Striking an agreement
July 27, 2009
Employers and labor union representatives reached a compromise on Monday after tense negotiations in the German city of Frankfurt.
The agreement envisages higher wages and better healthcare for the roughly 220,000 people working in welfare facilities and municipal day care centers, known as Kindertagesstätten, or Kitas, in German. Employers have indicated that those working in public day cares will each receive an average of 150 euros ($240) more a month, though labor unions said they had wanted more.
The president of the VKA labor union compared the agreement to a "forceps delivery" after a "difficult operation." He estimates that the raises and new health plans will cost between 500 and 700 million euros a year and called it an "absolutely acceptable" result that will benefit both children and parents.
The head of the ver.di union, Frank Bsirske, admitted that the agreement isn't what they had hoped for, but said that they were successful in their mission to give more recognition to the profession.
Bsirske called the new heath care plan, which gives the insured individuals the legal right to a risk assessment, "very important". The agreement also raises the starting salaries for some jobs and the current salaries and career expectations for others.
Now the voting starts
The agreement still has to be approved in a vote by union members, starting next week. Bsirske said that the compromise would be presented to the members this week before voting, which should take about two weeks.
If the agreement is approved, it will go into effect on November 1.
Bsirske explained that there has been a long list of demands piling up for social and child care workers that this agreement still doesn't completely make up for, which led to a very controversial discussion among the ver.di strike organizers.
However, the delegations from VKA and GEW, another labor union, had already agreed on the compromise, though even Ilse Schaad, member of the board of GEW, admitted that the unions wouldn't have been able to get all their demands met.
The salary conflict, which has been going on since the end of January, led to day care workers across the country going on strike at the beginning of May.
mrm/dpa/AP/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Neil King