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Assembly workers work in the Mercedes-Benz plant
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / DPA
In Germany, the proportion of employees in companies with a branch collective agreement continues to decline.
Last year it was 43 percent, according to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in a survey of around 16,000 companies.
"The collective bargaining agreement is significantly higher in the west than in the east," stated the IAB.
Around 45 percent of the West German and 32 percent of the East German employees worked in 2020 in a company that was subject to an industry collective agreement.
In 2019, this still applied to 46 percent in the west and 34 percent in the east.
"The downward trend in the sector-specific collective bargaining agreement continues," said IAB researcher Susanne Kohaut.
The spread of company or in-house collective agreements remained largely constant compared to the previous year: This form of collective bargaining coverage applied to eight percent of West German and eleven percent of East German employees in 2020.
47 percent of the West German and 57 percent of the East German employees worked in companies in which there was no collective agreement.
Overall, the following applies: the larger the company, the more likely there is a collective bargaining agreement.
The proportion of employees with a sectoral collective agreement in the area of public administration and social security is particularly high at 80 percent.
The proportion in the area of information and communication is particularly low at eleven percent.
At the company level, works councils represent the interests of the staff - but this only applies to less than half of the employees.
In 2020, 36 percent of employees in East Germany were represented by a works council, in West Germany it was 40 percent.
"In recent years, the long-term deficit in Eastern Germany in terms of employee participation has decreased," announced the IAB.
fdi / Reuters