On Sunday, 85 percent of the delegates of the Parteikonvent of the Social Democratic Party has given the go-ahead for the start of negotiations for the formation of a grand coalition executive with Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists. On the same day on Sunday, the mini-congress of the SPD also approved a decalogue with all the points of vital importance for the successful outcome of the negotiations, which, in all likelihood, will not close before December.
First objective: the approval of a minimum wage, i.e. a minimum wage of 8,5 euros per hour valid for the whole of Germany and for each category of subordinate workers. In fact, the Federal Republic only knows minimum wages in individual sectors, which are currently set directly by the social partners through collective labor agreements and differ according to the territorial areas in which the agreements are stipulated. The minimum wage fought for by the SPD, supported in turn by the confederal trade union (DGB), would end up derogating from the agreements between the parties. Exactly what Mrs Merkel and her CDU / CSU want to avoid, leaving wage policy choices in the hands of the social partners.
In short, the chapter remains the main battleground between the CDU/CSU and SPD parties, even if the Christian-Social leader, Horst Seehofer, announced this week that he could imagine a minimum wage like the one demanded by the Social Democrats, provided that the demands for increase the tax burden on the highest incomes. The minimum wage it would affect about 6 million workers, about 17 percent of the workforce and would guarantee an increase in payroll of about 35 percent. The data were elaborated by the Berlin economic research institute DIW, which, despite traditionally taking social democratic positions, this time, together with other research institutes, is attacking the hypothesis of a minimum wage fixed by legislation.
The autumn opinion on the German economy of the main German economic institutes, in fact, contains strongly critical notes with respect to the hypothesis of a minimum wage. The risk feared by economists is in fact that the level of wages falls to the level fixed by the minimum wage and, for those companies, in which it is not sustainable, for example among small shopkeepers, massive recourse is made to the black market. According to Michael Schneider, of the University of Linz, the measure would lead the underground economy (which is currently around 340 billion euros) to increase by another one or two billion. On the other hand, the effects on state revenues are negligible, given that, Linz always maintains, the increase in undeclared work will in any case fuel domestic consumption.
