposed the employers' claims for more flexibility they changed later on their strategy and tried to use this decentralized bargaining for safeguarding of production sites and jobs at local level and to stabilize the bargaining system. The study examines the development especially in the metal working and the chemical sector.
R. Bispinck/Th. Schulten: Sector-level bargaining and possibilities for deviations at company level: Germany