From left: Free Democratic Party (FDP) faction leader Rainer Bruederle. German economy minister, vice-chancellor and party chairman, Philipp Roesler, vice-chairwoman of the party, Birgit Homburger and development minister Dirk Niebel attend a meeting of the FDP in Stuttgart, southern Germany, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. Germany's embattled vice chancellor is battling to quell speculation about his leadership of the country's junior governing party, whose dire poll ratings are a complicating factor in Chancellor Angela Merkel's bid for re-election. Philipp Roesler, who's also Germany's economy minister, appealed to his pro-market Free Democratic Party on Sunday to show unity ahead of a state election in his home region of Lower Saxony on Jan. 20, an important political test ahead of national elections in September. (AP Photo/dpa/ Bernd Weißbrod)
German state employees win 5.6 percent raise
Published: 12:54:56 PM, Sat 09 March 2013 UTC
BERLIN (AP) — Some 800,000 employees of Germany's state governments have won a pay increase totaling 5.6 percent over two years.
The pay deal for employees including police officers, firefighters and workers at ministries in all but one of Germany's 16 states was concluded Saturday.
It features a 2.65 percent pay rise backdated to Jan. 1, to be followed next January by a further 2.95 percent increase. That's above Germany's 1.5 percent annual inflation rate but well short of unions' initial demand for a 6.5 percent raise over one year.
Germany's economy has grown in recent years while many other European countries have struggled. The growth has fueled calls for big pay rises after years of relative restraint; last March, federal and municipal employees won a 6.3 percent raise staggered over two years.
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