With the increase in the minimum wage in October, the temporary work sector has to follow suit. Association and union agree on adjustments for 98 percent of employees. The industry calls the result a “gigantic increase in the starting wage”.
Against the background of the planned increase in the statutory minimum wage, temporary workers are to receive more money. According to information from late Tuesday evening, the collective agreement for temporary work of the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) as well as the Federal Employers' Association of Personnel Service Providers (BAP) and the Interest Group of German Temporary Employment Agencies agreed on an adjustment of the collective wage agreements for the industry. According to trade union information, the regulation applies to around 98 percent of the approximately 780,000 temporary workers nationwide.
The adjustment became necessary after the Bundestag decided to increase the statutory minimum wage to twelve euros, which is to take effect from October 1 of this year. According to Stefan Körzell, DGB board member and chief negotiator for the employee side, a total wage increase of 24.1 percent was achieved for the lowest wage group over the term of the collective agreement. Accordingly, wages will increase in three stages:
For wage groups 2a and 2b, increases of a total of 19 and 16 percent respectively have been agreed - also in three stages:
According to Körzell, an important claim of the trade unions was to continue to achieve a significant gap to the statutory minimum wage in the lower pay brackets. It was said that wage groups 3 to 9 would be negotiated in the fall. Temporary work is one of the sectors with the highest collective bargaining coverage in Germany.
The negotiator of the negotiating community for temporary work (VGZ), Sven Kramer, spoke of a "gigantic increase in the starting wage up to our pain limits". He added: "What we can state, however, is that it is still worth working in the temporary employment industry because we are well above minimum wage even at the lowest wage bracket."
At the beginning of June, the Bundestag decided to increase the statutory minimum wage to twelve euros gross per hour. The Federal Council gave the green light a few days later. A statutory lower wage limit of EUR 9.82 has been in effect since the beginning of the year, and will rise to EUR 10.45 as planned on July 1st.
