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By Michael Rothe
Dresden. The willingness to strike is growing in Germany and especially in Saxony. With 312 industrial disputes nationwide, there was a new record last year. This is according to a study by the Institute of Economic and Social Sciences (WSI) of the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation, which has been registering such conflicts since 2006.
In addition to supra-regional industrial action at railroads, post offices, airports, public services and retail, the Institute records 20 actions in Saxony alone - work stoppages lasting at least one day, but usually longer. The disputes were characterized by high inflation and the associated loss of real wages. The result: double-digit wage demands in many cases. In addition, the labor market situation has improved the negotiating position of employees.
"The Saxons are daring and that's a good thing," comments DGB-Markus Schlimbach, head of the regional branch, explains the statistics. "More collective agreements, higher wages and better working conditions don't fall from the sky, they have to be fought for by the employees with the trade unions," he says. In view of low wages and a sharp rise in prices, it was important to go on the offensive in this way.
Proportionately more strikes in Saxony than in the West
Saxony ranks first in the number of industrial disputes in the East and in the top third nationwide. Schlimbach knows the causes: "The low level of collective bargaining coverage, the wage gap with the West and the unwillingness of many employers to conclude collective agreements are leading to more in-house disputes," says the trade unionist.
"Measured by the proportion of employees, there are even more strikes in Saxony than in the West," says Thorsten Schulten, one of the WSI authors, when asked by Saechsische.de. "The image of the East as a well-behaved worker is no longer true," says the researcher.
Despite the nationwide increase of 87 strikes, the total number of participants remained below the 2015 peak at an estimated 857,000 and more than 1.5 million lost days. According to the WSI, the fact that Germany was nevertheless perceived as a "strike republic" by parts of the public in 2023 and also in the first half of 2024 is mainly due to the fact that the effects of several industrial disputes were directly felt in the everyday lives of many people, such as the disputes in public services, local transport, at airports and at the post office and railroads.
Germany only in the lower midfield for strikes
However, the level of conflict in a collective bargaining dispute depends "at least as much on the determination and willingness to compromise on the part of the employers". The attitude of employers in 2023 and the first half of 2024 contributed significantly to the escalation in some cases. The report explicitly mentions the labor dispute at the Scrap and recycling company SRW Metalfloat in Espenhain near Leipzig. There, the fight to enforce a collective agreement was was broken off unsuccessfully after 180 days of strike action and a subsequent lockout in the spring.
According to forecasts, 2024 is also likely to be a year of labor disputes. There have recently been warning strikes in the chemical industry, the printing industry and the banking sector - but ultimately collective wage agreements. And after 15 rounds of strikes, the City-Bahn in Chemnitz is once again negotiating the introduction of a 35-hour working week. Much will depend on the collective bargaining round in the metal and electrical industry in the fall. There, IG Metall is demanding a wage increase of seven percent for the approximately 3.9 million employees, which the employers - promptly and as always - have rejected as unachievable.
In an international comparison, however, Germany is only in the lower midfield. In countries such as France and Finland, the volume of strikes is many times higher. According to the WSI, the average number of working days lost per 1,000 employees over several years was 103 in Belgium, 83 in Canada and 53 in Denmark, compared to 18 in Germany.
