Germany’s biggest union, IG Metall, is stepping up the pressure in the metal and electrical industry pay dispute: its executive board unanimously approved full-day warning strikes on Thursday morning, the first since 2018. Hundreds of plants in a sector employing about 3.7 million people are affected. Which companies will be hit, and when, has not yet been announced.
Since the peace obligation expired on 31 October, almost half a million workers have joined warning strikes, according to the union; on 9 November alone, around 36,000 people from 110 firms walked out in Bavaria. The third round of talks brought no breakthrough. Bargaining committees in North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and the Mitte district asked the board for 24-hour strikes on Wednesday, unanimously in Bavaria.
Where the two sides stand
IG Metall wants 5% more pay over 12 months, job security at companies in trouble and a profit-sharing element for firms doing well. Employers offer a one-off payment of 1% of average annual pay in July 2027, which can be varied by plant, and a permanent 1.3% rise only from July 2028, over a 26-month term ending in December 2028. They also want a variable Christmas bonus and want working-time questions, up to extending the 35-hour week to 40, settled with works councils rather than the union.
That last point turns a pay round into a dispute over principle. “The employers want to turn this bargaining round into a fundamental dispute,” said IG Metall chair Christiane Benner. Board member Nadine Boguslawski said that despite the strikes the employers had “not taken a single step towards the workforce”. Gesamtmetall president Udo Dinglreiter called the escalation “completely unnecessary and harmful” and wants to keep talking at the negotiating table. Johannes Pöttering of the Metall NRW employers’ association spoke of “the worst economic crisis of the post-war era”, hitting carmakers and parts of mechanical engineering especially hard.
What happens next
A 24-hour strike is not spontaneous: members at selected plants vote first, and in Baden-Württemberg the ballots start on Friday. Strikers can apply for strike pay. IG Metall plans to call out a three-digit number of plants this year; in 2018, according to dpa, it was about 250 plants and roughly 500,000 participants. The Bavarian district says it will not schedule new talks before the full-day strikes.
Our assessment: a deal before Christmas looks unlikely, as both sides first mark out positions under strike pressure. A pilot agreement in one bargaining district in winter or spring, later adopted elsewhere, is the more realistic path. That has been the pattern in earlier rounds, though it is no certainty. The sticking point is likely to be less the percentage than whether and how firms may temporarily deviate from the collective agreement; the union has offered such a mechanism in return for binding commitments on sites, jobs and training. For customers and suppliers, the practical upshot is possible production stoppages at individual plants in the coming weeks, above all in the car industry.
Sources: IG Metall, Handelsblatt, dpa/RNZ, all-electronics
