IG Metall to go on strike

GERMANY: IG Metall members in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg will begin strike action on Monday, May 6. Following the collapse of collective wage talks on April 19 - with the employers' last wage offer at 3.3 per cent, and IG Metall demanding a minimum increase of 4 per cent - the German metalworkers' union issued a strike ballot on April 25, which saw 90 per cent of its members in Baden-Württemberg and over 85 per cent in Berlin-Brandenburg endorse the union's call for industrial action. This result far exceeded the minimum 75 per cent approval rate required by IG Metall statutes. The Executive Board of the 2.7 million-strong IMF German affiliate has now given its final go-ahead and in a press conference today (May 2), IG Metall's president, Klaus Zwickel, reported that strike action would start in Baden-Württemberg on May 6, and the dates for Berlin-Brandenburg would be specified later on. The union will use a so-called "flexi" strike pattern, which will involve as many workers and companies as possible in the region. The individual strike targets, to be chosen by IG Metall at short notice, will be limited to one day at a time, with the daily work stoppages moving on to other companies on following days. Some companies will be hit more than once. Such a flexible tactic will make it more difficult for the employers to carry out their threats of a lockout. "Our goal is to reach an acceptable collective wage agreement as soon as possible," stressed Zwickel. With these one-day interruptions in production, IG Metall's vice-president, Jürgen Peters, says that "we hit the companies in a neuralgic spot - the efficient flow of production." He warned the employers about arbitrarily locking out workers and said that the "strike is a citizen's right; the lockout is the misuse of power."