Post by Gerrit Goedecke

When I took over at VKS – Association of the Potash and Salt Industry, nobody mentioned the climate requirements for labour relations. I had expected collective agreement issues, wording questions and the occasional difficult topic. I had not expected air conditioning to be the first silent consensus in the room. Yesterday we had one of our regular “Tarifgespräche” with the employee side. This is not a formal wage negotiation, but a format the social partners in our industry have established to talk through questions that come up around collective agreements. Sometimes a sentence that looked clear when it was negotiated becomes a bit less clear once it meets real life. Sometimes new questions come up. And sometimes both sides just need to understand how things are actually working in practice. Most of the time, we do not agree immediately. It would be strange if employer and employee representatives always did. But I appreciate that the tone is constructive, the discussions stay focused on real-world solutions, and there is mutual respect in the room. In the end, we all sit in the same boat: the German potash and salt industry. We may have different roles in that boat, and we may not always agree on how exactly to steer it. But we all want it to float well. With more than 35°C outside, we also agreed on something much faster: without air conditioning, this meeting would probably not have happened. Some consensus is easier than others. #SocialPartnership #Potash #Salt #Germany