It is one of Olaf Scholz’s core promises, employers may want to sue them – the minimum wage increase to twelve euros. Minister of Labor Heil is now announcing when the time will come.
The statutory minimum wage in Germany is to rise to twelve euros on October 1st. 6.2 million employees should benefit from this, according to a draft bill by Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) available to the German Press Agency. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had put the twelve euros as a core promise at the center of his election campaign for more respect in society. Several media also reported on the presentation of the draft.
Heil had already announced at the beginning of the year that he would present a draft law for the increase later this year. At the same time, the draft makes it clear: “The Minimum Wage Commission will continue to decide on future adjustments to the amount of the minimum wage.” The lower wage limit is currently €9.82 per hour. On July 1st there will be another regular increase to EUR 10.45.
Unions welcome minimum wage increase
According to the draft, the increase in wages will mean higher wage costs for employers, estimated at around 1.63 billion euros in 2022. The prices of goods and services could increase moderately. “It is not possible to quantify this effect,” according to the draft.
As justification, the draft emphasizes that the minimum wage in 2015, which was EUR 8.50 at the time, was deliberately and cautiously introduced. Now the increase to 12 euros is “needed by the welfare state”. Even in the low-wage sector, full-time employment must enable employees to participate appropriately in social life.
The unions welcomed the plan. “The federal government is thus strengthening the lowest stop line in the wage structure,” said DGB board member Stefan Körzell. “12 euros an hour will primarily have an effect on women and in the eastern German states.” Consumption is strengthened among those who have to turn over every euro twice. “Our trade unions are still primarily concerned with concluding good collective agreements in all sectors together with the employers.” Persistent wage evasion by employers makes this increasingly difficult.
Employer President Rainer Dulger had criticized the government’s 12-euro plans as a “gross violation of collective bargaining autonomy” and announced that a lawsuit would be examined. “Whether, when and how we have the federal government’s actions legally reviewed depends entirely on when this political minimum wage is to be enforced,” said Dulger. Verdi boss Frank Werneke said: “If employers actually sue against this law, it will be nothing more than an attempt to cement poverty wages.”
The employers did not primarily criticize the planned new level of the lower wage limit, but the way to get there. According to their reasoning, the one-off increase thwarts the prescribed procedure. Since its introduction, the Minimum Wage Commission has determined the regular increases on the basis of previous collective bargaining developments. This is determined by the Federal Statistical Office in the tariff index – so it is largely an automatism.
Körzell also emphasized that the return to the procedure with the minimum wage commission was important after “this one-off intervention”. According to the DGB, 60 percent of the median income for full employment is the benchmark for a poverty-proof minimum wage. That is achieved in Germany with at least twelve euros.
Source From: Stern
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