With the conclusion of a collective agreement at Debis AG - the services company of Daimler-Benz - in March 1998, the bargaining parties have started to open up a new bargaining area for Germany's "industry-related services" sectors. Up until now, companies in these economic sectors have either been covered by the collective agreements of the industry to which they are related, or have often not been covered by any agreement at all. Both parties hope that the Debis agreement could become an example for other companies in these sectors.
Against the background of rapid structural changes, the sectoral demarcations of traditional collective bargaining units correspond less and less with current economic structures. On the contrary, the development of new branches often creates new economic areas which are not covered by any collective agreements. In Germany, this is particularly the case in the new "industry-related services" sectors.
A good example of the latter is Daimler-Benz InterService AG (Debis AG) which is the service company of the Daimler-Benz Corporation. Debis AG was founded in 1990 as a new holding company for the computer centre and financial services of Daimler-Benz. Because at that time all employees of Daimler-Benz were covered by the metalworking branch-level collective agreement, Debis AG adopted that agreement for its 2,400 or so employees. Debis AG has since become an extensive service company with five main business divisions covering information technology services, financial and insurance services, telecommunication and media services, trading and real estate. In Germany, the number of employees has grown to about 10,000. Beside the former Daimler-Benz employees, however, none of the employees in the newly established Debis divisions were covered by a collective agreement. The Debis companies rejected the application of the metalworking agreement, because they saw it as not compatible with the working needs of modern industry-related services.
For a few years the IG Metall metalworkers' union tried - without success - to bring the new Debis divisions back under the coverage of a collective agreement. After more than two years of negotiations, however, on 18 March 1998 IG Metall and Debis management announced the conclusion of a new collective agreement for about 6,000 Debis employees in the information technology and financial service divisions. Legally, the new agreement will take the form of a "supplementary collective agreement" (Ergänzungstarifvertrag) to the existing metalworking branch-level agreement. Since the Debis management negotiated and concluded this new agreement on behalf of the regional employers' associations in south-west German metalworking (Verband der Metallindustrie Baden-Württemberg, VMI) both collective bargaining parties have expressed expectations that in future the Debis agreement could also become a model for other companies.
According to its particular legal status, the new collective agreement at Debis AG should supplement and modify the provisions of the metalworking branch-level collective agreement. During the negotiations between IG Metall and Debis, the most difficult and controversial issue was working time. While the metalworking collective framework agreement provides for a 35-hour week, most Debis employees who are not covered by a collective agreement still work 40 hours per week or even longer. The collective bargaining parties eventually reached a compromise which links working time to the age of the employees. Thereby the 40-hour week remains the standard working time for all employees up to the age of 49, while from the age of 50 to 55 working time will be reduced step by step to 35 hours per week. Furthermore, the new agreement contains additional provisions on working time which both guarantee a certain protection for the employees and allow relatively flexible working time arrangements, as follows:
Regarding wages and salaries, the new collective agreement at Debis creates a new grading system with nine different pay grades based on qualification, seniority and nature of the workplace. The level of payments will be calculated on an annual basis and are oriented to the branch-level metalworking agreement. There will also be a new annual performance-related bonus payment which will depend half on individual performance and half on company performance. According to the IG Metall negotiator, Jürgen Stamm, this bonus could amount to between 10% and 20% of annual income.
Furthermore, the Debis collective agreement contains a significant improvement in dismissal protection for older employees. From the age of 45, no employee can be made redundant without the agreement of the works council. Finally, the Debis agreement includes several provisions to improve continuing training. Every year the company and the works council will set up a plan together for continuing training and discuss possible individual training measures with every employee. All training which is directly linked to new projects or working methods has to be paid by the company. In addition, every employee has the right to use at least five days within one year for further training. While the employer has to meet the costs for this further training, the employee has to contribute 50% of the training time from his or her working time account.
There are at least two major reasons why the new collective agreement at Debis is of particular importance for German industrial relations. Firstly, the agreement has been concluded in the modern and future-oriented economic sectors of industry-related services, which previously had the reputation of being rather difficult to regulate by the collective bargaining parties. Now, both parties hope that they can achieve a breakthrough in organising these sectors. Since the Debis management was negotiating on behalf of the VMI employers' association, the VMI spokesperson, Ulrich Brocker, declared that the agreement is also open to other companies in the metalworking industry.
Secondly, the Debis agreement is rather important because of its particular legal construction of a supplementary collective agreement. The latter mainly represents a political compromise between IG Metall interest in homogeneous working conditions within metalworking, and the employers' interest in more flexibility for the particular needs of newly-established branches. The construction of a supplementary collective agreement still links the provisions to the metalworking branch-level collective agreements and guarantees those employees who formerly worked under the metalworking agreement that they will not have to accept a deterioration in working conditions. At the same time, the new Debis agreement allows significant deviations from the metalworking agreement, in particular on the issue of working time. Therefore, if more companies follow the Debis example the linkage to the metalworking agreement might become even weaker and perhaps a new branch-level collective agreements for industry-related services within the metalworking industry would be established. In the end, this would mean that the principle of having different collective agreements within one corporation would become more and more the rule rather than an exception. For the moment, however, the alternative seems to be that the new industry-related services have no collective agreement at all. (Thorsten Schulten, Institute for Economics and Social Science (WSI))