Bosch bonuses highlight Germany’s wage divide – Bild – RT Business News
Workers in the east still earn less than their colleagues in the west, decades after reunification
German engineering giant Bosch faced public outrage this week over the uneven distribution of inflation-fighting bonuses it paid to workers, Bild reported on Wednesday. The tax-free payments of €3,000 ($3,250) are part of the German government’s third relief package intended to lessen the impact of soaring consumer prices.
According to the report, Bosch distributed the bonuses to its employees in the western regions of the country, including its semiconductor plant in Reutlingen. However, some 500 company workers at its factory in Dresden, in the state of Saxony, have not been paid. German union IG Metall and Dresden Bosch workers staged a protest outside the company’s headquarters on Tuesday.
“I think it is absurd that a company as big as Bosch takes hundreds of millions of subsidies for Dresden, but does not respect the agreements. We are currently negotiating the inflation compensation for many metal companies in Saxony – and it is largely paid. What Bosch is doing is shameful!“, union representative Stefan Ehly told Bild.
Chairman of the Dresden works council, Markus Gunia, noted that the situation only highlights the inequality of working conditions between the west and the east of the country which still persists some three decades after German reunification in October 1990.
“Pay inequality between East and West, which has persisted for more than 30 years, is a common practice… We do not receive Christmas allowances, holidays or other performance-related remuneration,he said, noting that Bosch workers in Dresden have to work 5 hours more per week than their colleagues in Reutlingen, and have “much lower wages.”
“Employees stick to their demand for equal treatment at Bosch sites… Democracy and co-determination in working conditions must not stop at the border of the Saxon state,” he added.
Responding to workers’ complaints, the commercial manager of the Bosch Dresden plant, Marek Jakowatz, said the company had decided not to pay inflation bonuses to workers at the plant due to the increase. salary they had received at the beginning of the year.
According to reports published in March by recruitment platform Stepstone, workers in the former East Germany earn on average 15% less than their counterparts in the west of the country. The median salary in the eastern states, excluding Berlin, is €38,700, while in West Germany it is €45,500.
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