The union speaks of a total volume, which corresponds to an increase in pay of six percent - but the concrete wage increase in the collective agreement in the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry is initially lower.
IG BCE and the employers' organization BAVC agreed on a wage increase of 1.5 percent for the approximately 580,000 employees in July 2020 . From July 2021 , salaries will rise by a further 1.3 percent for nine months. There should be one-off payments for the first half of 2020.
In addition, however, the social partners agreed to make further changes in favor of employees:
- a new employer-funded supplementary long-term care insurance, which will be set up in July 2021. Employers pay the premium for employees with more than six months of employment. In the case of a long-term care, the policy costs money. The IG BCE speaks of a nationwide unique regulation.
- a so-called future account that can be used flexibly by employees. You can take extra days off, save on long term accounts, or use the retirement account. The account will start in 2020 and will grow to five days a year or 23 percent of a collectively agreed monthly salary by 2022.
In addition, the collective bargaining parties agreed on continuing education in order to make the chemical workers fit for digitization.
The employers prevailed with a long term of up to 29 months, which ends in March 2022 at the latest. In addition, no retroactive wage increases will be due for 2019. BAVC Negotiator Georg Müller referred to the planning security that give the term to the companies. IG-BCE Vice President Ralf Sikorski spoke of a "power-consuming negotiation marathon" that was worthwhile.
This year's round of pay was more difficult than in the record years before due to the sharp decline in the industry. The chemical and pharmaceutical industries are currently suffering from trade conflicts and weak industrial demand.