Report on Collective Bargaining Policy in Germany, 2nd Half of 2019: Conflict resolution through conciliation and mediation

In addition, in the East German metal and electrical industry, an obligation to explore possible solutions for an East-West adjustment of weekly working hours was fulfilled. Collective bargaining focuses 2019 in the first half of the year. In this half-year, the number of conflicts examined was twenty. An analysis of all conflict events during 2019 shows that the printing industry, banking, cleaning services and aviation were the most conflict-intensive sectors. However, ballots and strikes only occurred in the collective bargaining disputes over cabin crew between UFO and Lufthansa and between UFO and Eurowings. In a long-term comparison, 2019 was more conflict-intensive than the long-term average. The conflict intensity averaged 10.8 points out of 22 analyzed collective bargaining conflicts. For the period from 2005 to 2019, on the other hand, the figure is only 9.5 points. Since 2005 there have been nine years with a lower conflict intensity than in 2019, but only five years with a higher one.