Workers in the country’s east still earn less than their colleagues in the west, decades after reunification
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Germany’s engineering giant Bosch faced public outrage this week over the unequal distribution of inflation relief bonuses it paid to workers, Bild reported on Wednesday. The tax-free €3,000 ($3,250) payments are part of the German government’s third relief package intended to mitigate the impact of soaring consumer prices.
According to the report, Bosch has been distributing the bonuses among its employees in western regions of the country, including its semiconductor plant in Reutlingen. However, some 500 of the company’s workers at its plant in Dresden, in the state of Saxony, did not get their payments. Germany’s IG Metall workers union and Dresden Bosch workers staged a protest in front of the company headquarters on Tuesday.
“I think it’s absurd that a company as big as Bosch is taking hundreds of millions in subsidies for Dresden, but then doesn’t respect agreements. We are currently negotiating the inflation compensation for many metal companies in Saxony – and it is widely paid. What Bosch is doing is shameful!” union representative Stefan Ehly told Bild.
The chairman of the works council in Dresden, Markus Gunia, noted that the situation only highlights the inequality in working conditions between the western and eastern parts of the country that still lingers some three decades after German reunification in October 1990.
“The unequal pay between east and west, which has persisted for more than 30 years, is common practice… We don’t get any Christmas or vacation pay, other performance-related pay,” he stated, noting that Bosch workers in Dresden have to work 5 hours more per week than their colleagues in Reutlingen, and have “significantly lower wages.”
“The employees are sticking to their demand for equal treatment at the Bosch locations… Democracy and co-determination in terms of working conditions must not stop at the Saxon state border,” he added.
In response to the workers’ complaints, Bosch Dresden plant commercial director Marek Jakowatz said that the company decided not to pay inflation bonuses to the plant’s workers due to the salary increase they received at the start of the year.
According to reports published in March by recruiting platform Stepstone, workers in what was formerly East Germany earn an average of 15% less than their counterparts in the western part of the country. The median salary in the eastern states, excluding Berlin, is €38,700, while in western Germany it amounts to €45,500.
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