During the regional collective bargaining for the 3.7 million employees in the German metal and electrical industry, IG Metall rejected an initial offer from employers.
“This offer starts too late, is too low, the term is too long and there is little future in it. It falls well short of the expectations and needs of the employees,” explained NRW district manager Knut Giesler. It is rejected “definitely”.
According to IG Metall, the offer does not even begin to compensate for the current price increase. Instead of strengthening the purchasing power of employees, it would lead to further losses in real wages, according to the accusation.
“The employer offer is actually a loss and further weakens economic development,” said Giesler. The economy can only be stimulated through consumption.
After two rounds of negotiations, warning strikes are becoming apparent, which will be possible from this Sunday (November 1st) after the end of the peace obligation. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the collective bargaining commission is due to decide on this on Saturday.
Without any rapprochement, the collective bargaining parties also diverged in Lower Saxony, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. “Employers have moved, but in small steps,” said Lower Saxony district manager Thorsten Gröger. “From November 1st, warning strikes are unavoidable,” explained IG Metall Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
For the first time in collective bargaining history, the employer associations in five collective bargaining districts put a coordinated offer on the table at the same time. After eight months of idleness, it provides for a one-off payment of one percent of the annual gross salary in July 2027 and a permanent tariff increase of 1.3 percent in July 2028, as the Gesamtmetall umbrella organization announced. The one-off payment corresponds to around 700 euros in Baden-Württemberg. The collective agreement should run until the end of 2028.
“We have to stop the progressive deindustrialization and the now dramatic loss of jobs,” said Gesamtmetall President Udo Dinglreiter. Südwestmetall's negotiator, Peter Sebastian Krause, spoke of a "fair and very finely balanced proposal" that "enables a wage increase in the greatest structural crisis since the founding of the Federal Republic."
The employers tied their offer to conditions: In addition to the expansion of special regulations for economically weaker companies, they are calling for discussions about measures to combat high levels of sickness and to accelerate the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI).
According to the proposal, the one-off payment should be suspended for companies that barely make any money. Employers are calling for an expansion of automatic differentiation - an instrument with which companies in economically difficult situations can postpone or skip certain collectively agreed payments.
According to Südwestmetall, almost half (45 percent) of companies in Baden-Württemberg do not have to pay because they are currently making losses or earning below the limit.
Employers also want to introduce a new negotiation option at company level if investments, innovations, locations and employment need to be secured. The works councils would then be responsible for such negotiations and no longer the union, as is currently the case.
Trade unionist Gröger said that what was possible today as an emergency exit for companies in trouble, employers wanted to make the main portal. “That undermines the collective bargaining agreement from the inside.”
NRW district boss Giesler also criticized the proposal: "Anyone who demands performance, change and the future must be prepared to invest in the people who support this change day after day and should not make them scapegoats for the current economic situation."
IG Metall has demanded five percent more money for the approximately 3.7 million employees from November onwards with a significantly shorter term of twelve months. She also wants to make agreements to secure companies and jobs.
The union wants to take into account the very different situations of companies through collective bargaining surcharges in well-performing sectors. The employers did not respond to this.
The employers presented their offer at the start of the second round of negotiations in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and the north. The other tariff areas should follow.
The second round of negotiations for the metal and electrical industries in Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia is scheduled for Wednesday. It continues on Thursday in Berlin and Brandenburg as well as Saxony-Anhalt. It's the turn of the Osnabrück-Emsland-County of Bentheim tariff area on Friday.
