Industrial relations in Germany

Union organizations, collective bargaining structure, collective bargaining at cross-industry level, bargaining at sectoral level, bargaining in companies,  employees representatives bodies  all you need to know about the industrial relations system in Germany is in this fiche.

A few figures

Union membership amounts to 19 percent and 62 percent of employees are covered by collective agreements.  These numbers conceal very different realities between the manufacturing and service industries.

The trade union

• The DGB and its affiliated federations

The biggest union confederation, by far, is the Confederation of German Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB), with 8 affiliated unions representing nearly 80 percent of all German union members.

The DGB isn’t a first line player: it isn’t directly involved in negotiations with employers’ organizations and businesses, on the tariff policy and conflict management for instance.  Its affiliates consider themselves independent unions.  They are not related to political parties even though they were,…