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Status: 02.03.2021 9:32 pm
On the first day of the warning strikes in the metal and electrical industry, around 60,000 workers across the country took part in the protests, according to the union. There are more protests on Wednesday.
The focus was on the Lower Saxony / Saxony-Anhalt district with more than 22,000 participants across 28 companies, as the IG Metall board announced on Tuesday in Frankfurt. In the IG Metall waterfront district, nearly 2,600 metalworkers from twelve companies responded to the union’s call for a warning strike. The largest warning strike took place here at Daimler and supplier Lear in Bremen: 2,100 employees participated. According to IG Metall, VW’s plants in Braunschweig, Salzgitter and Emden had been on strike since early Tuesday morning. Trade unionists distributed brochures at the Salzgitter plant. At the Braunschweig plant, IG Metall provided information on the collective bargaining round at the plant gates to change from night to early shift.
Lawsuit: Employees must share VW profits
“Colleagues are outraged that there was absolutely no offer from the employer,” said Braunschweig IG Metall spokeswoman Eva Stassek. Almost the entire night shift participated in the work stoppage and finished the shift earlier. At VW’s main plant in Wolfsburg and at the VW plant for commercial vehicles in Hanover-Stöcken, employees in the early and late shifts must finish their work earlier. “Unfortunately, Volkswagen has not made an offer in the three rounds of negotiations that have taken place so far. That is sad and cowardly,” said the first authorized representative of IG Metall Hannover, Dirk Schulze. Employees must get a fair share of the group’s profits.
More warning strikes in Hannover
There were also warning strikes at other companies in the metal and electrical industry in Lower Saxony. The first work stoppages began shortly after midnight on Tuesday, for example, at car battery maker Clarios in Hannover. There, employees gathered for a rally, which was also attended by IG Metall’s regional district manager and negotiator in the collective bargaining round, Thorsten Gröger. Due to the protection measures of the crown, there were no larger meetings, instead, for example, there were “strike video conferences”.
New promotions on Wednesday
More protests are planned for Wednesday, including employees of the Osnabrück copper processing company KME to leave an hour earlier. Employees of the Stemmann company in Schüttorf want to drive a parade through the industrial park around noon. The union announced actions in mid-March.
There is still no approach in the collective bargaining conflict
With the temporary work stoppages, the union wants to increase pressure on the collective bargaining of the metal and electrical industry in northern Germany. So far there has been no rapprochement between the union and the employers’ associations. More recently, the managing director of Niedersachsen-Metall, Volker Schmidt, however, reported “constructive and factual advice”.
Employers report losses due to corona pandemic
The union demands, among other things, four percent more salary for employees, for twelve months, with retroactive effect from January 1 of this year. In addition, the collective exemption period introduced in 2019 should be improved. At VW, the 1,400 existing apprenticeship positions per year will be fixed for the next ten years according to the will of the union. Employers, on the other hand, point to the losses in the corona pandemic and the enormous pressure on companies to adapt when converting to digitization, climate protection and alternative impulses.
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