PLANS BY Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) to introduce a minimum wage have been welcomed by unions, attacked by employers and dismissed by its coalition partner.
A CDU proposal for an employer-union commission to come up with a minimum hourly wage of at least €6.89 has been tabled for a party conference later this month.
“Chancellor Merkel sees this as a matter of securing the dignity of work,” a government spokesman said yesterday.
The minimum wage proposal, which has the backing of the CDU leadership, was the brainchild of the party’s labour spokesman Karl-Josef Laumann.
CDU leaders fanned out across the media yesterday to explain the shift in decades-old opposition to a minimum wage, arguing that it was necessary in an increasingly casual German labour market.
Dr Merkel’s junior coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), have adopted a wait-and-see approach.
“This plan has no immediate effect on the coalition agreement – opposing a statutory minimum wage – which is not even two years old,” said FDP general secretary Christian Lindner.
The German congress of trade unions, which wants a minimum of €8.50, said it sensed a breakthrough. However Germany’s employers criticised the policy shift.
Dieter Hundt, president of the German Employers Federation, warned that a minimum wage could “wipe out a considerable number of jobs”.
A recent labour ministry study found that introducing a minimum wage in sectors not covered by existing agreements would have a negligible effect on the labour market. Another study showed that one in three German women and every second worker under- 30 was part of the low-age economy, earning less than two-thirds of the average income.