IG Metall rallies workers as pay talks end without progress

IG Metall staged demonstrations across Bavaria as the third round of metal-industry negotiations ended without progress, BR reported. About 8,000 workers from Audi, Airbus, Wacker Neuson, Scherm and other companies gathered at the Audi Piazza in Ingolstadt, according to police.

Bavarian employers rejected a union proposal first presented in Baden-Württemberg. It would allow individual companies to deviate from collective agreements in exchange for binding commitments to investment and safeguarding jobs and sites.

“We have not moved a step forward,” said Horst Ott, IG Metall’s regional director. The talks remain deadlocked in southern Germany. Employers and the union were due to meet in North Rhine-Westphalia on Monday afternoon.

Further warning-strike demonstrations took place in Aschaffenburg, Augsburg, Donauwörth and Nuremberg. The employers’ association vbm accused the union of being unwilling to compromise. Its chief negotiator, Thomas Kaeser, said employers had wanted to make progress but could not do so with IG Metall.

The employers’ association also criticised the strikes, saying 11,000 jobs had been lost in Bavaria’s metal and electrical industries this year. No date has been set for a fourth round of talks. Ott said the union would expand its warning strikes if employers maintained their position.