{"id":122237,"date":"2018-01-08T16:43:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T21:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=122237"},"modified":"2018-01-08T16:43:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T21:43:52","slug":"german-workers-readying-for-warning-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2018\/01\/german-workers-readying-for-warning-strikes\/","title":{"rendered":"German Workers Readying for ‘Warning’ Strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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German workers are reading for a series of warning strikes this week.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 700,000 workers are taking part in “warning” strikes at employers all across Germany\u00a0this week as the German Metalworkers union, IG Metall, pushes its demand for a hefty pay increase and a change in working hours.<\/p>\n

Warning strikes are generally short in duration \u2013 one day is the normal length \u2013 and are used as part of the bargaining process. The walkouts, which began with a brief strike against Porsche in Stuttgart, are expected to hit every major German automaker: Daimler AG, Volkswagen AG and BMW\u00a0as well key suppliers.<\/p>\n

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Product News!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

IG Metall is seeking not only a 6% pay increase but also demanding the right for workers to temporarily switch to a 28-hour week to care for children or elderly relatives. Employers have argued such a drastic change in working hours would be illegal and have threatened to go to court to stop the industrial action.<\/p>\n

The strike comes in the middle of a long-running political stalemate in Germany’s federal government in Berlin. Angela Merkel was re-elected German Chancellor last September but has been unable to form a working government because her party, the right-leaning Christian Democrats, hold only a minority of seats in the Bundestag, the German parliament.<\/p>\n

(Tesla caves to German workers demands. <\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span> for the story.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Negotiations to form a majority government with the Green party stalled and Merkel has now turned to the left-leaning Social Democrats in a effort to form a new coalition. The Social Democrats, so far, have declined to join the coalition because they fear it undermines their identity.<\/p>\n

The minimal demand from the Social Democrats, which have traditionally depended on IG Metall for money and votes, could be more labor friendly policies.<\/p>\n

If the IG Metall and employers can’t agree on the terms of the negotiation by late January, the stage could be set for longer, more damaging walkouts this coming spring.<\/p>\n

(<\/em>Click Here<\/a><\/span> for details about the UAW\u2019s plans to keep its seat on the GM board of directors.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“Warning strikes” are a common nature of the annual collective bargaining process, there has been no nationwide, open-ended strike in Germany since 2003.<\/p>\n

IG Metall expects up to 700,000 to participate in the ritual, running for at least a week from Monday.<\/p>\n

(Is the ground collapsing under the UAW? For more,<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In keeping with the German practices of settling regional contracts, the strikes this week will stretch from Germany’s “rust belt” in western North Rhine-Westphalia state to Brandenburg, Saxony and Berlin in the former communist east and the hyper-modern car factories of southwestern Baden-Wuerttemberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hourly workers in Germany are readying to take part in “warning” strikes across the country as they look to get a 6% raise as well as a specialized schedule in its new agreements. For more, go to TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":16549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[150],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122237"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=122237"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=122237"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=122237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}