In June 2000, the Autostadt theme park opened at Wolfsburg, the headquarters of Volkswagen, the German motor manufacturer. The IG Metall metalworkers' trade union had already signed collective agreements for the service workers to be employed at the park, thus ensuring that they are covered by collectively agreed minimum pay and conditions.
On 1 June 2000, the Autostadt ("car city") theme park opened in Wolfsburg, the city in Lower Saxony which is the headquarters of Volkswagen AG. It is managed by Autostadt GmbH and located close to the Volkswagen factory. Autostadt reflects a new marketing strategy by Volkswagen: instead of going through an authorised dealer, the customer can buy a car directly from the factory, and combine this purchase with tourism. It is envisaged that customers will stay for one or two days at Autostadt, looking at each model of car in its own pavilion, as well as visiting a car museum or participating in a factory tour. With six restaurants and one hotel on the site, Autostadt is also conceived as a leisure facility.
Altogether, 1,500 new jobs have been created by the initiative in either industrial services or personal services. Of these, about 800 are at Autostadt GmbH, 270 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, 130 at the six restaurants, owned by Mövenpick GmbH, and 120 in the facilities management operation, run by a consortium comprising Hochtief and a number of other companies.
The metalworkers' trade union, IG Metall started negotiating with the management of Autostadt GmbH over collective standards for the new services jobs when the project was only at the planning stage. As IG Metall and the new Unified Service Sector Trade Union (Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, Ver.di) - which is still in the process of development (DE9911225F) - are competing to establish themselves in the service sector, the Autostadt initiative was a good opportunity for IG Metall to show that it could assume responsibility for the terms and conditions of service workers. Wage negotiations started on 30 November 1999 between IG Metall and Autostadt GmbH. Wolfsburg AG, a firm which is owned 50% each by the Wolfsburg town council and Volkswagen AG, and which was established with the aim of halving the number of unemployed people in Wolfsburg by 2001, accompanied the negotiations.
The beginning of the wage negotiations was rather unusual, because no workers were employed by Autostadt at this stage. However, during the negotiations the first 500 employees were recruited, with a weekly working time of 39 hours. IG Metall achieved an agreement that these workers' individual employment contracts would be substituted by the collective agreement once it was concluded. After eight rounds of negotiations over five months, the collective agreement for the service workers was concluded and became effective on 1 May 2000. It contains a framework agreement on general pay and employment conditions with a term of five years until 30 April 2005, as well as a collective agreement on pay for the period until 30 November 2001. The deal contains the following provisions:
- working week. Discussion on this issue proved controversial - while employers planned to establish a working week of 39 hours, arguing that this is the usual working time in the catering and tourism industry, IG Metall insisted on 35 hours per week. Finally, both sides agreed to start with a 38-hour week in May 2000, to be reduced in stages to 35 hours on 1 January 2002 without a cut in pay. Because of Autostadt's special status as a tourist attraction, Saturdays and Sundays are regular working days. This means that work can generally be distributed over seven days a week without extra payment, but that individual employees are to maintain a five-day working week;
- working time accounts. Employees can work up to 80 hours above the normal hours and 40 hours below, managed through a working time account. Daily working time is subject to a maximum of 10 hours and weekly working time to a maximum of 48 hours. Overtime work is compensated in free time when the account reaches a credit of 40 hours. Only if overtime work exceeds the limits of the time account will it be financially compensated as overtime work. The premium for overtime work, holiday work and night shifts varies between 25%, 50% and 100%;
- pay. Monthly pay varies between DEM 2,250 and DEM 7,000, but the average income will be about DEM 4,000. It was therefore possible to achieve the same level of pay for the new service jobs as apply in the metalworking industry. Though several jobs, such as hosts or customer-care centre agents, are normally not represented by the metalworking industry, these jobs were integrated in a new grading system and covered by the collective agreement, containing seven pay groups with two pay grades within each; and
- bonus system. The negotiaiors agreed on twice-yearly bonus of 20% of a month's pay, paid in May and in November, instead of a fixed annual bonus of a month's pay (the "13th month" payment). In addition all employees can attain an annual performance-linked bonus of about 60% of a month's pay.
Reference: "Der Autostadt-Tarifvertrag – Ein Beispiel für tarifliche Regleungen im industrienahen Dienstleistungsbereich", Hartmut Meine and Helga Schwitzer, in WSI-Mitteilungen 6/2000.