Frankfurt am Main – At the start of the fourth round of negotiations in the collective bargaining dispute in the metal and electrical industries, IG Metall has massively expanded the warning strikes. By early afternoon (2:00 p.m.), nearly 170,000 workers from 785 companies had participated in brief work stoppages, rallies, and warning strike actions. Since the end of the peace obligation, approximately 910,000 workers nationwide have gone on strike, IG Metall announced Wednesday in Frankfurt. “Over 900,000 warning strikers are making a powerful statement: Metalworkers are fighting for their demands,” said Jörg Hofmann, President of IG Metall. Further warning strike actions are planned throughout the afternoon and evening.
The focus was on Baden-Württemberg, where the fourth round of negotiations began at noon. There, more than 54,000 workers from 343 companies underscored their collective bargaining demands with warning strikes and rallies. In Neckarsulm, around 7,500 metalworkers from Audi, Kolbenschmidt, and KS Huayu Alutech gathered for a rally. In Mannheim, around 4,000 workers attended rallies, and in Stuttgart-Feuerbach, more than 2,600 workers did the same. More than 20 IG Metall local chapters across the state organized days of action, rallies, and demonstrations.
Metalworkers are fighting for their demands
In the Küste district, nearly 44,000 workers from 150 companies took part in warning strikes, demonstrations, and rallies as part of the Küste Day of Action. In Hamburg, 4,500 warning strikers from several companies—including Airbus, Mercedes, Diehl, and Still—gathered for a rally with Jörg Hofmann. In Northwest Lower Saxony, approximately 5,600 metalworkers from 35 companies took part in warning strikes. Among them were workers from the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg and from Premium Aerotec in Nordenham.
More than 28,000 metalworkers from 33 companies took part in warning strikes and rallies in Bavaria . In Ingolstadt, 17,500 workers from Audi and 15 other companies went on a warning strike. At a rally in Ingolstadt, Christiane Benner, Second Chair of IG Metall, spoke to well over 15,000 participants. At BMW’s main plant in Munich, 4,000 early-shift workers temporarily stopped work, and in Lohr, 2,200 Bosch-Rexroth workers briefly went on strike.
High Level of Mobilization
In North Rhine-Westphalia , approximately 20,000 workers from 162 companies temporarily stopped work. In Düsseldorf, a total of 4,000 workers took part in two rallies and a march to the North Rhine-Westphalia Association of the Metal and Electrical Industry. In Mönchengladbach, 2,000 workers from 12 companies took part in a demonstration and rally.
In the Central District ( Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Thuringia), around 11,000 workers from about 50 companies heeded IG Metall’s call. In Kaiserslautern, Irene Schulz, executive board member of IG Metall, addressed more than 1,800 demonstrators from seven companies in the region. In Offenbach, Hans-Jürgen Urban, an executive board member of IG Metall, spoke at a rally to more than 1,300 workers. A rally was held in Speyer with nearly 1,500 metalworkers. More than 2,200 workers demonstrated in Saarland in support of their collective bargaining demands.
Warning strikes, rallies, and demonstrations
In the Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt district, approximately 7,500 workers from 36 plants heeded IG Metall’s call for warning strikes, rallies, and demonstrations.
In the IG Metall Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony district, over 1,700 metalworkers from 12 companies temporarily walked off the job.
