Background information

For halting the spread of the COVID-19 virus, government locked down restaurants and hotels, only delivery and pick up services are allowed. The measure has an enormous impact on the employment situation of the sectoral workers.

The food, restaurant and hotel workers union NGG, an affiliate of trade union confederation DGB, negotiated with two employer organisations to address the situation - with very different results. The federal association of hotel and restaurant employers DEHOGA has rejected to negotiate an agreement on short-time work at all whereas the federal association of system caterers BdS was willing to conclude a Corona protection agreement with some favourable conditions. The new agreement came on top of a sectoral arrangement concluded by the union NGG and the employers' organisation BdS (covering 120,000 workers), agreed in early March which stipulates a wage rise up to €12 per hour until 2021.

Content of measure

The NGG-BdS Corona protection agreement aims at avoiding direct dismissals and at supporting businesses (often franchises) by settling that in case of need:

• the employers shall apply for short time working with the federal employment agency;
• that they shall raise the standard short time working allowance paid by the federal employment agency (60% of net monthly wage for workers without children, 67% for workers with children) to up to 90% of the net monthly wage; and
• that workers shall be covered by dismissal protection until two months after the end of the short-time working period.

The agreement covers about 120,000 workers represented by the affiliates of BdS, a.o. McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and Pizza Hut.

Use of measure

No data.

Contents

• Employment retention
• Income protection

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment Particular professions Workers in non-standard forms of employment	Does not apply to businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Social partners jointly	Employer National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Agreed (outcome) incl. social partner initiative	Agreed (outcome) incl. social partner initiative
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Social partners jointly
• Main level of involvement: Sectoral or branch level

Involvement

Negotiated agreement.

Views and reactions

Agreed by NGG and BdS.

Sectors and occupations

Sources

• 17 March 2020: Corona-Schutz-Tarifvertrag (www.bundesverband-systemgastronomie.de)
• 20 March 2020: Personalpartnerschaft McDonalds-Aldi (www.haufe.de)
• 24 November 2020: Extension of the corona protection agreement (www.ngg.net)