Frankfurt am Main – The first nationwide week of warning strikes in the collective bargaining dispute in the metal and electrical industry is coming to a close with a high level of worker mobilization: Despite the coronavirus and the associated restrictions, more than 227,300 workers participated in the warning strikes from Tuesday (midnight) through Friday (2:00 p.m.), with well over 500 actions taking place. Their goal was to underscore their collective bargaining demands and thus persuade employers to make a fair offer. IG Metall views the high turnout as a clear sign of its ability to take action even during the pandemic.
Today, Friday, 52,100 workers from more than 200 companies nationwide heeded IG Metall’s call for a warning strike (as of 2:00 p.m.). On Friday afternoon and evening, additional companies and shifts will begin their warning strikes. The number of participants from Thursday had also risen by nearly 12,000 workers by late Thursday evening.
The focus of today’s warning strikes was in the Baden-Württemberg district. There, around 29,330 workers from 90 companies briefly walked off the job. This marked the peak so far of the warning strikes in the southwest. Approximately 200 workers took part in a protest march at the Tuttlingen-based medical technology company Aesculap. In addition, workers at numerous companies ended their shifts early: around 4,000 at ZF in Friedrichshafen, approximately 1,900 at SEW Eurodrive in Bruchsal, about 1,000 at E.G.O. Elektro-Geräte in Oberderdingen, and around 10,000 at Mercedes-Benz in Sindelfingen.
In the Bavaria district, 11,300 workers from nearly 50 companies went on strike. A regional focus of today’s warning strikes was the Upper Palatinate. At the Siemens appliance plant in Amberg alone, 1,260 workers had walked off the job by noon today. Additional shifts will follow there.
Approximately 4,770 workers went on warning strike in the IG Metall Central District (Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia, Saarland). Twenty-six plants were affected here. Workers from all federal states in the district participated, some by leaving work early and others by holding rallies in front of the factory gates.
About 3,690 workers in the North Rhine-Westphalia district went on a brief walkout. Five hundred Gestamp employees took part in a socially distanced rally in Bielefeld. A total of 270 workers attended drive-in-style rallies in Lüdenscheid, and 100 in Schwerte. The largest early-closing action took place at Schmitz Cargobull in Altenberge and Horstmar, with a total of 1,000 participants.
In the IG Metall district of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt , approximately 2,840 metalworkers from 25 plants heeded IG Metall’s call for a warning strike.
In the Berlin-Brandenburg and Saxony district, around 150 workers from 4 companies temporarily stopped work. In Berlin, about 120 workers from GE Power, Stadler Deutschland, and Stadler Rail Service took part in a rolling warning strike. At noon, they took their protest to the streets in more than 60 cars. Starting in Pankow, they drove in a motorcade to the Haus der Wirtschaft in Charlottenburg.
The Coastal District ( Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg, and Bremen) had not called for a warning strike today.
In this round of collective bargaining, IG Metall is demanding a “future package” for the more than 3.8 million employees in the metal and electrical industries, including job security, forward-looking collective bargaining agreements for companies, and wage stabilization. Specifically, IG Metall is calling for a 4 percent increase, which, depending on the situation at individual companies, can be used to boost wages and apprenticeship stipends or to finance job security measures. “Future collective bargaining agreements” are intended to identify tailored solutions for individual companies that include commitments to investment, locations, employment, and training.
Further information on the collective bargaining round
