BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON

STOCKHOLM - "The hot fall has begun," read the headline in Suddeutsche Zeitung. In the largest actions since a wave of protests swept the country this spring, more than 400,000 metalworkers walked out of factories and steel mills throughout western and eastern Germany October 24 to protest proposed cuts in sick pay and other social entitlements.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, a major industrial center, 187,000 workers at 750 companies waged a one-day strike. At the Duisburg and Dortmund steel mills in Bochum, production was shut down except for the blast furnaces. In Baden-Wurttemberg, where many auto plants are located, 120,000 workers walked off the job for several hours.

Some 60,000 workers at Mercedes Benz participated in the protests in factories all over the country. Ursula Engen, vice chairman of the German union federation DGB, was quoted by the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet at a mass meeting saying, "We will not give up the rights we have fought for without a fight."

When some of the biggest industrial companies in Germany decided to immediately apply the new law, lowering sick pay from 100 percent of wages to 80 percent, a week of protests erupted culminating in strikes and demonstrations of more than 100,000 metalworkers October 1.

The employers had to back off from their attack and enter into negotiations with the union. Negotiations between IG Metall, Germany's largest union, and the metal employers broke down October 23. Protests the next day were timely. October 24 has a symbolic value in the union movement in Germany. It was that day 40 years ago that IG Metall began a strike that lasted for 114 days and eventually won the right to full sick-leave payments.

The London Financial Times reported that workers from the Hamburg shipyard, Blohm + Voss carried placards "To preserve the inheritance of our fathers." The placard refers to the 1956 strike of 34,000 steelworkers in Schleswig-Holstein. A worker at the shipyard in Hamburg was quoted defending the 100 percent sick pay saying the issue is one "over which we don't even talk."

IG Metall and the metal employers are now to enter negotiations on a regional level. IG Metall, which has gained strength and won 10,000 new members in October, is expected to cancel contracts that expire at the end of the year. The employers condemned the strikes as illegal and self-defeating, claiming that German industrial competitiveness will suffer.

The bosses want to lower vacation and Christmas pay. This spring the public employees union went on strike when the government demanded similar concessions. Labor minister Norbert Blum on October 25 threatened that the government would have to intervene if the strikes continue, thus doing away with collective bargaining. Other unions like IG-Chemie are also in negotiations over sick pay - with similar prospects for labor protests as in the metal industry.

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the Metalworkers Union at the Scania truck plant in Sodertalje, Sweden.  
 
 
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