Audi the luxury-car brand of Volkswagen was among German companies affected by strikes after the IG Metall labor union failed to reach agreement with employers over pay.
About 5,000 staff at Audi's Ingolstadt and Neckersulm plants stopped working for as much as two hours, the union said in separate e-mailed statements today. About 8,000 manufacturing workers downed tools across Germany today, the union added on its website.
IG Metall, representing 3.2 million employees, is pressing for an 8 percent pay rise next year. The union last week rejected a counteroffer from the Gesamtmetall employers' association for a one-time payment this year and a 2.1 percent increase in 2009.
Strikes will continue on Nov. 3 at E.G.O. Blanc und Fischer & Co. GmbH, which makes parts for appliances, Zehnder Group AG, General Electric Co.'s health-care unit, MSC Freiburg GmbH, Ferromatik Milacron Maschinenbau GmbH and Sick AG, IG Metall said. At least 18 production sites will be affected, it said.
The engineering sector employers' group, Gesamtmetall, offered workers a 2.9 percent wage offer over 14 months on Thursday, which IG Metall has rejected.
"This bad offer is an insult," IG Metall's deputy chairman, Detlef Wetzel, said in a statement. "On this basis, a quick solution is not possible."
The rise sought by IG Metall, which is seeking a deal for the 3.6 million workers in the engineering sector, is the biggest wage hike it has sought in 16 years.
The union is due to resume wage negotiations with Gesamtmetall on Nov. 11 in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where agreements often serve as pilot deals for the engineering sector nationwide.
Negotiators will resume talks in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Nov. 13, which has previously also produced pilot deals. If no deal is reach at the next round of talks, IG Metall has vowed to stage full-blown strikes to press its case.-Source:Bloomberg
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