FAVORABLE AGREEMENT
PRANKFORT -- In 1963 Germany was shaken by the big strike of the metal workers organized in the IG Metall [Industrie-Gewerksohaft Metall] which was followed by a lockout of about 350,000 metal workers in the Land Baden-Wtirttemberg,.
This year the employers decided not to risk a big strike during a major boom, Unlike last year when the employers! organization started with "no offer," they agreed in negotiations to grant considerable concessions, thus assuring “social peace" until the new contract ends, December 31, 1965, after the September 1965 eleotions,
-Negotiations began some months ago. A principal union demand was a boost in vacation pay of 10 DM [$2.50] a day. The employers countered by asserting their principle that wages should refleot "personal performance," They are against “social wages" such as equal vacation pay for everybody.
In addition the workers demanded a contract in which questions involving job conditions should be taken up with IG Metall.
To appreciate the advance which this demand represents, it is necessary to know that under German law shop stewards are not union representatives but representatives of the "common weal" of the enterprise, Although about eighty per cent of them belong to IG Metall, their position is ambivalent, Under pressure from the union, workers on the job and the employers, they generally respond to the greatest pressure, During a strike they do not dare go against the workers on whose votes they depend for election. But after a strike they often become pliable to management which attempts to’set them against the union,
Employers are quite willing to conclude “enterprise agreements" with the shop stewards, sometimes granting substantial concessions te "their" workers. But these agreements have no legal standing. and
can easily be revoked. In contrast, the employers are resistant to concluding special enterprise agreements with the union, They are particularly concerned about blocking union representatives on the job, the so-called "Vertrauensleute," or "men of confidence," from gaining the legal or contractual status enjoyed by the shop. stewards,
After some hard bargaining, the employers in the metal industry agreed to wage increases and, longer vacations, and a boost in vacation pay. They did -not grant the demand for direct union repre sentation on the job,
A wage increase of six per cent is to. begin October 1 to be followed by another increase of three per cent on July 1, 1965,
Longer holidays begin this year and will be increased each year until they reach 24 paid days in 1967 for all workers older than 50, The age group 25-30 gets 22 days; 18-25 is immediately granted 17 days; in 1965, 18 days; and 1967, 19 days, (Workers under 18 get 24 days paid leave by law.)
On paid holiday pay, a bonus of 30 per cent was agreed to,
In addition, following a membership drive that increased the union rolls from five per cent to 30 per cent of the workers, IG Metall won a oontract at the Ford plant in Cologne,
There is no doubt that the agreement is one of the best ever gained by a German union, For the first time an industry covering 4,000,000 workers acceded to the principle of a holiday bonus, and four-weeks paid vacation is now within sight for all those older than thirty.
The agreement met with acclaim among the metal workers, At the same time it should be noted that the victory followed the familiar pattern of negotiations at the top that did not involve the mobilization of the ranks. In addition, the union is still denied the fundamental right of direct involvement in handling disputes over job conditions, Thus the employers can more easily seek to compensate for the wage concessions bY speed ups and other ways of intensifying labor,
Resistance among the employers to granting the concessions came mainly from the small and middle brackets, The big industrial bosses, however, preferred to buy industrial peace, even at the expense of the smaller operators.
Thus the agreement ‘will give fresh impulse to the _tendenoy to concentration of capital in Germany.
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