German industry workers brace for strikes

By Oliver Towfigh Nia

BERLIN (AA) - Germany's metal and electrical industry workers will stage the first round of warning strikes on Saturday, a labor leader announced.

The offer submitted by employers on Thursday in the collective-rate round for 3.9 million employees does not respond to the labor union's demands, said Joerg Hofmann, the chairman of the IG Metal labor union, in an interview with the Handelsblatt business newspaper.

In the wake of the collective bargaining dispute, IG Metal will organize the first warning strikes on Saturday night.

In regional negotiations on Thursday and Friday, the employers had offered one-time tax-free payments of 3,000 euros and also an unspecified increase in the wage tables for a period of 30 months.

The labor union, on the other hand, is demanding an 8% wage hike for a period of 12 months -- the highest demand in the industry since 2008.

Hofmann called on employers to offer sustainable wage increases, adding: "It is still unclear how the salaries of the employees are to be increased in the long term."

The labor leader indicated that only shorter warning strikes of a few hours are planned until the fourth round of negotiations, which begins on Nov. 8 in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg. After that, IG Metal will decide how to proceed.

Germany is coping with an inflation rate of 11.6% as a result of a drop in energy imports from Russia in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine which has led to surging energy prices, pushing inflation to its highest rate in more than 25 years.