The negotiating committees of Deutsche Telekom and the trade union ver.di have laid the foundations for T-Service. In Bad Neuenahr today, Wednesday, they agreed to a package to resolve the labor dispute that will considerably boost the company's competitiveness.
"If ver.di's members agree to the compromise we will generate more competitive cost structures, promote service culture in the company, and therefore safeguard service jobs in the long term," said Chief Human Resources Officer and Labor Director Thomas Sattelberger.
The key points of the agreement are the extension of weekly working hours from 34 to 38 hours without a salary increase and the socially-conscious adjustment of salaries including increased performance-related elements (variabilization). Of the additional four hours, each employee will invest half an hour per week in service qualification measures from 2008. This is part of a broad service drive. In addition, employees who stand out through performance, personal commitment and expertise will be encouraged with service careers in future.
The measures taken to make working hours more flexible to improve service include making Saturday a regular working day in future. The more flexible working hours and the 38-hour arrangement will save the Group costs amounting to hundreds of millions of euros as the outsourcing of work to external service providers can be reduced.
Service employees' salaries are being cut by 6.5 percent to a more competitive level. The cut in salaries is being cushioned step-by-step in a socially-conscious manner over a period of 42 months with funds set aside for the purpose, similar to a social plan.
The compensatory payments will be 100 percent in the first 18 months, 66 percent for the next twelve months, and 33 percent for the subsequent twelve months. The compensatory payments will cease on December 31, 2010.
The negotiating delegations agreed to conditions for taking on junior staff from Deutsche Telekom's own apprenticeship programs in particular as part of an "employment bridge.” Starting salaries will be between EUR 21,400 and EUR 23,200 in future.
The salary cut, the pay freeze and the lower level of starting salaries will allow Deutsche Telekom to save hundreds of millions of euros.
The result of the collective negotiations puts Deutsche Telekom well within its target range for planned savings of EUR 0.5 billion to EUR 0.9 billion in 2010 and means it can safeguard around 50,000 jobs within the Group.
Protection against outsourcing was agreed until the end of 2010; protection against redundancy until the end of 2012. "This protection against redundancy for more than 5 years gives our employees a high level of security," said Sattelberger.
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