Metal and electrical industry in Berlin | Standstill on the assembly line

Union members protest in front of the Siemens Energy factory on Huttenstrasse in Berlin-Moabit. Photo: dpa/Soeren Stache It seems to be primarily the employers who have switched to attack mode. “IG Metall is stirring up expectations from another planet among its people,” fumed Henning Brandes, negotiator for the Association of the Metal and Electrical Industry in Berlin and Brandenburg (VME). And further: »It will not be possible to eliminate the problems in our industry with posters and whistles. This can only be achieved at the negotiating table.«

Negotiations between the VME and IG Metall had ended unsuccessfully on Friday. IG Metall had been on strike at numerous companies throughout the week, including on Friday. By midweek, the union had 7,000 members who had stopped work at least temporarily.

The employers, for their part, spread gloomy prospects for the future. Gesamtmetall promised to cut 300,000 jobs across the industry over the next two to three years, making it the lowest level in this industry since reunification at 3.4 million employees. 350,000 jobs have already been cut since 2019. As if to confirm this, just one day earlier, the automotive supplier Schaeffler had announced that it would cut jobs, mainly in Germany. The location in Berlin, where, among other things, electric motors and drive technologies are developed, is to close completely. This means that 259 jobs will be lost.

»Giving up is not a strategy for the future and does not secure a job or a location. This is only possible with investments and innovations in the factories in our region.«

Employers attribute their reluctance in the current collective bargaining round to the ongoing crisis: a lack of orders, rising costs and increasingly fierce competition from abroad. “The extremely difficult situation in the majority of our companies makes it impossible to make work even more expensive,” said VME negotiator Brandes. “The structural problems cannot be eliminated on strike.”

IG Metall considers the employers' current approach to be incorrect crisis management. »Giving up is not a strategy for the future and does not secure a job or a location. This is only possible with investments and innovations in the factories in our region," said Jan Otto, head of the Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony district.

Nevertheless, IG Metall presented a concept on Friday with which “investments in future products are linked to binding commitments for locations, jobs and training.” One of IG Metall's collective bargaining demands is to secure locations and jobs. The concept now presented is intended to be agreed as a collective agreement for clearly limited cases. As a spokesman said when asked by “nd”, details of this still need to be negotiated. From IG Metall's point of view, this could also mean temporarily waiving parts of the wages.

While IG Metall wants to take weak companies into account on the one hand, it demands a profit share from profitable companies for its members. The IG Metall spokesman went on to say that employers' image of a "crisis everywhere" does not correspond to reality.

The union also points to improving economic forecasts with regard to its wage demands. District manager Otto described the employers' previous offer of increasing salaries by 1.3 percent only in July 2028 as a "cheeky negative offer" that fell short of the general price increases. IG Metall entered the collective bargaining round with a demand for five percent more salary over a contract term of twelve months.

The employers described their proposal as a sign of accommodation. They pointed out that only in April of this year there was 3.1 percent more money for the 96,000 employees in Berlin and Brandenburg.

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