Union calls for significant improvements
After its renewed insolvency and the entry of an investor, the department store group Galeria has presented the Verdi union with a wage offer for its 12.000 employees. The key points of the offer are an eight percent increase in the currently paid wages spread over three years and an inflation compensation bonus of 600 euros, which is to be paid out in September this year.
Currently, an integration collective agreement concluded in 2019 with the takeover of Kaufhof by Karstadt applies, which Galeria wants to replace with a "department store collective agreement". In addition to the wage increase, the group offered an "additional branch-related profit-sharing bonus" that should make the offer "significantly more attractive", as CFO Guido Mager announced. The company management had "reached the economic limits" with its offer.
The company wants to "reach a collective agreement as quickly as possible," emphasized Mager. "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."
Verdi sharply criticized the company's actions and demanded significant improvements. If employers really wanted to avoid lengthy processes, "a first step would be to acknowledge reality," explained the head of the retail trade group, Corinna Groß. The current difference in pay at Galeria and the collective agreement in retail is 29 percent. And the current offer is also significantly below the most recent collective agreements in the industry. It would widen the gap even further.
