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Press Release No. 06/2012 IG Metall Executive Board Recommends Up to 6.5 Percent for Metal Industry Collective Bargaining Round

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Foto: IG Metall

7 February 2012 7 February 2012

Frankfurt am Main – The Executive Board of IG Metall has recommended that the regional bargaining committees for the 2012 collective bargaining round in the metal and electrical industry demand an increase in wages and apprenticeship stipends of up to 6.5 percent. “Our demand is financially feasible for employers in the metal and electrical industries. It is economically necessary and would ensure that employees receive a fair share of economic growth. People deserve it,” said Berthold Huber, President of IG Metall, on Tuesday in Frankfurt. IG Metall is entering the collective bargaining round with two additional demands. First, the permanent hiring of trainees by companies should become the norm, and opportunities for disadvantaged young people to complete apprenticeships should be promoted. Second, the union wants to secure greater co-determination rights for works councils regarding the duration, deployment, and scope of temporary agency work.

A volatile economy presents collective bargaining policy with new challenges that differ from those of the past. Economic cycles have become significantly shorter and more unpredictable. The bargaining parties must respond to this with a reliable, medium-term collective bargaining policy. “Our guiding principle in collective bargaining policy remains reliability. Reliability means honoring our contractual obligations to our negotiating partner. Reliability also means securing a fair and appropriate share of economic growth for our members,” said Huber. In determining the level of its demands, IG Metall therefore bases its calculations on overall economic trends in productivity and inflation. This distribution-neutral leeway and wage increases must develop in parallel over the medium term. For this reason, IG Metall is also taking into account the real-term development in 2011 against the backdrop of the last collective bargaining agreement. Last year was an extremely successful year for the metal and electrical industries. “The workforces that made this success possible are also aware of these results,” said the IG Metall chairman.

The regional bargaining committees will discuss and decide on February 23, 2012, on the termination of the wage collective bargaining agreements and the demands to be formulated. The IG Metall Executive Board will address the decisions of the bargaining committees in an extraordinary meeting on February 24, 2012, and finalize the demands. The collective bargaining agreements on wages expire on March 31, 2012.


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