Catherwood LibraryILR School

Klaus Zwickel, president of Germany?s 2.8 million member IG Metall union, announced today that---with contract talks deadlocked and no settlement on raises in sight---the union?s leadership will likely hold a strike vote in the coming weeks and encourage members to authorize long-term industrial action. Negotiations with Germany?s industrial employers broke down last Friday with employers offering a 3.3 percent increase, up from an earlier offer of 2.5 percent, and the union insisting that in order to offset losses in real wages caused by inflation last year, its members needed a raise of around four percent, down from an initial demand of 6.5 percent (see WIT for March 19, 2001). The union has been engaging in rolling warning strikes across the country for the past five weeks (see WIT?s for March 27 and April 1, 2001), but if the union goes on the extended strike that M. Zwickel has said is a forgone conclusion, it will be the first major industrial action in Germany in seven years.