Development of Collective Agreement Coverage: Statement of the IAB on the public hearing in the Committee for Labour and Social Affairs of the German Bundestag on 7 June 2021

Abstract

"A public hearing of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Labor and Social Affairs was held on June 7, 2021 on the topic of ”Ways to strengthen the collective bargaining coverage of companies in Germany’s labor market”. The hearing was based on the motions of the parliamentary groups DIE LINKE and BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN, which call for, among other things, making it easier to declare collective agreements generally binding, prohibiting membership in an employers’ association without collective agreement coverage, and awarding public contracts only to companies covered by collective agreements. In her statement, Susanne Kohaut presents the development of collective bargaining coverage since 1999 and confirms its decline. On the one hand, decomposition analyses show the importance of structural factors for the erosion of sectoral collective bargaining coverage, including above all the change in the industry structure toward services and the establishment of new companies. On the other hand, changes in attitudes and behavior on the part of company owners and management could be responsible for a considerable part of the decline in sectoral collective agreement coverage." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Kohaut, S. (2021): Entwicklung der Tarifbindung. Stellungnahme des IAB zur öffentlichen Anhörung im Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales des Deutschen Bundestags am 7.6.2021. (IAB-Stellungnahme 03/2021), Nürnberg, 9 p.