FT.com / World - Eventful year for German unions

FT.com / World - Eventful year for German unions

Eventful year for German unions
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin

Published: September 10 2007 04:03 | Last updated: September 10 2007 04:03

This has been an eventful, even turbulent year for German trade unions. On the positive side, many have been able to win larger pay increases for their members than in previous years, taking advantage of the country’s economic upturn. The IG Metall engineering union led the way with a 4.1 per cent rise in the spring.

More controversially, a rail strike in the summer revealed awkward divisions within the labour movement, as a specialist train drivers’ union broke away from its sister unions to demand a higher pay increase for its members.

Earlier this month IG Metall, Germany’s largest union with 2.3m members, also struck out in a new direction, as its executive board nominated a political moderate – Berthold Huber, the union’s current deputy leader – as the organisation’s next chair. He is expected to replace Jürgen Peters, a leftwing hardliner, at a union congress in November.

Such events come against a number of challenges for a movement that, like in the UK, is struggling to retain influence against a background of globalisation pressures, legal and labour market reforms and falling membership.

German unions retain strong workplace power in manufacturing – still a key sector – and can still flex their muscles over management through co-determination, the legal arrangements allowing employee representatives a say in decision-making at workplace and supervisory board levels.

Yet falling membership and a decline in collective bargaining coverage have led to more critical questions in business and politics about the relevance of seeing unions as key partners.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007