Wage gap between East and West: DGB calls for more collective bargaining in East Germany

dpa | On the upcoming Day of German Unity, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) accuses the coalition of not making enough commitment to equal wages in East and West. According to calculations by the Federal Statistical Office for the DGB, full-time employees in the East will earn an average of 19.6 percent (12,415 euros) less per year in 2025 than in the West, as information available to the German Press Agency shows.

The trade union federation therefore called for more collective bargaining in the East. This is necessary so that the unit finally gets on the pay slip, said the deputy DGB chairman Stefan Körzell to the dpa.

Public funding should only flow to companies that pay according to the tariff, demanded Körzell. Despite a law for greater collective bargaining that came into force in the spring, some federal companies do not have a collective agreement, as the government announced in July in response to a request from the Left. In most federal companies, conditions based on collective agreements apply, but others do not have this either.

Körzell demanded: “Tariff compliance must also apply to companies with federal participation.” Digital access to employees in companies is also long overdue. It should also be easier to make collective agreements generally binding for entire sectors. “This is the only way we can make faster progress in equalizing wages,” said the DGB deputy head.

The statistical figures show that collective agreements make a particularly big difference in the East. Accordingly, full-time employees there with a collective agreement earn on average around 13,295 euros more per year than without such a contract. Although collective bargaining coverage in the East increased by three percentage points from 2024 to 2025, it is still only 45 percent. In West Germany, 50 percent of employees work in a collectively agreed company.