New collective agreements signed in retail

After bargaining in the German retail sector had dragged on for some weeks, a new collective agreement signed in Hamburg on 21 June 2001 brought the dispute to an end. The basic provisions contained in the Hamburg settlement were subsequently accepted in other bargaining regions.

On 21 June 2001, the first collective agreement in the bargaining round for the retail trade was signed in the Hamburg region, in a third set of talks.

Existing regional collective agreements for the retail trade expired at the end of March or the end of April 2001, depending on the region. The Unified Service Sector Union (Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, ver.di) originally demanded a pay increase of 5.5% plus a monthly increase in vocational training pay of EUR 50. After retail employers in some regions had offered a pay increase of only 1.5%, followed later by an offer of 2.2% in Bavaria, ver.di initiated a number of token strikes and protests in several companies. However, the settlement in Hamburg, which came as something of a surprise, brought the bargaining conflict to an end. The agreement, which runs for 13 months, contains the following provisions on pay:

• a pay increase of 2.7% from 1 May 2001;
• an increase in vocational training pay of DEM 23.55 per month in the second year of training and DEM 34.96 in the third year, plus a flat-rate payment of DEM 20 as a "commuting subsidy"; and
• a 2.75% increase in holiday pay in 2002

Furthermore, the Hamburg retail social partners concluded a collective agreement on private supplementary pension schemes (DE0106227N). From 1 January 2002, employers are to pay a yearly sum of EUR 300 per employee into a company pension scheme (with pro rata payments for part-time workers and a EUR 150 payment for vocational trainees). This contribution replaces the existing employers' capital-forming payments under the employee savings scheme and the additional payments into private pension schemes which were agreed in the 2000 bargaining round (DE0008275N). The new agreement also allows employees to invest a proportion of their special payments, such as holiday pay or Christmas pay, in the private pension scheme. The pensions agreement runs until 31 December 2003.

Some days later, similar agreements were reached in retail in most west German federal states (Länder).