Wage Negotiations, German Retail Workers Strike

JAKARTA - Thousands of retail and trade sector workers across Germany are scheduled to go on strike on Friday after wage negotiations with employers were deadlocked.

The United Workers of Service (Ver.di) has called on workers in the retail, wholesale and foreign trade sectors to resume national strikes to increase pressure on employers in the ongoing collective bargaining process.

Centralized protest actions are scheduled to take place in a number of major trade centers, including Berlin, Dortmund, Wiesbaden, Hanover, Oldenburg, Braunschweig, and Hamburg.

Ver.di's Federal Executive Board member for the trade sector, Silke Zimmer, accused employers of deliberately slowing down the negotiations.

"Entrepreneurs are again trying to buy time in this round of negotiations. Therefore, we will increase the pressure again," said Zimmer as quoted by ANTARA, Friday, July 3.

He said the employers only submitted a proposal that was slightly better after more than 25 rounds of negotiations in all 16 retail sector negotiation areas.

According to him, the offer still resulted in a real wage reduction and still contained a "zero month", which is the waiting period before the first salary increase takes effect.

Ver.di said that retail sector employers offered a wage increase of 2.4 percent which took effect on November 1, 2026, followed by an additional increase of 2 percent starting August 1, 2027 in a two-year work agreement.

However, the trade union rejected the offer because it was considered inadequate.

In the wholesale and foreign trade sectors, Zimmer said business people had not yet made better offers despite having held 35 rounds of negotiations in 20 regions since May 18.

"This deadlocked situation forces fellow workers who even have difficulty meeting their own shopping needs to take to the streets," he said.

Ver.di demands a 7 percent wage increase for workers, with a minimum increase of 225 euros or around 258 US dollars per month (around Rp4.6 million) in a 12-month work agreement.

The trade union said the trade sector employs more than 5.2 million people in Germany, making it the largest private sector in the country.

The next round of talks for the retail sector is scheduled to take place on Monday in the state of Hesse as well as the Lower Saxony-Bremen negotiating region. Meanwhile, negotiations for the wholesale trade sector will continue on Friday next week in Baden-Württemberg.