professional group
Unions are demanding more money for educators
An educator plays with children in a day-care center: The civil servants’ association dbb calls for an upgrading of the professional field. Photo: Uwe Anspach/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Daycare teachers often did a great deal during the pandemic – however, collective bargaining for their income was on hold at the time. Now it’s negotiating again.
Before the continuation of the collective bargaining round for municipal daycare workers in Germany, the civil servants’ association dbb called on the municipalities to make concessions.
It is not enough just to pat the employees on the shoulder encouragingly, said dbb boss Ulrich Silberbach of the German Press Agency in Berlin. Otherwise, in addition to the problems in recruiting junior staff and specialists, many employees will sooner or later change jobs.
Trade unions and employers are again negotiating in Potsdam today about the income of day-care workers and members of other social professions. With the round of collective bargaining for social and educational services in the municipal sector, talks that were interrupted in March 2020 due to the pandemic are being resumed.
Around 330,000 day care workers and other employees in social and educational services are affected. The unions Verdi and dbb demand an improvement in working conditions, measures to remedy the shortage of skilled workers and greater financial recognition.
Strike not excluded
Above all, it is about improvements in the classification of employees. The Association of Municipal Employers’ Associations (VKA) had countered the union demands that the wages of municipal employees were already mostly higher than the wages of other providers in social and educational services.
The VKA warned of costs of at least half a billion euros just for the realization of some of the demands. A number of demands are not yet quantifiable.
Despite the hard clash of positions: Walkouts are not planned in the collective bargaining conflict for the time being. Verdi said at the beginning of the week: “We do not rule out that we are going on strike.” But also in view of the burdens on the population in the pandemic, there will only be a strike if there is no other way. Three rounds of talks are planned, the third round is scheduled for May 16th and 17th.
Verdi is aiming to transfer the desired degree to organizations such as Caritas – according to the union, around two thirds of the more than 1.6 million employees in this area could benefit.