3000 euros inflation compensation
Wages in the public sector will rise by 5.5 percent
4/22/2023 11:54 p.m
After months of warning strikes and tough negotiations, the collective agreement for the public sector is in place. The basis of the compromise: a mediation proposal from last week. Part of the package is inflation compensation of 3,000 euros, and wages are to increase gradually from 2024.
Federal and local government employees can expect significantly higher wages in the coming year. Late on Saturday evening, the parties to the fourth bargaining round in Potsdam agreed to accept a previous arbitration recommendation without any significant changes. Verdi boss Frank Werneke said it was the “biggest wage increase in post-war history in the public sector”.
The collective bargaining agreement provides for a gradual inflation adjustment of 3,000 euros from June and then from March next year 5.5 percent, but at least 340 euros more salary per month. The term should be 24 months retrospectively from January.
Verdi and the civil service association had demanded 10.5 percent and at least 500 euros more money for a period of twelve months. The collective bargaining agreement applies to 2.5 million employees who are not civil servants. For civil servants who are not entitled to go on strike, the salaries are not negotiated in collective bargaining rounds. As a rule, however, the tariff result is adopted for them.
Municipalities: “Went to the pain threshold”
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser spoke of a good and fair wage agreement in difficult times. With a view to the budgetary situation, a responsible collective bargaining agreement had also been reached, according to the SPD politician. If the collective bargaining agreement were also transferred to civil servants, the costs for the federal government would total 4.95 billion euros.
The municipal employers have gone to the financial limit, said the President of the Association of Municipal Employers’ Associations (VKA), Karin Welge. The long tariff period of 24 months makes it possible to plan municipal budgets. She put the additional costs for cities and municipalities at 17 billion euros over the entire term.
The result is a compromise with strengths, “but also with things that we found difficult,” said Verdi boss Werneke. At the end of the term, the collective bargaining agreement brought an increase of 16 percent for lower pay groups and more than eleven percent for other “important member groups”.
However, the unions would have preferred a shorter collective bargaining period and a more pronounced social component in favor of lower wage groups, said Werneke. However, the collective bargaining commission has now recommended that the union members agree to the collective bargaining agreement in a member survey.
The employees of the public service of the federal and local governments could live with this result, said civil service boss Ulrich Silberbach. From March next year there will be monthly income increases of at least 340 euros. Before that, the tax-free inflation compensation premium would help “over the mountain first”.