Collective Agreement on Safeguarding Employment and Working Time in the German Steel Industry

1. Renewal of a collective agreement
The collective agreement on safeguarding employment and working time flexibility in the steel industry (about 80.000 employees), which was due to expire at the end of the year 2004, is renewed by a new agreement, settled on 20th of December 2004. The new contract is valid till 31st of December 2006.

2. Main content
- The new agreement delivers the legal framework for company agreements (agreements on enterprise level or plant level, negotiated by works councils and management) on working time accounts with the objective of safeguarding employment.
- individual working time accounts are allowed. The new agreement defines the maximum upper and lower limits of this system of working time accounts to plus or minus 192 hours. It stipulates that the period of balancing the time account (“balancing period”) is 24 months. In case of a shorter balancing period the maximum upper and lower limits diminish accordingly.
- if there is still a surplus of time worked at the end of the balancing period, that surplus has to be offset by time off (spare time)
- extension of the balancing period up to 36 months is possible, but only with the approval of the IG Metall (case by case-decision).
- there must be a separate insurance (settled by the company) for securing the value of already accumulated time of each employee in case of bankruptcy.
- In addition and apart from the topic “working time flexibility”: The employer federation committed themselves to employ each apprentice on basis of a regular labour contract for at least 12 months after finishing the apprenticeship.