German industry was hit by walkouts
by almost 130,000 workers today in so-called warning strikes
over pay conditions, according to their union.

The strikes had affected 600 businesses across the country
by 2:30 p.m. in Frankfurt, with more than a third of the
strikers in the state of Bavaria, the IG Metall union said in an
e-mailed statement.

German workers are represented in large companies’
decision-making processes as a consequence of the country’s 1976
co-determination law, which grants them equal representation on
supervisory boards with shareholders and is intended to reduce
the likelihood of walkouts.

Germany has coupled one of the most competitive economies
in Europe with one of the region’s lowest birth rates for the
past 40 years, leaving fewer workers to support an increasingly
aging population.

The metalworker union is seeking a 5.5 percent pay rise for
a year for its members, of whom almost 700,000 in 2,600
businesses have taken part in the strikes, which usually last no
more than an hour.

Of today’s strikers, 45,000 were in the state of Bavaria,
20,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia, 17,000 in Lower Saxony and
Saxony-Anhalt and 28,000 in the north of the country around
Hamburg, the union said.

Separately, 49,300 Volkswagen AG (VOW) employees temporarily
walked out in a wage dispute today, of whom 31,000 were in the
company’s hometown of Wolfsburg, Germany.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Alex Webb in Munich at
awebb25@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Thiel at
sthiel1@bloomberg.net