[1] On the international level IG BAU is affiliated to the global union federations BWI, IUF and UNI.

Many of the national collective agreements have been declared generally binding by the German federal government and so apply to all employers and workers in certain sectors like e.g. construction and the building cleaning trades.

Since that time IG BAU - together with sectoral national employer organisations - has created legal sectoral minimum wages for general construction [1], demolition, painting, scaffolding, roofing and building cleaning including hotel cleaning and janitors by collective agreements, which have been declared generally binding by a federal order of the federal labor ministry.

[4] On the national level IG BAU is lobbying against the planned social insurance pension age of 67 (instead of 65).

IG BAU was one of the first unions which reached out to the ecologist movement in Germany and to form strategical alliances with other NGOs.

Today, IG BAU mainly represents employees at construction companies such as Bilfinger SE and[5] Hochtief.