The FT reports that public sector workers in Germany will receive a 1.2 per cent pay rise backdated to January 2010, and then a 0.6 per cent rise at the start of 2011. A further 0.5 per cent rise in August 2011, resulting in a 2.3 per cent rise over 26 months. The agreement covers 1.2m government and municipal workers, and 800,000 indirectly employed in public services.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d39edfc4-246b-11df-8be0-00144feab49a.html
“It’s not a result which triggers jubilation,” said Ver.di leader Frank Bsirske - however the modest agreement was reached in the face of opposition from municipal employers and the federal government.
Also, the public sector agreement was achieved against a backcloth of a national agreement two weeks earlier by IG Metall, Germany’s largest union, to waive wage increases in the engineering industry in return for an employers’ pledge not to cut jobs.