Sunday, May 17, 2015

Germany rethinks its social dialogue after a wave of strikes – Digital Journal Our Country

Needless union machinists Germany Photo EFE

Machinists Union of Germany. Illustrative image EFE.

Berlin, May 17 (EFE) .- A wave of strikes by key groups in Germany has shown in recent weeks the widening gap of a dialogue system social between employers and unions still referred to as a model.

The municipal daycare educators throughout Germany are on indefinite strike for a week and, while tens of thousands of parents and companies in Europe’s largest economy try to minimize the consequences, collective bargaining remains locked.

This group of 240,000 employees is the last stand of labor war so far this year, prolonging an already generous list that continues to grow, causing between understanding and surprise, but indignation citizenship.

Collecting only the most significant, 2015 started with strikes warning in the metal, which was followed by strikes of security personnel at airports the pilots of Lufthansa and Germanwings, protests by workers Amazon and Postbank, the drivers of the Deutsche Bahn and the employees of Post and Prosegur.

In just five months have already accumulated more than 350,000 days of strikes in Germany, more than double that in the whole of last year, according to a study by the Institute of German Economy (IW) in Cologne.

extended this trend, this school is considered likely to exceed 430,000 days labor protest this year, which would exceed the highest since 1992, obtained in 2006

The drag on the economy is obvious.: only machinists’ strike caused losses of up to 750 million euros for the German economy, as Kipar Stefan, chief economist of the bank BayernLB, which could reduce growth by one tenth in the second quarter.

What happens in Germany for the labor unrest is triggered? Experts point to a constellation of elements ranging from the strong performance of the economy to the atomization of the labor world, through the increasing complexity of labor relations.

Europe’s biggest economy, which according to all estimates this year will grow above which rose 1.6% in 2014, enjoys an unemployment rate lowest since reunification while the employed population has chained nine consecutive years upward, breaking all records.

This situation encourages workers to raise their claims, especially after the worst years of the crisis, in which wage restraint was imposed due to the problems in Europe.

The Ministry of Economy I expected to advance this exercise net wages by 2.8% on average.

In addition, some experts have suggested that the issues facing employers and wage workers are not merely, as in the past, but deep and complex.

For example, the engineers went to the biggest train strike in German history because they wanted to include in your agreement to reviewers and staff dining cars in addition to the technician stations.

Amazon employees, meanwhile, protested for more than a year ago because they want to apply to them the covenant of retail and not the logistics sector, while educators require childcare creating various wage categories depending on their specialization

On the other hand, experts perceive a growing division in the trade union situation. fewer and fewer large general sectoral agreements that affect a large number of workers and small trade unions are gaining ground.

This means that small groups battle over working conditions, which multiplies conflicts, and that representatives of workers including bid by affiliates, which also requires them to raise their demands.

To try to curb this trend, the German Government has just approved a bill by which all workers the same labor group in a company are necessarily covered by the agreement of the majority union. EFE

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