Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

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Important components of the TV DEMO

Implementation and Assessment of the TV DEMO

Further bargaining policy tools

Important components of the TV DEMO

The TV DEMO is applicable to 550,000 employees working in 1,900 enterprises in the chemical industry. It obliges the companies covered to conduct a demographic analysis and to provide information concerning the policy changes a business must make, as well as to use the analysis as the basis for further planning. The personnel policy challenges for the future will be examined on the basis of the results. Employers and works councils will discuss to what extent and at what time personnel policy action is required and what steps should be taken. There are several topics of personnel practice that need to be considered in connection with demographic trends. Examples of crucial focal issues are cited in the TV DEMO:

• Work organisation: In order to prolong working life, suitable framework conditions must be provided for aging- and age-appropriate work design (methods, procedures, healthy work and shift planning/work time models). These include on the one hand the preservation of working capacity throughout one's career (aging appropriate) and on the other hand specific aspects that can affect older employees (age appropriate).
• Workplace health promotion: Workplace health promotion has the purpose of improving health on the job. Its aim is both the healthy designing of work processes through optimisation of work organisation and the working environment, as well as through incentives for health-conscious behaviour on the part of employees (such as health days, or sports opportunities).
• Encouraging and demanding ongoing training in order to preserve and update the abilities and competencies of employees: With the TV DEMO, employers and works councils are given the possibility, in the form of a contractual offer, to further promote employee training, an important topic in the chemical industry, and to tailor it to company-specific needs. To a large extent, the existing arrangements from the 2003 collective training agreement are included here. In addition to the application of qualification planning and the training measures deriving from it, principles of cost-sharing (time and money) are set forth with consideration given to company and individual benefits. The contribution of the employees themselves (in the case of more or mainly individual rather than company benefit) is generally in the shape of time; the time shares can be taken as time credits from long-term accounts.
• Ensuring the transfer of experience and knowledge in enterprises: In order to prevent an extensive drain of knowledge from the enterprises in the coming years, targeted knowledge transfer between the generations of employees in enterprises should be promoted for a functioning system of knowledge management in addition to IT solutions. 
• Demography fund: The employers shall make available an annual demography sum of 300 euros per pay-scale employee of the enterprise concerned. This sum shall increase by the percentage of the wage scale increase of the previous year on 1 January each year (starting on 1 January 2011). The company's demography fund can be used for the tools of long-term accounts, partial retirement, partial pension, supplementary occupational disability insurance for the chemical industry (BUC), or contractual retirement arrangements, and these tools can be combined with one another.

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Implementation and Assessment of the TV DEMO

Under the terms of the TV DEMO the demographic analysis was to be carried out by 31 December 2009. About 90% of the enterprises met the deadline; the others were finished by the middle of 2010. Management and the works councils were equally responsible for the assessment of the analysis. The enterprises had to come to an agreement with the works council about the fields of action and measures as well as the utilisation of the demography fund. As a rule, the points agreed on were set forth in a company agreement.

A foundation set up jointly by management and labour, the "Chemie-Stiftung Sozialpartner-Akademie" (Chemical Foundation Management-Labour Academy, CSSA) published the results of a study on the implementation of the TV DEMO in January.¹  The survey showed that the majority of the 360 enterprises polled see demographic change as a serious challenge. The relative importance of the fields of action is made clear by the survey.

Those with high priority are:

• Retain or increase the number of training places offered,
• Organise company succession planning,
• Design ergonomically optimised workplaces,
• Take the capabilities of (older) employees into consideration,
• Employ health checks and programmes to promote physical activity,
• Knowledge transfer: systematic familiarisation times, mixed-age learning and working groups, job rotation.

A differentiation must be made when assessing the success of the TV DEMO from the vantage-point of today: certain weaknesses became apparent in the course of its implementation. For example, the quality of the demographic analyses varied widely. In addition to age distribution, the level of qualification of the employee groups by functional area and the various activity levels or levels of the hierarchy were to be surveyed, and these were not always seen with the necessary discernment. Similarly, little is known about to what extent or in what quality action takes place or is arranged to promote knowledge transfer between departing employees and the younger employees who remain.

In order to conduct a more detailed analysis of qualification needs on the basis of the age distribution analysis that was carried out, or at least to move closer to the topic, the IG BCE is offering to support its works council bodies with a network of continuing training advisers. In this project, subsidised by the ESF, the advisers conduct workshops with the works councils concerned, and with management if desired, to identify the steps that are necessary and appropriate.

Independent of the existing weaknesses in the implementation of the collective agreement, this qualitative bargaining policy approach has on the whole been a great success. The demography discussion in the chemical industry has been carried over from global considerations into the concrete company situation. It is not just a matter of sensitising; the pressure for individual company action was quite clearly identified. With the TV DEMO the first major steps were taken towards being able to better cope with demographic change. The task now is to move the activities from the level of an initial project to that of an ongoing process.

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Further bargaining policy tools

Management and labour in the chemical industry have developed other collective bargaining tools besides the TV DEMO to counter the imminent shortage of skilled labour.

• In the Collective Agreement on "Future through Training" the continuation of training activities at a high level until 2013 was put down in writing. Nine thousand training places per year will be made available.
• Under the Collective Agreement "Career Start", preparatory measures for vocational education and training for youthful underachievers are being offered and funded, 80% of which culminate in an apprenticeship.
• The Collective Agreement "Bridge to Employment", adopted last year in response to the financial and economic crisis, offers support from an incentive fund for enterprises that grant fixed-term employment to young people in order to substantially heighten the employment prospects of those young people by providing them with the relevant job experience.

Although monetary targets were clearly in the foreground in the 2011 round of collective bargaining, management and labour in the chemical industry continue to regard qualitative design elements as meaningful and essential for coping with special challenges.

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Last modified on: June 16, 2011