With the coalition agreement finally adopted on 07 December 2021, the Social Democrats Germany (SPD), the Green Party (Bündnis90/Die Grünen) and the Liberal Democrats Germany (FDP) have inter alia announced provisions on their agenda for employment and industrial relations. This Legal Update presents the new government's respective programme and evaluates the plans from the perspective of international employers.
In brief: The Labour Ministry, which continues to be led by Labour Minister Heil, is committed to modernised continuity, with legal clarifications to be made in important areas. This is likely to have a relieving effect on most employers in Germany, as clear regulations reduce complexity and ultimately allow them to act with precision. On closer inspection, however, the linguistically emphasised statements on strengthening collective labour relations are limited to an attempt to secure the status quo. With the introduction of a minimum wage of 12 per hour, a central election promise of the SPD will be implemented as expected. Apart from that, there are a number of programmatic compromise formulas, the binding implementation of which in in legal statutes is already rather unlikely.
I. Employment law issues
There is little change in traditional labour contract law. There are plans in the area of working time, home office/workplace, fixed-term contracts and equal pay. Hardly anything new is created, but existing...
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