Recent news

Latest items of recent news relevant to Germany as reported in our fortnightly newswire ‘Dernières nouvelles’.

Germany: 101,400 patients were in the hospital in 2019 because of insomnia

Insomnia can not only reduce employee performance, but also lead to serious ongoing health problems …

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Germany: Inflation rate at +1.7% in March 2021

Consumer prices in Germany have now risen for three months in succession and the annual rate in March 2021 was 1 …

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Germany: Works council election

The Federal Labour Court has ruled that a works council election will be rendered invalid unless all votes are cast via a slip enclosed in a sealed envelope …

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Germany: Closing loophole

Although Works Council members are protected against dismissal during their period of office and for one year after leaving it, the same does not apply for any employee who is responsible for proposing the establishment of a works council …

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Germany: Volkswagen reaches wage deal with German workers

Under a new labour agreement between the IG Metall union and Volkswagen, around 120,000 Volkswagen employees at six plants in western German states will see their salaries rise by 2 …

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Germany: Employers obliged to offer weekly Covid testing

Under a recent regulation (SARS-CoV-ArbschV), employers must now ensure that all employees, except those who are purely home-based, are tested for COVID-19 at least once per week …

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Germany: Tax liability

Although payments for unemployment, bad weather and “short-time working” are tax free, they can be used for the calculation of total tax liability through a curious rule called the “progression proviso” …

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Germany: Amazon workers strike in call for higher wages

The high demand for home delivery services during the lockdown is encouraging logistics workers to take advantage of their strategic situation and seek higher pay …

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Germany: Electrical and metal industry agree corona premium in NRW

A collective bargaining agreement has now been signed for North Rhine-Westphalia covering 3 …

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Germany: PepsiCo distance working

PepsiCo has just signed an agreement with its works council on distance working …

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Germany: Limits to codetermination

If an employer ignores a works council when undertaking a risk assessment, may the council block the commissioning of a new plant through an injunction under codetermination rules? According to a local labour court, the works council actually only serves to ensure that a system exists for risk assessments to be carried out and that the correct regulations are followed, it is not within its powers to undertake the assessment or block the commissioning of a particular process in the absence of a final agreement [Decision of the Schleswig-Holstein State Labor Court of January 12, 2021, Az 1 TaBVGa 4/20] …

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Germany: VW to cut up jobs via early retirement

The carmaker Volkswagen is now opening up partial retirement to those born in 1964, whilst offering early retirement to those born from 1956 to 1960 …

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Germany: Language for more diversity: Audi is addressing gender

The automaker Audi is currently rolling out a policy to improve the gender-sensitive language used in company communications …

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Germany: Facts and figures about Bayer (2020)

The multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company Bayer employed 99,538 people on 31st December 2020, 23 …

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Germany: Sartorius’s company diversity policy

The life sciences company Sartorius has reported that 2020 sales revenues grew by 30 …

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