[NY Times] July 9, 2003 A German Union Takes Stock By MARK LANDLER
FRANKFURT, July 8 - The leaders of Germany's most formidable labor union, IG Metall, gathered today in Frankfurt to sift through the wreckage of an aborted strike last month in eastern Germany.
Judging by the war of words between the union's top officials, the meeting may end up being not just a battle for the future of a union, but a milestone in the history of organized labor in Germany.
At issue is whether IG Metall's vice chairman, Jürgen Peters, misled his fellow board members about the bare-knuckle tactics he planned to use to push for a shorter workweek in eastern Germany.
Beyond the finger-pointing, however, labor experts here said IG Metall would have to confront a sobering reality: its militant style has less and less place in a country with high unemployment, a chronically sick economy and a population no longer tolerant of old remedies for problems.
"This could be a turning point for the labor movement in Germany," said Klaus F. Zimmermann, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. "I don't think it is the end of collective bargaining, but it will definitely change the face of the labor movement."
IG Metall's campaign in eastern Germany was supposed to force manufacturers, through brief strikes, to shorten the workweek to 35 hours from 38, in line with factories in western Germany. The union's departing chairman, Klaus Zwickel, accused Mr. Peters of deceiving the executive board by scheduling longer strikes that were calculated to disrupt assembly lines in western Germany.
Mr. Peters, who has been expected to succeed Mr. Zwickel this fall, has absorbed most of the blame for the four-week strike, which was called off June 28 after the union acknowledged that it had alienated many Germans. The strike forced Volkswagen and BMW to halt production.
IG Metall's setback comes amid a bleak season for organized labor in Europe. Nationwide strikes in France have not deterred the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin from pursuing an overhaul of pension laws; the previous French government buckled on the issue.
In Germany, the huge Verdi union signed contracts with the city of Berlin and Deutsche Post, the German postal service, which were regarded as unusually favorable to the employers. An umbrella group for Germany's unions, the DGB, recently retreated from its threat to mobilize national opposition to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's effort to overhaul the economy.
In Austria, the Parliament approved a pension overhaul plan despite the first major strikes there in a generation.
"The problems are not unique to Germany; you find them all over Europe," said Michael Fichter, the executive director of the Center for Labor Studies at the Free University of Berlin. As Europe's markets become more open, he said, unions are being viewed as an obstacle to competitiveness.
In postwar Germany, blessed by steady economic growth, relations between workers and industry had historically been harmonious. Representatives of workers' councils sit on the supervisory boards of German companies. Strikes, while not unheard of, were unusual.
That began to change last year, when IG Metall, which represents 2.7 million metalworkers, called a wave of strikes in a demand for a 6.5 percent increase in wages. German industry settled the dispute two weeks later by offering a raise of roughly 4 percent.
The strike left a sour taste on both sides. Employers said wage deals negotiated across industries - a trademark of German labor relations - were too inflexible. Workers were unhappy because their real wages were stagnating, as factories shifted more production overseas.
IG Metall, whose roots extend back to 1891, has lost nearly a million members in the last decade because of the exodus of heavy industry out of Germany. Its eroding power base intensified the jockeying within the union to succeed Mr. Zwickel, its longtime boss.
Mr. Peters narrowly defeated Berthold Huber last April to be designated the heir to Mr. Zwickel. Mr. Peters, who runs the union's collective-bargaining division, is considered more militant than Mr. Huber, who runs its chapter in Baden-Württemberg, the home of DaimlerChrysler and Porsche.
"They nominated a hard-liner, and he wanted to make a statement in eastern Germany," said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank. "A clever union leader would have held back."
In retrospect, eastern Germany was the wrong place for IG Metall to take a stand. Mr. Zimmermann estimates that only 30 percent of the workers there are under collective-bargaining contracts. Many workers, he said, feared that the union's demands would imperil their jobs.
"One of the few advantages of the east is the workers are willing to work longer than workers in the west," Mr. Zimmermann said. "If you give that up, you lose your competitiveness."
The strikes proved even more unpopular elsewhere in Germany. DaimlerChrysler, BMW and Volkswagen had to shut down assembly lines because of a lack of parts. People in the west felt as though another leg had been kicked out from under the wobbly German economy.
The production of new cars plunged 19 percent in June, according to the German carmakers' association, largely because of the strikes.
With the prospect of lingering damage to Germany's automotive industry, support for the strikes quickly evaporated.
A survey conducted by the polling firm Dimap found that 70 percent of Germans believed that the strikes would harm eastern Germany. The opposition ranged across the political spectrum, even to Mr. Schröder's Social Democratic Party, which has many union members.
Some union officials have demanded that Mr. Peters withdraw his candidacy for chairman, which is subject to ratification in October. He has refused. At a news conference on Monday, Mr. Peters insisted that Mr. Zwickel withdraw his "malicious and completely unfounded allegations."
There is no sign yet of a resolution to the turmoil. Some analysts predicted the German government would try to influence events behind the scenes.
"If Peters becomes the leader as planned," Mr. Zimmermann said, "IG Metall may become less and less acceptable to the average German. If your goal is to abolish unions, you would want to keep Peters."
==================================== To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]
==================================== To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any. [Les Paul]