Collective Bargaining Agreement at IAV IAV addresses the transformation and the COVID-19 pandemic

The engineering services provider IAV, with 8,000 employees at five German locations, aims to be an attractive employer for highly qualified workers. The works council and IG Metall have now reached an agreement with the employer that provides security and significantly greater flexibility for employees.

The collective bargaining agreement is a response to the current situation caused by the coronavirus, but also looks ahead to the post-pandemic era. The company will supplement short-time work benefits to 95 percent of lost net pay for 15 days. The previous core working hours have been eliminated, and a new, attractive sabbatical program has been introduced. Employees do not need to accumulate time in advance for a sabbatical; instead, they can make up the time afterward.

Collective Bargaining Agreement Eliminates Core Working Hours

“Due to the coronavirus, many more employees are now working remotely from home,” reports Mark Bäcker, chairman of the General Works Council. Because they work at very different times, core working hours are being eliminated effective immediately. At the same time, the working hours window is being expanded to 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. To ensure availability, a so-called “reliability window” of up to four hours is being introduced. This window is negotiated between the individual employee and their team leader. The four hours of the reliability window can also be split in half.

Collective Bargaining Agreement at IAV: The works council and IG Metall have now reached an agreement with the employer that provides security and significantly more flexibility for employees. (Photo: J. Kollatsch)

Growing Trust

Mark Bäcker, chairman of the General Works Council, attributes the high degree of flexibility in working hours agreed upon in the collective bargaining agreement to the experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Management’s trust has grown; they see that employees working remotely from home are at least as productive as they are in the office,” says Bäcker. The parties to the collective bargaining agreement plan to revise the rules for remote work in 2021, incorporating the lessons learned during the pandemic.

“With this collective bargaining agreement, we’ve proven that we pull together even in challenging times,” says Johannes Katzan of IG Metall Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. “It’s particularly important to us to use this time to train employees for the transformation. Everyone at IAV should be empowered to optimally apply their individual skills and abilities in the right place. The issue of training will be regulated through co-determination in the context of technological change.”