Construction workers work on a foundation.
Photo: dpa/Jens Büttner
For the industrial trade union Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (IG BAU), “the 12-euro era for the minimum wage” will finally begin tomorrow, Saturday. More than six million employees would benefit from the increase in the minimum wage, according to the new and old IG-BAU boss Robert Feiger on Wednesday at the union conference in Kassel. At the same time he emphasized: “Only a controlled minimum wage is also a paid and thus successful minimum wage.” And here lies the problem: Minimum wage controls are extremely rare.
On average, companies in the construction industry would only have to expect an inspection once every 20 years, reported Feiger, whom the almost 350 delegates had recently reelected as their chairman with a whopping 84.3 percent of the votes. In forestry, the customs inspectors only come every 25 years, in agriculture it even takes over 90 years on average. “But it doesn’t work without controls,” says the IG BAU chairman. On an annual average, at least every tenth company must be checked once, he demanded. In order to ensure that, 16,000 inspectors from the financial control department responsible for customs would have to be working on undeclared work. Currently it is less than half. A higher density of controls is now particularly important in order to prevent the many refugees from being “ripped off and exploited”, according to the union boss.
In order to achieve this, IG BAU also proposes the establishment of a nationwide minimum wage register. Companies that do not comply with the specifications are to be saved there in order to then be “rigorously excluded” from the award of public contracts. The state can and must make compliance with its rules a condition. And that’s not all: the construction union is also demanding that the Federal Collective Bargaining Act promised in the coalition agreement between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP be passed quickly. »Especially in the crisis we need guidelines for proper work and good wages«, explained Feiger. The law is intended to link public procurement to compliance with collective agreements, which the union hopes will result in a significant increase in collective bargaining coverage. However, existing collective bargaining laws at the state level would have to remain in place if they went beyond the nationwide regulations.
Because even the increased statutory minimum wage is far from enough to put an end to the problem of »poor despite work«. Feiger emphasized that the lower wage limit is merely a minimum level of security. That is why the tariff system needs to be strengthened. The IG BAU would like to create state incentives for this: Employees organized in unions, but also companies bound by collective bargaining agreements, should receive “exclusive tax advantages”. Feiger criticized the fact that so-called OT associations – i.e. employers’ associations without collective bargaining agreements – are currently also tax-privileged as corporations under public law.
The increase in the statutory minimum wage itself does not mean a strengthening of collective bargaining coverage. However, it could lead to an increase in the wage level agreed in collective agreements, particularly in the lower wage brackets. The 12-euro lower limit will have different effects from industry to industry, said Feiger on “nd” demand. In any case, his union will only sign collective agreements whose lower pay brackets are well above the statutory minimum level. The positive effect of the rising minimum wage is already visible in building cleaning, where the lowest wage group will be raised by around 14 percent to €13 an hour – also on Saturday, at the same time as the statutory minimum wage increase.
The fact that the trade unions are dependent on the statutory minimum wage in order to stabilize the wage structure to some extent is of course also an expression of their weakness. “I would prefer it if we could work out a nationwide collective bargaining agreement together with the employers,” says Feiger. Because: »We have a lot of white spots. So it is legitimate for the state to secure a level through the statutory minimum wage that is well above the basic income level.« For him, however, one thing is clear: »It is better with a collective bargaining agreement.«
