German coalition fails to agree on nat'l minimum wage

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BERLIN, June 19 (AFP): Germany's ruling coalition parties failed to agree on introducing a national minimum wage after seven hours of talks that ended early today.
"There will not be an overall minimum wage," said Volker Kauder, head of the parliamentary group of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union party.
However they agreed with their Social Democrat partners to expand the list of sectors that will have a minimum wage set.
Some 10 to 12 sectors will have a minimum wage set, according to Social Democrat Party chief Kurt Beck, who had been pushing for months for the introduction of a national minimum wage with the support of unions.
The issue has been one of the main bones of contention between Germany's governing parties.
Germany is one of the few European Union countries which does not have a national minimum wage.
The first sectoral minimum wage was introduced only several years ago for cleaning staff, in order to protect the many Polish, Czech and Romanian immigrants who had taken the low- paying jobs.