Further improvements in employment conditions

On January 1, 2018, the second phase of the collective wage increase from the 2016/2017 collective bargaining agreement process came into effect. Employees had previously been able to decide for themselves how they wanted to take this second stage under a new type of elective model: as a pay increase of 2.62%, as a reduction in working hours of one hour per week or as six days’ additional vacation. A total of 58% of employees chose additional vacation, 40% chose the pay increase and 2% chose the reduction in working hours.

Forward-looking collective bargaining

The collective wage agreements from the 2016/2017 collective bargaining process with the EVG and the Train Drivers’ Union (Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer; GDL) expired on September 30, 2018. Negotiations on the 2018 collective bargaining process began in October 2018, covering about 160,000 DB employees in Germany.

On December 14, 2018 DB Group reached a collective bargaining agreement with the EVG: this comprised two-stage wage increases of 3.5% on July 1, 2019 and 2.6% on July 1, 2020. In addition, a one-off payment of € 1,000 will be made for the periode October 2018 until June 2019. On January 1, 2021 employees will once again be given the option of more leisure time or vacation instead of the second stage of the increase. The package as a whole also includes significant improvements for young professionals and new innovative options. For example, in the future DB em­­ployees will be able to choose to convert overtime hours into company pension contributions.

The collective wage agreements apply with retroactive effect from October 1, 2018 to February 28, 2021 and therefore have a term of 29 months.

On January 4, 2019 a collective wage agreement was also reached with the GDL.