The associations reject a lower wage limit of 12 euros from October. It is unclear whether they will sue.
Around 6.2 million employees will benefit from the increase to 12 euros. Their employers will have to increase their wages by a total of 1.63 billion euros in 2022. According to Heil’s draft for the minimum wage law, the German minimum wage is currently below average in an international comparison. In view of the rising cost of living, even a full-time employee can no longer secure an “adequate livelihood”. The minimum wage is currently EUR 9.82 and will rise to EUR 10.45 from July. In addition, Heil believes that “a full-time job paid with the minimum wage is not enough to achieve a poverty-avoiding old-age pension.”
The SPD politician had also emphasized that the increase to 12 euros was about the employees who – such as cleaning staff – “kept the shop running during the pandemic”. This representation is misleading, according to the Federal Guild Association of the building cleaning trade, which has 700,000 employees. Currently you pay 11.55 euros there – almost 18 percent above the minimum wage. It has long been agreed with IG Bau to raise this rate to 12 euros in 2023. So Heil only uses “clichés instead of facts” and thus damages the “image of Germany’s most employable craft”.
Whether employers will sue against Heil’s concept remains to be seen. They had recently indicated that they might want to do this. It is also unclear whether the BDA will remain in the Minimum Wage Commission. Should she withdraw and no longer nominate anyone for the commission, it would be Heil’s turn: then he could decide for himself who to appoint to the seats that employers are entitled to on the commission. So far, it has set the minimum wage. According to Heil, it should continue to do so in the future – he only wants to push through the plus to 12 euros with the “minimum wage increase law”, which the Bundestag is supposed to pass. This will also happen because the traffic light parties had already agreed on the increase during their exploratory talks. The SPD is thus fulfilling one of its central promises in the federal election campaign. FDP Vice Johannes Vogel admits that the Liberals found it difficult to make this concession to the SPD and the Greens. In return, they got Berlin to raise the income limit for mini-jobs to 520 euros a month.