The employees of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof are to receive more money, but forego a collective agreement. The union ver.di immediately rejected the offer.
Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is offering its remaining employees more money – but in return they will stick to a company-wide collective agreement. The department store group announced that it had submitted a collective agreement offer to the ver.di union for a pay increase of eight percent, which would be spread over three years.
According to this, the approximately 12,000 employees will receive a tax-free inflation compensation bonus of 600 euros. In addition, there would be an unspecified bonus with which the employees will participate in the success of their respective branch.
“At economic crossed boundaries”
With the collective agreement that only applies to the group, the management of the recently rescued company is making it clear that it does not want to return to the collective agreement for the retail sector, which it had already abandoned a long time ago.
“Long drawn-out and fruitless collective bargaining negotiations like in the past no longer fit into the short decision-making processes that we have set ourselves as a medium-sized company,” said Human Resources Director and Chief Financial Officer Guido Mager of Galeria. “With our collective bargaining offer, we have therefore pushed ourselves to our economic limits in order to be able to reach a collective agreement as quickly as possible.”
According to ver.di, the difference is already at 29 percent
Ver.di immediately contradicted this: The offer is significantly below the most recent wage agreements in the retail sector and increases the difference to the collective agreement there, which currently stands at 29 percent, said Corinna Groß, who heads the trade union’s federal retail trade group. “If the employers recognize this, we can perhaps talk about entering into collective bargaining.” This could mean that the department store chain is facing a lengthy wage dispute.
The department store group has been in crisis for years. After the third bankruptcy, the creditors approved the company’s restructuring plan in May. The new owners of Galeria are to be the investment company NRDC of the US entrepreneur Richard Baker and the investment company BB Kapital SA of the entrepreneur Bernd Beetz on August 1st. The number of branches is to be reduced from the current 92 to 83 by September.