Uwe, why do we need collective bargaining agreements? After all, many employers already pay well on their own.
Uwe Zabel: Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement earn, on average, 30 to 40 percent more. Without a collective bargaining agreement, you have to negotiate your employment contract, your pay, and every pay raise on your own. Plus, it’s much easier for your employer to take all of that away from you. Then all of a sudden, they’ll say that because of the poor economic situation—or whatever the reason—there will be no pay raise or Christmas bonus this year, that you’ll have to make do with less and work longer hours—and as an individual, there’s little you can do about it. However, when employees work together under the umbrella of a union to secure collective bargaining agreements, working conditions are not only better but also much more securely protected.
Uwe Zabel during the fight for a company-wide collective bargaining agreement. (Photo: IG Metall)
For example, if I see that things are terrible at our workplace—we haven’t had a raise in years, and we need a collective bargaining agreement—where do I start?
Get in touch with your local IG Metall chapter. By law, only the relevant union is authorized to negotiate collective bargaining agreements. Your local IG Metall chapter has the knowledge, experience, and necessary contacts. At the same time, you should recruit trustworthy coworkers to join your cause until you have a solid core group of a few active employees. First, with the help of IG Metall, you should establish a works council if you don’t already have one. This is an essential prerequisite. A works council offers protection, receives information, and has legally guaranteed rights to co-determination.
So when does IG Metall step in and handle the collective bargaining agreement?
We at IG Metall can’t just show up and enforce collective bargaining agreements on your behalf. That doesn’t work. You have to take action yourselves, with our help. We need the mandate of the majority of employees. They must support the demand for a collective bargaining agreement and give us at IG Metall a clear mandate to negotiate—by becoming members of IG Metall themselves and actively participating.
How can I win over coworkers to the demand for a collective bargaining agreement and to IG Metall?
It’s important that we don’t just say, “We’re demanding a collective bargaining agreement.” At first, that’s a foreign concept to employees. They need to see the added value for themselves. To do that, we have to find out which issues and problems are most important to employees. From there, we develop specific demands—for example, “two euros more per hour” or “a guaranteed Christmas bonus I can count on.”
How do you then work with the employees to achieve collective bargaining coverage?
First, we need thorough preparation, including strategic research. We’ll sit down with you and discuss: What is the actual situation at your workplace, and what is your bargaining position as a workforce? What are the numbers? Are there other company locations with which you’re competing? What do we actually want? Where might conflicts arise along the way? And what outcome can we ultimately achieve?
What are the prerequisites for successfully achieving collective bargaining coverage?
Three things are important: mobilization, participation, and solidarity. We at IG Metall help you help yourselves. We provide expertise through our network of experts and offer you training; we organize the process and build the necessary momentum to enforce collective bargaining coverage; and we provide safeguards, such as through our legal protection and strike support. But as I always say at meetings: We don’t promise you anything. A collective bargaining agreement doesn’t just fall from the sky. You have to want it yourselves and fight for it yourselves. Our motto here is “Added Value Through Collective Bargaining.”
Employees take action, formulate their demands, and make their own decisions. How do you organize this in practice?
It starts with an action group that includes, for example, the works council and other committed employees. We discuss the situation, strategy, and possible demands. We then feed all of this back to the employees and seek their input through discussions and at meetings. Next, the IG Metall members at the workplace elect a bargaining committee—usually the active group—which draws up the final demands and calls on the employer to negotiate. The bargaining committee determines the course of action: Do we need to escalate the conflict? Do we need a warning strike? Or, as a last resort, do we let our IG Metall members decide in a strike vote whether they want to go on strike? Once a negotiation outcome is reached, the bargaining committee must first accept it. Finally, we let the members vote on it once more.
Do disputes over collective bargaining coverage ever go wrong?
Of course, they can go wrong. Namely, when employees aren’t actively involved and the union tries to enforce the collective bargaining agreement on their behalf, following the motto: “Just go ahead and all become union members—and then we’ll take care of everything for you.” That doesn’t work. And it also doesn’t work if the employees aren’t willing to stick together, engage in conflicts, and, if necessary, wage an industrial action to make it clear to the employer: You’ll lose a lot of money if you don’t take us seriously. In the end, securing a collective bargaining agreement is always a question of power.
You say that with a collective bargaining agreement, wages are 30 to 40 percent higher. Doesn’t that put too much strain on companies and drive them into bankruptcy?
That’s nonsense. IG Metall has never driven a company into bankruptcy. We research all the figures, consult economic experts, and take a close look at the economic situation. When we demand a collective bargaining agreement, we make sure not to overburden the company. As a rule, we agree on transitional provisions and phased adjustments that allow us to increase wages in reasonable steps over the course of several years. During the last economic crisis, we even observed that companies bound by collective bargaining agreements were better able to survive. They find better solutions, are more productive, and, after all, we also specifically safeguard jobs through collective bargaining agreements. And when, if not now—during good economic times—do we have the best opportunities to secure collective bargaining agreements?
