Tariffs – Frankfurt am Main – collective agreement brings double-digit salary increases – economy
Frankfurt / Main (dpa) – At Lufthansa, further strikes by ground staff are off the table. The company and the Verdi union agreed on Thursday evening on a collective agreement with a term of 18 months. It provides for around 20,000 salary increases of at least 325 euros plus a further increase of 2.5 percent, as both sides reported.
According to Verdi, this results in salary increases of between 13.6 and 18.4 percent for individual employees at the check-in. Lufthansa even spoke of increases of 19.2 percent in the lowest salary bracket.
Verdi negotiator Christine Behle praised the result, which was not made dependent on Lufthansa profits. You: “The result includes inflation compensation and an additional increase in real wages. It was important to us to achieve this real compensation in order to secure them in this economically difficult situation.”
Lufthansa Chief Human Resources Officer Michael Niggemann clearly showed that he could now come to an agreement with the pilots. Of the degree for ground staff, he said: “It was important for us to give disproportionate attention to the lower and middle income groups. In this way, we meet our social responsibility for our employees and ensure our attractiveness as an employer.”
The talks were preceded by a nationwide warning strike on Wednesday last week, which paralyzed almost all of Lufthansa’s flight schedule. Lufthansa costs around 35 million euros, as CFO Remco Steenbergen explained. In the event of non-agreement, the Verdi negotiator had already threatened further industrial action during the peak travel season.
For a period of twelve months, the union had consistently demanded salary increases of 9.5 percent, but at least 350 euros a month. The group originally wanted to make the increase in July 2023, which was now unconditionally granted, dependent on profit. Verdi successfully fired this pairing. The company had declared in the morning that it was capable of an operating profit of 500 million euros again this year.
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