BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Talks between the employers in the metal and engineering industry and the IG Metall union in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg have collapsed. The negotiations over company plans to cut sick leave payments had been scheduled for November 7. The rulers in Germany as well as the union officialdom had hoped to reach a pilot agreement that could serve as a model for all Germany on the question of sick pay. After three waves of protests by hundreds of thousands of metalworkers in the last month alone, the German ruling class is increasingly nervous that the union officials could lose control over the workers' protests.

The German daily Die Welt reported that the IG Metall's chief negotiator, Gerhard Zambelli, said the union was not willing to meet the employers' demand that workers give up vacation days and vacation payments in exchange for maintaining 100 percent sick leave payments. Zambelli said the talks collapsed because the employers insisted that if the union didn't grant more concessions they would "strictly apply the new law," which allows the bosses to lower the sick pay to 80 percent as of October 1.

Negotiations are now scheduled for November 19 in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Die Welt reported that both Dieter Hundt, the representative of the employers, and Zambelli were skeptical that the negotiations in that state will serve as a model either.

"It makes no sense to continue the negotiations in Karlsruhe as the IG Metall is so hell-bent on the question of the sick leave payments," Hansjorg Dopp, the bosses' chief negotiator in Nordrhein-Westfalen, told Die Welt after the negotiations had collapsed in Baden-Wurttemberg.

In the state of Bavaria, where 150,000 workers participated in protests on November 4, IG Metall has canceled its contracts. They will expire at the end of January, which makes it possible for the union to call a strike in February.

The London Financial Times commented that the collapse of the negotiations in Baden-Wurttemberg with "Germany's metal and engineering industry moved one step closer to possible all-out strikes." In addition to IG Metall, officials from other unions in the DGB federation say they will fight to defend the sick pay. The union federation is supposed to discuss an action program against attacks on social security at its special convention in mid-November.

Meanwhile, unemployment figures released for October show joblessness is at a record high of 4.04 million, an increase of 41,000 over the previous month. Three-quarters of the increase came in western Germany.

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the metalworkers union at the Scania truck plant in Sodertalje, Sweden.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home