BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Some 1.5 million metalworkers in Bavaria took part in demonstrations and strikes on November 4 to protest cuts in sick leave pay and other austerity measures by Bonn.

In Nurnberg, Ingolstadt, Wakkersdorf, and Cham 50,000 workers took part in the labor actions, according to officials of the IG Metal union. November 4 marked the beginning of a new week of protests called by IG Metall, Germany's largest union. It was the third mass mobilization in a month. On October 1, 1.5 million workers took part in a nationwide protest. Some 400,000 demonstrated throughout Germany October 24. Further protests were planned the first week of November in Sachsen, Brandenburg, and cities in northern Germany.

In Bavaria, IG Metall has canceled the contract for about 650,000 metal workers. The accord will now expire on January 31, 1997. At the end of February IG Metall in Bavaria can call a strike. The employers in Bavaria condemned the November 4 walkouts as illegal actions by the union. Union officials did not call strikes, but many workers left their jobs to take part in demonstrations and other similar actions.

According to union officials, about 80 percent of the employers in Bavaria's metal industry are for applying the new federal law that would lower sick leave pay from 100 percent to 80 percent of wages retroactively to October 1. Faced with successive waves of labor protests, however, the bosses have backed off for the moment and continue to pay sick leave equal to 100 percent of wages stipulated in existing union contracts.

Speaking to 15,000 workers outside the Audi auto factory in Inglostadt, Bavarian chairman of IG Metall Werner Neugebauer said, "We are not for a strike, but if there is no agreement after February 28 there can be a strike." IG Metall officials in Bavaria say they will defend 100 percent sick leave payments in new contracts, and will stick to maintaining current vacation and holiday pay. These officials say they are willing to negotiate compromises on wage raises instead.

On November 7 a second round of talks was scheduled to open between employers and IG Metall in the state of Baden- Wurttemberg. Both the bosses and union tops in that state hope a pilot agreement can be reached there, which may be applied nationwide. Sections of the ruling class in Germany are becoming nervous that the strikes and protests could get out of the control of the union officialdom. These capitalist politicians favor compromise with the unions. But the stakes are high for the rulers in Germany who have announced they will bring down the budget deficit by cutting the social wage, so that they can enter the European Union's "common" currency before the end of the century.

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