John Hooper in Berlin Tuesday May 7, 2002 The Guardian
The first big strikes in Germany for seven years began yesterday, despite warnings that they could cause Germany's - and Europe's - tentative economic recovery to wither on the vine.
IG Metall, the country's biggest industrial union, is pressing for a wage rise of 6.5% for engineering workers at a time when inflation has fallen to 1.8% and is forecast to drop even further. The settlements the union achieves are often regarded as benchmarks by negotiators in other sectors, and economists have warned that any settlement above 3.5% could encourage the European Central Bank to put up interest rates.
The strikes also have an important political dimension. The chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and his Social Democrat party are banking on an improvement in the economic situation before the general election in September.
Michael Rogowski, head of the Federation of German Industry, the country's main employers' body, has described the union's demands as "madness" while some economists argue that any settlement above 4% threatens more than 100,000 jobs. But IG Metall's leaders have argued that their members deserve significantly more than inflation because of a moderate deal reached two years ago.
"We are not on strike against Schröder ... or against anyone," IG Metall's chairman, Klaus Zwickel, said yesterday. "We are on strike for a good result."
Pay deals are hammered out region by region in Germany. Yesterday's strikes focused on the area round Stuttgart, home to many of Europe's biggest car manufacturers. DaimlerChrysler, Porsche and Audi were all hit. In the first of a planned series of rolling one-day stoppages, more than 50,000 workers were expected to down tools or stay at home.
Talks broke down last month after the union rejected an offer from the employers of a 3.3% pay rise over 15 months plus a one-off payment of ?190 (£120), slightly better than the settlement reached by chemical workers. The union lowered its demand to about 4% during the talks, but reinstated its full demand after they collapsed.
Outside DaimlerChrysler's main Mercedes-Benz car plant in the town of Sindelfingen, Jürgen Peters, IG Metall's vice-chairman, began the morning dancing the conga with workers chanting "6.5%, 6.5%".
Picket lines were established outside some 20 plants. A union statement said that, by noon, 30,000 workers from night and early shifts had joined the action. IG Metall said more strikes later this week by 25,000 workers would target another 50 firms.
Berthold Huber, IG Metall's regional leader, told a crowd outside the gleaming Porsche plant in the Stuttgart suburb of Zuffenhausen: "The employers have to stop making workers beg."
Yet for all the sound and apparent fury on both sides, this was shaping up as a very German strike. IG Metall said it had taken steps to mitigate the impact on weaker companies and make sure it did not lead to lay-offs among workers at supplier firms. At Porsche, where the cost in terms of lost sales was put at ?10m (£6.3m), a spokesman said the company could make it all up over the next few weeks by boosting production. "A one-day strike is not a problem for us", he said.
Mr Schröder, anxious not to alienate his party's natural supporters in the run-up to an election, has expressed little more than mild regret over IG Metall's campaign.
"I hope there can be a speedy return to the negotiating table and that an outcome can be reached that is reasonable for the economy but also takes into consideration the expectations of the employees," he said in an interview published yesterday.