New agreement signed for west German textiles industry

In September 2000, the social partners in the west German textiles industry signed a new collective agreement, thereby averting an imminent industrial dispute. After four unsuccessful rounds of negotiations, the IG Metall union had announced strike ballots and industrial action if the employers did not comply with union demands for an improved wage settlement and regulations on partial retirement.

On 23 September 2000, the IG Metall metalworkers' trade union and the two employers' associations for the textiles and clothing industry - Gesamtverband der Textilindustrie in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Gesamttextil and Bundesvereinigung der Arbeitgeber im Bundesverband Bekleidungsindustrie- agreed a collective agreement for the west German textiles and clothing industry after 15 hours of negotiations. The agreement runs for two years until 30 September 2002 and its main provisions are the following.

• Wages and salaries will be increased by 2.4%, backdated to 1 September 2000, with a further 2.4% increase from 1 September 2001

• The Christmas bonus, which was lowered in 1997 in the context of a conflict over continued pay for sick workers (DE9702202F), will be increased from 2001 as follows: in the clothing industry by 2.5 percentage points to 82.5% of a month's pay; and in the textile industry by 3 points to 100% of a month's pay.

• A new agreement has been concluded on partial retirement, running for four years from 2001. Under this agreement, from the age of 57 employees are entitled to take partial retirement for a period of between two and six years. During this time, employees will receive 85% of their last annual net income and can decide whether to: work full time for half of the period and stay off work completely for the other half; or work part time for the whole period. In 2001 and 2002, up to 3% of all employees can take partial retirement. From 2003, the annual percentage will be increased to 4% of all employees.

• Vocational trainees must be taken on for at least 12 months at the end of their training.

In accordance with a 1999 wage settlement, wages and salaries for employees in the east German textiles industry had already increased by 2.5% from 1 June 2000. From 1 November 2000, the west German agreement will be effective for east Germany, with an extra increase of 0.5%.

In the run-up to the September agreement, three rounds of negotiations under the terms of the previous agreement's peace obligation failed. IG Metall then initiated token strike s, because the employers refused an agreement guaranteeing an entitlement to partial retirement. From 1 September 2000, about 13,000 employees participated in protest actions. In some areas these protests escalated after a number of enterprises responded with lock-outs. Before the social partners met for the fourth round of negotiations, IG Metall announced that it would initiate strike ballots and prepare for industrial action from 25 September 2000. In response, employers offered IG Metall a regulation on partial retirement in exchange for a lower pay increase (under 2.4%), which created the basis for the negotiations on 23 September 2000 which led to the collective agreement.

While IG Metall was generally satisfied with the agreement, employers' associations stated that they had no choice but to accept the settlement in order to prevent the textiles industry from being involved in an industrial dispute.