The working-class history of the Federal Republic of Germany

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German workers launch biggest strike in 11 years
People's Weekly World, 4 March 1995. Germany's 3 million-member engineering union, IG Metall, called the strike after over a month of fruitless negotiations on pay increases and working hours. The HBV, representing banking and insurance workers, and IG Bau-Steine-Erden, representing construction workers, said they are prepared to join the strike this week if their demands are not met.
German metal workers win shorter workweek—Victory has wide-ranging implications
By Jim Genova, People's Weekly World, 8 April 1995. The union demandd implementation of the agreement despite management claims that it would increase in labor costs and exert inflationary pressures. The demand after an agreement reached with Volkswagen in which the union agreed to a four-day workweek and pay cuts, in order to preserve 30,000 jobs that were slated for elimination.
German unions defend welfare state
By William Pomeroy, People's Weekly World, 25 May 1996. Threat of strikes and other forms of confrontation between trade unions and an employer-backed Kohl government out to slash the hard-won social benefits of working people.
German Cutbacks: Unions Pledge Sustained Campaign
ICEM UpDate, 19 June 1996. the Presidents of the German chemical, paper and ceramic workers' union IG Chemie-Papier-Keramik, the mining and energy union IG Bergbau und Energie and the leather workers' union Gewerkschaft Leder hail the success of last Saturday's massive labour demonstration in Bonn to protest the government's austerity program.
German Unions Merge
ICEM Update, 7 October 1997. More than a million German workers have united in the new Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union (IG BCE). IG BCE, which organises across a wide range of process, energy and extractive sectors, is affiliated at the global level to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).
IG Metall moves towards strike
By Tony Barber, Financial Times, 12 February 1999. Germany's biggest trade union, IG Metall, took the first formal steps towards a strike when union officials in the most important industrial regions declared wage negotiations to have broken down and called for a nationwide strike ballot.
German union ups pressure for slave labour payment
By Adam Tanner, Reuters, 23 January 2000. Germany's largest union IG Metall stepped up pressure on Sunday on German firms to contribute to a compensation fund for Nazi-era slave labourers by publishing a list of firms that have not pledged money so far.