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  1. Collective Bargaining
  2. Collective Bargaining Rounds
  3. Skilled Trades
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2025 Collective Bargaining Round for the Metalworking and Agricultural Engineering Sectors Higher Wages in the Metalworking and Agricultural Engineering Sectors in Lower Saxony and Bremen

Employees in the metalworking trades and agricultural engineering sectors in Lower Saxony and Bremen will receive a 2.9 percent pay increase starting in January 2026. In addition, a member bonus was agreed upon for paid time off on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

Junge Auszubildende schleift Schweißnähte in einer Werkstatt
Foto: iStock/fotografixx

23 July 2025 23 July 2025

IG Metall Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt has reached a collective bargaining agreement with the employers’ associations Metall Niedersachsen/Bremen and LandBauTechnik Handwerks- und Handelsverband Niedersachsen on behalf of workers in the sector.


The details of the agreement

Wages and apprenticeship stipends will increase by 2.9 percent effective January 1, 2026.

Starting in 2025, employees will only need to take 0.5 days of vacation for both Christmas Eve (December 24) and New Year’s Eve (December 31).

IG Metall members benefit from a membership bonus: Employees who have been members of IG Metall for at least three months and can provide proof of this by December 1 of the respective calendar year will receive both days as fully paid time off. This means they do not have to take vacation time for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and thus have one additional day of vacation available.

The bargaining parties also committed to entering into negotiations regarding a relief component. These negotiations are scheduled to begin no later than March 2026.

The pay scales are valid for 12 months, through May 31, 2026.

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Pay, Vacation, Working Hours Collective bargaining agreements: What they offer, who benefits

Nowhere is the value of unions more evident than when it comes to collective bargaining. Employees who work at a company covered by a collective bargaining agreement typically earn significantly more than those not covered by such an agreement. And that’s by no means the only benefit.

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Six Steps to a Collective Bargaining Agreement Fighting for a collective bargaining agreement—here’s how

Whether it’s income, working hours, or vacation time—a collective bargaining agreement makes things fairer at work. For anyone whose company isn’t currently covered by a collective bargaining agreement, we’ll show you in six steps how to change that.

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Interview on Collective Bargaining Coverage Collective Bargaining Agreement: Don’t have one? Get one!

Collective bargaining agreements ensure better and more secure wages and working conditions. Don’t have one? Get one! Uwe Zabel from the Joint Development Project “Network Future” of the IG Metall Mitte district explains how to do it. He has helped negotiate more than 30 collective bargaining agreements.

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This is only possible with a collective bargaining agreement The agreements that ensure fairness in the workplace

Where collective bargaining agreements apply, conditions are fairer. But when and for whom do they actually apply? What does being covered by a collective bargaining agreement look like in practice? We explain what types of collective bargaining agreements exist, what they regulate, and who is “covered by a collective bargaining agreement.”

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