The legal basis of collective bargaining in Austria is laid down by the Labour Constitution Act (ArbVG). According to the ArbVG, collective agreements can be concluded only between collective organisations of employers and employees. Therefore, the Austrian labour law systematically benefits multi
The legal basis of collective bargaining in Germany is laid down by the Collective Agreements Act, 1949. Collective agreements can be concluded between employer associations (or individual employers) and trade unions. In contrast, works councils – statutory employee representation bodies elected at
On 14 November 1999, the German construction group Philipp Holzmann AG disclosed that it had amassed DEM 2.4 billion in potential losses from past property deals, putting it on the brink of insolvency. The insolvency of Germany's second-largest construction group would have threatened the jobs of
On 15 December 1999, the executive board of the largest east German technology corporation Jenoptik AG and the IG Metall metalworkers' union, together with the German White Collar Workers' Union (Deutsche Angestelltengewerkschaft, DAG), concluded a new company agreement for the employees of the
In 1999, the German economy experienced a slight downturn. According to calculations from the Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt), GDP rose by 1.4% in real terms in 1999, which was a smaller increase than the previous year (2.2%) and one of the lowest in the European Union. Growth
On 2 December 1999, the president of the German Association of Chambers of Commerce (Deutscher Industrie und Handelstag, DIHT), Hans Peter Stihl, appealed in an interview with the daily newspaper /Die Welt/ for a "return to the 40-hour working week" which would make doing business in Germany much
In October 1999, a package of company and works agreements was signed at the filtration and weighing products manufacturer, Sartorius AG, which is located in Göttingen (Lower-Saxony). The core of this package was a new company agreement [1] to safeguard production sites
On 22 October 1999, the presidents of the German construction workers' union IG Bau-Agrar-Umwelt (IG BAU) and the two main Polish construction unions, Budowlani and NSZZ Solidarnosc, met in Warsaw to sign a new cooperation agreement.
In contrast to many other European countries, there is no statutory minimum wage in Germany. Companies which are covered by a collective agreement have de facto a collectively agreed minimum wage, while in other companies there is no regulation of minimum wages. In only a very few sectors has the
On 28-31 October 1999, the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) held its third European conference for the scaffolding sector in the German town of Weiterstadt (Hesse), attended by trade union delegates from 13 European countries. The EFBWW conference adopted a joint resolution
On 18-21 November 1999, five German service sector trade unions simultaneously held extraordinary congress in order to lay down the legal preconditions for the creation of a new merged Unified Service Sector Union (Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, Verdi). The unions concerned are:
On 13 November 1999, the UK-based Vodafone AirTouch, the world's largest mobile phone group, announced a takeover bid for the German telecommunications and engineering group Mannesmann AG, on the basis of an exchange of shares between the two corporations. The Mannesmann executive board, however