This is a translation of the original article in Portuguese. Read the original (Português).
German metalworkers have expanded strikes against employers’ proposals to cut wages and benefits in the industry. The movement is led by the IG Metall union, which represents about 430,000 workers in more than 2,000 companies, according to the French newspaper L’Humanité.
On the other side of the table is Gesamtmetall, the association representing employers in the sector. The group threatens to cut 300,000 jobs in Germany’s metal industry, which raises tension around the sector’s new collective bargaining agreement.
Amid the work stoppages, Mercedes chief executive Ola Källenius has signaled willingness to negotiate. According to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the executive said he is open to discussing investment commitments in response to the proposal IG Metall has put forward for the metal and electrical industry agreement.
Källenius, however, set a condition: he said the cost of producing in Germany must fall on a lasting basis, and the carmaker does not want to sign a fragile compromise. He made the statement in Berlin, during an economic event organized by the Süddeutsche Zeitung itself, at a time of job cuts and warning strikes.
The clash comes against an already difficult backdrop for the country’s industry. Mercedes recently lowered its earnings forecast, and estimates point to the loss of up to 800,000 jobs in Germany because of artificial intelligence. Added to this are Chinese competition and high energy costs, which put pressure on the industrial model that for decades sustained the German economy.
For Brazil, the outcome of the dispute is not irrelevant. German industry is a customer and partner in Brazilian production chains, from auto parts to machinery, and German carmakers carry great weight in the country’s industrial employment. Decisions made in Berlin and Stuttgart about costs, investment and where to produce tend to reverberate in factories located here.
Källenius’s remarks point to the line companies are likely to follow in negotiations: offering investment guarantees in exchange for cost reductions. The union, for its part, is betting on expanding strikes to block wage and benefit cuts and to prevent the layoffs the employers’ association has announced as a threat.
The result of this tug-of-war should serve as a gauge of European industry’s ability to preserve jobs and wages in the face of new global competition.
Reporting from L’Humanité (p. 16), Süddeutsche Zeitung (p. 16, Berlim).
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