The employer association Gesamtmetall has sharply criticized the coalition parties’ agreement on the federal “Tariff Loyalty Act”.
“This law is utterly impractical; it slows down and increases the cost of public procurement at the expense of taxpayers and, based on experience with state tariff loyalty laws, is hardly suitable for achieving higher tariff binding” said Oliver Zander, the association’s CEO, in an interview with “Handelsblatt” (Wednesday edition). He described the new legislation as “an organised lack of responsibility on the part of the coalition, passing such a law during the country’s longest economic crisis”.
Zander pointed out that during the recent CDU party conference, “nearly every speech on the economic situation called for reducing bureaucracy and even imposed a two‑year bureaucratic moratorium”. Yet, he noted, the parliament plans to pass the federal tariff loyalty law this week, repeating all the mistakes of the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act: mistrust of the private sector, absurd bureaucratic procedures, excessive reporting obligations, and new supervisory authorities.
The association claims the law is constitutionally questionable. It allegedly discriminates against home‑tariff contracts-and thus also against tariff provisions for companies in distress. Moreover, it is said to discriminate against domestic firms because foreign companies would not be required to comply if they manufacture abroad. The law, according to Gesamtmetall, also creates unquantifiable liability risks within supply chains.
