Ver.di Wins Higher Salaries in Public Sector as Employers Speak of Burden in Rhineland-Palatinate

Employers and unions agreed on higher tariffs late on Saturday evening after several hours of negotiations in Potsdam. This agreement affects more than 200,000 employees in Rhineland-Palatinate and 2.5 million people nationwide.

A tax-free special payment of 3,000 euros was agreed, which will be paid out in several steps from June. From March next year there should be more than eleven percent more money on average, but at least 340 euros more per month. The term of the agreement is to be 24 months.

When it came to finding a solution, the parties to the collective bargaining agreement largely followed the compromise proposal from the arbitration proceedings that ended a week ago.

Ver.di RLP: agreement “with strengths and weaknesses”

The ver.di district of Rhineland-Palatinate spoke of a collective bargaining agreement with weaknesses and strengths: weaknesses because the employers had “closed themselves to good arguments from ver.di”. Nevertheless, the strengths of the negotiation result outweighed – for example, that “the table remuneration increases by more than eleven percent for the majority of ver.di members with a clear social component for the middle and lower income groups”.

The Federal Collective Bargaining Commission therefore decided with a “large majority to recommend our members to accept the collective bargaining agreement in the member survey,” says ver.di regional manager Michael Blug.

Municipal Employers: Fees will increase

From the employers’ point of view, the collective agreement is a “big burden”. Nevertheless, everyone is happy that the strikes, including in daycare centers and hospitals, are now over, said Frank Frühauf, Mayor of Idar-Oberstein and President of the Association of Municipal Employers, the SWR on Monday.

According to Frühauf, the additional costs for cities and municipalities total more than 17 billion euros. For a small town like Idar-Oberstein, he expects around 3.5 million euros that would now have to be generated additionally. Idar-Oberstein benefits from the trade tax revenue as a BioNTech location.

However, most municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate are already struggling with balanced budgets and are likely to face “very big challenges” in the next few years as a result of the collective agreement. According to Frühauf, one consequence of the rising wage costs is the increase in fees. Trade and property taxes are suitable levers to achieve a budget balance in the future.

warning strikes in March

A strike ballot among the unions and possible indefinite strikes are off the table with the collective bargaining agreement. The bargaining parties had been negotiating with each other for months. Time and again, the employee representatives had paralyzed city cleaning services and day-care centers with warning strikes, for example.

At the end of March, ver.di, together with the railway and transport unions, brought both rail and air traffic to a standstill nationwide during a large-scale warning strike. Most recently, there was a nationwide warning strike on the railways on Friday, and air traffic at some airports was also restricted.