IG Metall Breaks New Ground with First Accord in German Solar Energy Sector

A first-of-a-kind collective agreement took root in Germany’s solar energy manufacturing industry on 1 September. It was then that a labour contract took effect between IG Metall and three subsidiaries of Bosch in the state of Thuringia, making it the first collective agreement in Germany’s solar power industry.

The agreement covers 2,500 workers at factories of Bosch Solar Energy AC, Bosch Solar Wafers GmbH, and Bosch Solar Thin Film in the cities of Erfurt and Arnstadt. IG Metal Hesse and Thuringia Region representatives used the effective date of the three-year agreement to distribute leaflets to workers at other solar product manufacturers in central and eastern Germany highlighting details of the Bosch accord.

Those companies include Q-cells, Conergy, and Solon, to name just a few. It is the union’s hope that the Bosch accord will spur a national collective agreement in the solar manufacturing industry, a sector now encompassing 130,000 German workers.

Labour agreements in renewable energy industries, said IG Metall Regional Secretary Armin Schild, have been “a no man’s land. This agreement hopefully will become the standard throughout the industry.”

Based on the union’s metal sector agreement, this first contract contains a bounty of benefits for workers of the three Bosch subsidiaries. Although it contains no set wage increases over the three years, workers will see their pay increase with regular bonuses, performance-based bonuses, and additional compensation for holiday and night-shift work.

The work week will be reduced with full pay from 40 to 38 hours in increments over the three-year term, and overtime work will either be paid in full or employees have the option to convert that overtime to paid time off. And apprentices completing training are assured of at least a one-year fixed-term period of employment.

The three Bosch worksites are relatively new in Thuringia, with Bosch Solar only opening the massive cell and panel plant in Arnstadt a year ago. The agreement is a trendsetting pact within Germany’s former eastern states and IG Metall deserves high accolades for achieving this milestone.