German chancellor Merkel rejects minimum wage for postal employees this year

German chancellor Angela Merkel told newspaper Handelsblatt she has rejected a move by her Social Democratic (SPD) coalition partners to create a minimum wage for employees in the postal sector this year.

However, she said companies in the sector could request to have their industry included in the minimum wage codex by March next year.

‘Inclusion in the wage codex assumes that various competitors can agree amongst themselves,’ she added

But the newspaper added that an intra-industry agreement was unlikely, because several competitors pay considerably lower wages than the former state monopoly, Deustche Post AG.

The SPD wants to create a minimum wage for the industry’s workers, whose wages it maintains are under threat from foreign competitors active in Germany.