Labor market: “No basis for serious compromise”: Metal tariff round faces further escalation

On Thursday, the IG Metall board wants to decide on all-day warning strikes. Employers have no doubt that this will happen - and are protesting loudly in advance.

Warning strike by metal workers in Hanover: All-day work stoppages could now follow in some companies. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa

The regional collective bargaining committees of IG Metall requested warning strikes of 24 hours, which the federal executive board will decide on on Thursday.

The employers criticize these planned industrial action measures and point to the severe economic crisis.

IG Metall is calling for a wage increase of five percent over a twelve-month period as well as job security and prospects for locations.

According to IG Metall, more than 460,000 employees took part in previous warning strikes and protests.

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Berlin. The deadlocked collective bargaining agreement for the approximately 3.7 million employees in the metal and electrical industries threatens to escalate further. The regional collective bargaining committees of IG Metall submitted an application for so-called 24-hour warning strikes to the union's federal executive board on Wednesday. The headquarters in Frankfurt want to decide on this on Thursday morning.

The employers demanded concessions from the workforce without giving them even a minimum of security for their future in return, criticized the head of the IG Metall district of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, Thorsten Gröger. “This is not a basis for a serious compromise.”

The employers have no doubt that the employee representatives will trigger the next level of escalation and are harshly critical.

“It is in no way understandable that IG Metall is preparing industrial action measures now, in the worst economic crisis of the post-war period, which would be among the most massive in the last two decades,” explained the general manager of the Metall NRW Association, Johannes Pöttering.

IG Metall has called for five percent more money over a term of the collective agreement of twelve months. In addition to a “fair wage increase”, the union is demanding job security and binding future prospects for the industry’s locations. The automotive industry in particular, but also parts of mechanical engineering, are in a serious crisis.

economic situation

Metal employers warn of further job losses

The previous two collective bargaining rounds, which are being conducted at regional level, have not yet produced an agreement despite mutual offers. At the end of October, the employers offered a one-off payment of one percent of the average collectively agreed annual gross salary in July 2027 and a further wage increase of 1.3 percent in July 2028, but are demanding that companies in economic difficulties be able to waive the one-off payment.

IG Metall criticizes that, given the 26-month term proposed by the employers, this offer does not even compensate for the expected inflation, meaning that employees would have a real loss of purchasing power.

IG Metall, for its part, signaled during the negotiations that employees are prepared to make concessions if employers invest in locations, jobs and training positions.

However, the union and employers' associations must definitely decide together on deviations from the collective agreement, demanded the district manager of IG Metall Baden-Württemberg, Barbara Resch. “The pressure must not be dumped on the works councils.”

The union had already increased the pressure with short-term warning strikes and protest actions, in which, according to their statements, more than 460,000 employees took part. Now there will most likely be 24-hour warning strikes.

This means that employees in individual companies can stop work for a whole day if the majority of IG Metall members agree to this. The individual companies are selected beforehand when planning industrial action, for example based on their level of organization, combat effectiveness and impact - and then decided on by the board.

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The IG Metall board established the new instrument of daily warning strikes in 2017, and a year later it was used for the first time in the collective bargaining round. At that time, the employers sued the new form of protest in court without success.

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If, despite the expected additional pressure, no rapprochement is achieved in the next round of negotiations, the union can initiate a further escalation by voting on indefinite forced strikes - strikes with which unions want to achieve a better agreement after collective bargaining has failed.

For employers, the request for 24-hour warning strikes is also a step too much: People are stunned at how indifferent IG Metall is in accepting the damage caused by the daily strikes in an already dramatic economic situation, said the general manager of the Bavarian metal employers, Bertram Brossardt. “This is simply a denial of reality.”