PRESS STATEMENT IG Metall Executive Board Welcomes the Solution for Harmonizing Working Hours in the East

Jörg Hofmann, President of IG Metall, on the collective bargaining agreement in Berlin-Brandenburg and Saxony:

“We welcome the solution that has now been reached as a necessary step toward harmonizing working hours in the east and west. The parties to the collective bargaining agreement have thereby given companies the opportunity to fulfill their social responsibility for Germany’s social unity. Like any collective bargaining agreement, this one is also a compromise between differing interests. What is important to us is that working hours—as a core element of collective bargaining—are not left solely to the discretion of the parties at the company level, but require the approval of the parties to the collective bargaining agreement.

I would like to thank the thousands of colleagues in the collective bargaining area who, through impressive warning strikes, succeeded in breaking through the wall of resistance to the harmonization of working hours. The task now is to implement the agreed-upon regulations on working hour harmonization, company by company. We expect that, based on this solution, discussions on working hour harmonization will continue in the remaining collective bargaining areas of eastern Germany as well.”

Further information and press photos of Jörg Hofmann