Evidence from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain reveals that social partners are closely involved in setting up national strategies to manage digital change in the world of work. Up to now, this has been a high-level affair and there are only a few collective agreements or
The pact on apprenticeships (/Ausbildungspakt/) was introduced in 2004 by the federal government and representatives of German employers and business organisations to avoid the introduction of a training levy which was being discussed by the governing coalition at that time (*DE0407105F* [1]). The
At the end of July 2010, Rainer Bruederle, Germany’s Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, proposed in a press report (in German) [1] that companies in need of skilled labour should be allowed to offer cash premiums to foreign skilled workers as an incentive. At the end of August 2010, he
In Germany, different wage agreements in one establishment have to date only been allowed in a few sectors. In the transportation and health care sectors, unions succeeded in organising highly homogeneous occupational groups. These groups have the economic power to take effective strike action
On 21 April 2010, the Mining, Chemicals and Energy Industrial Union (IG BCE [1]) and the German Federation of Chemicals Employers’ Associations (BAVC [2]) announced in a press article (in German) [3] the conclusion of a new collective agreement in the sector. It runs for 11 months and will cover 550
The Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarktforschung, IAB [1]) of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA [2]) hosts the IAB Establishment Panel (IAB-Betriebspanel [3]), from which it derived the latest data on collective bargaining [4] coverage and employee
In recent years, the German labour market has undergone profound reforms. For example, rules on social welfare benefits and temporary agency work [1] have been reorganised (DE0409204N [2], DE0608049I [3], DE0212203N [4]). While these reforms were undertaken to stimulate job creation, among other
On 8 April 2010, an initiative called ‘HessenTransfer’ was launched by the Hessian branch of the Confederation of German Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund Hessen, DGB Hessen [1]) and the Confederation of Hessian Employers’ Associations (Vereinigung der hessischen Unternehmerverbände, VhU [2]
At the end of December 2007, the previous German centre-right left-wing coalition government issued a decree on mandatory working conditions for mail delivery services. The decree enabled the government to introduce a national minimum wage for large parts of the mail delivery services which were
The coalition agreement between the alliance of the conservative Christian Democratic Party (Christlich Demokratische Union, CDU [1]), its Bavarian associate, the Christian Social Union (Christlich-Soziale Union, CSU [2]), and the Liberal Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei, FDP [3]) lays
The pact on apprenticeships (/Ausbildungspakt/) – that is, the vocational training agreement between the federal government and several umbrella organisations of employer and business associations – was established in 2004. Extended in 2007, the pact will run until 2010 (*DE0802029I* [1]). Apart