Germany - IG Metall launches 6% wage demand - August 30, 2010

On Friday August 27, the Northwestern steel branch of IG Metall opened the wage negotiation season by demanding a 6% wage hike for about 85,000 workers. The union branch stated it was time workers joined in the fruits of the upswing after years of wage moderation. The wage demand includes steel workers in North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as Lower Saxony and Bremen. It also asks for shortening working hours for older workers. One day earlier the DGB confederation made clear that German unions more generally will not settle for modest pay rises after accepting moderate wage deals in recent years due to the economic crisis. DGB chairman, Michael Sommer, was quoted saying, “We're not going to hold back in this upturn, now it's our turn.”

English: http://www.thelocal.de/money/20100827-29451.html;

http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFLDE67S04Q20100829

German:  http://www.boeckler.de/show_chronik.html?chronik_eintrag=/html/108693.html

This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.