Faced with social discontent, Germany grants wage increases to the public sector

2023-04-23 07:52:00

After several weeks of negotiations, the civil servants and employees of the State and the municipalities in Germany obtained an increase in their remuneration. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the Verdi union announced the signing of a tariff agreement overnight from Saturday to Sunday. This should make it possible to attenuate the effects of inflation with progressive measures until 2024. This agreement should put an end to the social movement which has taken hold of the public sector in Germany for several weeks, in reaction to the strong price increase.

The agreement was concluded for a period of two years. It provides for a salary increase of 5.5%, or at least 340 euros per month, for the 2.5 million state and municipal workers. This will be implemented from March 2024. In the meantime, inflation compensation in the amount of 3,000 euros must be paid in several installments. Exempt from taxes, this measure will be effective from June 2023.

This should partially offset the inflation that has soared in Germany in recent months. As AFP reports, a peak of 10.4% year on year was reached in October, straining annual wage negotiations in the various business sectors.

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Complicated negotiations

“We have reached a responsible pricing agreement”welcomed Nancy Faeser, who is responsible for the federal public service. “By deciding to accept this compromise, we have gone to the tolerable limit”for his part declared Frank Werneke, president of the unified union of services (Verdi), which represents public employees, in a press release.

As the words of the union leader suggest, it was not without difficulty, with several weeks of negotiations without results and an arbitration procedure. Verdi and the federation of civil servants demanded a salary increase of 10.5%, and at least 500 euros per month over a period of twelve months. Amounts difficult to understand for the municipalities.

The sequence has been punctuated since the beginning of the year by strike movements, with several days of mobilization and work stoppages in many federal and local services: post, transport or hospitals. This agreement should make it possible to avoid a hardening of the social movement.

However, this is not over, with tariff discussions continuing in other sectors. This is the case of the railway where the railway workers observed a half-day strike on Friday, which almost stopped the services of the public railway group Deutsche Bahn, or the air transport. After a movement that affected the airports of Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Cologne-Bonn on Thursday and Friday, with the cancellation of around 700 flights, it is the turn of Berlin on Monday with a strike by security guards at the appeal from the Verdi union.

At the end of 2022, nearly 4 million German industrial workers had won a salary increase of 8.5% over two years.