Germany’s biggest trade union strikes a deal on pay

we are pretty happy with the deal,” says Stefan Wolf, boss of Gesamtmetall, the metal-engineering industry’s employers’ association, about an agreement on pay struck on November 18th for workers in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. Metall, Germany’s mightiest trade union, had asked for a hefty annual pay increase of 8%. Bosses managed to buy time by granting them an increase of 8.5% spread over two years. That deal was mirrored by Volkswagen and Metall when they struck a deal on November 23rd.The agreement is likely to be adopted by most if not all 3.9m workers and their employers in the country’s metal-bending companies and influence wage deals in other industries in Germany and neighbouring countries. Pay rises are now set until September 2024, giving employers much-needed certainty about at least one important aspect of their input costs.