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The so-called Schlecker Act, named after the scandal surrounding the use of a temporary agency to fire and rehire workers at the retail company Schlecker, supposed to ensure equal pay between permanent and temporary workers as well as prevent agencies being involved in company firing and rehiring practices. However, unions say it is far from enough as offending agencies would only receive a fine of 25,000 euros, does not provide for the introduction of minimum wages in the TAW sector and does not provide for equal pay for equal work.



In addition, the German unions are calling for the introduction of a clause limiting the time during which a company can employ a temporary worker before permanent hiring them. They also repeated their demand for minimum wage, especially before the complete opening of the German market to new EU countries. Unions such as IG Metall are also trying to include the "equal pay for equal work" claim into its demands for the collective negotiations that opened on Monday and that affect 85,000 employees in the steel industry.



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Planet Labor, September 8, 2010, No. 100620 – http://www.planetlabor.com/www.planetlabor.com