In the midst of deadlocked collective bargaining in the retail sector, more and more retail companies are unilaterally increasing wages and salaries. After the Rewe Group, Aldi, Lidl, Kaufland, the Otto Group (Otto, Bonprix, Baur) and the discounter Netto Nord also announced on Wednesday that they would follow a recommendation from the German Trade Association (HDE) and increase fees by 5 from October .3 percent increase.
Collective bargaining for the millions of retail workers has made little progress for months. At the beginning of the week, the HDE therefore recommended that companies increase wages before an official collective bargaining agreement and to later offset the increases against the collective bargaining agreement. The HDE emphasized that it is not foreseeable that the collective negotiations will reach a solution in a timely manner. The Rewe Group, which also includes the Penny discounter, had already announced such a step on Monday.
The union is demanding, among other things, at least 2.50 euros more per hour in retail in all regions and a term of 12 months. The negotiations are made particularly difficult by the tense economic situation in the industry. After parts of the retail sector suffered significant losses in sales during the Corona pandemic, retailers are now struggling with consumers’ continued reluctance to spend in the wake of the Russian attack on Ukraine and the associated price increases. In the retail sector as a whole, price-adjusted sales in July were more than two percent below the same month last year.
At the beginning of the week, Verdi boss Frank Werneke once again rejected a wage increase of 5.3 percent for retail employees as inadequate. Such an offer for the current year would be “a slap in the face for retail employees,” he said on Monday. “That’s 92 cents an hour for a saleswoman, and that means a loss of real wages. The employees already receive very low wages, and the inflation of the last few months is eating up wages even more.”
The discounter Netto Nord is a subsidiary of the Danish Salling Group, the largest retail company in Denmark. It is not identical to the Netto Marken-Discount, which belongs to the Edeka Group and is much more common in Germany. (dpa)