The good news first: the German minimum wage of 8.50 Euros will rise to 8.84 by January 2017.
But, there are still plenty of exceptions to the minimum wage for some of the most crucial low wage sectors, including the meat processing industry, farming and forestry, industrial laundries, and the East German textile and garment industry. Workers in these sectors will receive the minimum wage starting 1 January 2018.
The dire warnings of massive job losses during the heated debates on minimum wage a few years ago have proven baseless, and some 4 million workers have benefited from the measure introduced only in 2015 - longer after other industrialized countries.
The blogster, with it's* skewed view of the world, has pointed out earlier that Germany did have a minimum wage before. Just not for low wage workers. But lawyers, architects, tax counselors and others had generous fee schedules written into law many decades ago. Other professions, for example pharmacists, enjoyed price fixing by the government under the ostensible label of avoiding price gouging.
Be that as it may, Germany now has a real minimum wage.
For anybody who has followed the fate of minimum wage in other countries, it comes as no surprise that something so simple and fundamentally reasonable would continue to be under attack even if successful.
The biggest foe, of course, is the combination of inflation and an absence of review or any set provision of increase.
The double whammy has worked out swell for the United States, where minimum wages have not kept up with inflation and increases are being rejected or vetoed regularly. Despite partial successes in Washington State and, to a lesser degree New York, U.S. workers continue to struggle.
Germany set up a review commission to avoid the most egregious attacks.
The commission is composed of three union representatives, three employer organization representatives, two scientists and a chairperson who serve five year terms and review the minimum wage every two years.
Members are recommended by the unions and employers respectively, but appointed by the government. This does give future governments a lot of leeway to influence the direction of the minimum wage.
Furthermore, increases are not automatic or have a minimum threshold, say the inflation rate.
Opponents of a minimum wage will likely try to exploit the potential openings created by the law but do not have the easy "do nothing to make it go away" option.
Instead, they warned about detrimental effects on employment during the decision on the raise, and even after the 0.34 cents hike, they lamented that it might cost jobs.
One area where the interests of the government matches that of the foes of a minimum wage has been that of compensation of unemployed Germans put into work schemes.
Officially touted as a measure to help long term unemployed regain a foothold in the jobs market, they offer 1 Euro per hour. The government has announced the creation of another 100 000 or so of these "opportunities", mainly justified as measures to help refugees find regular jobs.
An often overlooked advantage of the 1 E/hour measures is that they reduce the unemployment rate. Participants are not counted as unemployed.
Some employers have used more creative measures to soften or erase the labor cost increase. Among reported examples are increases in the cost of accommodation and food, typically for seasonal workers who live at the place of work for a few months.
Other - completely legal - measures include the elimination of voluntary compensation, such as a gasoline or commute allowance or small adjustments to shift or night time hours to circumvent thresholds for extra compensation (such as the times 1.5 rule).
Last but not least, there is the argument of undue administrative burden on employers. Not recording the number of hours correctly has a long tradition in may sectors. So, it comes as no surprise that the partly successful fight against "too much paperwork" has figured prominently among the opponents of a minimum wage.
* Gender neutrality works, try it.
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