Some well above minimum wage
Collective bargaining in the hospitality industry brings a big plus
4/5/2022 5:36 p.m
The employees in the hospitality industry, who have been severely hit by the corona pandemic, will receive a significant increase in wages. The industry urgently needs staff. In the future, there will be most money in Rhineland-Palatinate. All federal states pay above the minimum wage.
There will soon be more money for employees in the hospitality industry. “We have concluded new collective agreements in almost all federal states with starting wages above the future minimum wage of twelve euros per hour and strong increases in all pay grades,” said Freddy Adjan, Deputy Chairman of the Food, Enjoyment and Restaurants Union (NGG). This was made possible by the increase in the statutory minimum wage and the shortage of skilled workers in the industry.
According to the NGG, employees in catering establishments in Rhineland-Palatinate will earn the highest hourly wage from October 1, 2022 – here, from October, an hourly wage of 15 euros will apply for skilled workers, the starting salary is 12.60 euros. The lowest collective bargaining agreement applies in Saxony, where the hourly wage for skilled workers is 12.88 euros, the starting salary is 12.24 euros.
Big losses in pandemic
“No staff and the announced statutory minimum wage of twelve euros per hour – both together got the employers moving,” explained Adjan. For “many hundreds of thousands of employees” in the catering industry, it was possible to set a starting wage of more than twelve euros and to “push the entire wage table up significantly”. In some cases, wage increases are more than 20 percent, which is “particularly important after the losses during the corona pandemic and with the current record inflation”.
The collective bargaining agreement is also “a big step towards upgrading work in the hospitality industry,” Adjan continued. The aim is a hospitality industry in which employees earn well and the working conditions are right. But there is still “a long way to go” until then.