This unholy alliance also tried to push the union to the right and bring down Jürgen Peters, the union's deputy chairman who had been nominated by the national committee to stand for the chairmanship at the forthcoming congress. Leading union representatives from the motorcar industry in the West openly deplored the fact that the strike had begun to bite and had brought the assembly lines at the BMW and other factories to a halt and that this was "not in the interest of our company". The strike was openly criticised, not only by the bourgeois and their media and politicians, but also by the union right wing as well as the German Blairites around the Schröder government who distanced themselves from the striking workers. This latest East German strike for the introduction of the 35-hour week lasted for one month and ended with a defeat as the IG Metall leadership called off the strike without even gaining at least some minor concessions from the bosses. Therefore pressure had been building up in the East German engineering and steel industries to go for the 35-hour week, a demand which had been fought for in these industries in the West of the country in the 1980s and were finally achieved in the 1990s. Germany's IG Metall, the world's biggest industrial union with a membership of 2.5 million, has been passing through a major crisis this summer.Įast Germany is still an area where wages are below, and working hours are above, Western levels. Unprecedented attacks on so-called "old fashioned" unions and "stubborn" and "hardline" union officials who allegedly are out to sabotage the "modernisation" and "flexibilisation" of the economy, have been stirred up by Germany’s mass media in recent months as the ruling class and the Schröder administration work hand in hand to restore rates of profits, reduce labour costs and dismantle the welfare state. IG Metall, the world's biggest industrial union with a membership of 2.5 million, has been passing through a major crisis this summer. Tweet Unprecedented attacks on so-called "old fashioned" unions and "stubborn" and "hardline" union officials who allegedly are out to sabotage the "modernisation" and "flexibilisation" of the economy, have been stirred up by Germany's mass media in recent months.
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