The IG Metall started the first warning strikes in the German metal and metal and electrical industry on Saturday night. Immediately after the end of the peace obligation at midnight, workers in selected industrial companies stopped working, as reported by local trade unionists.

In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, six companies were to be on strike for a few hours each on Saturday. Employees of the metal processing company apt Extrusions stopped working completely at 00.01 a.m., as Kati Köhler, union secretary at IG Metall Cologne-Leverkusen, said. A good 60 to 70 colleagues followed the call for a warning strike - including 15 to 20 members of the IG Metall Jugend, the union's youth organization.

Actions in many places

According to trade unionist Jens Mütze, almost 150 employees took part in a rally in Hagen, at the Thyssenkrupp Hohenlimburg site. At 12:01 a.m., a good 100 to 110 employees gathered in front of Gate 3 of the Miele plant in Bielefeld.

Further campaigns were planned in Munich and at Thyssenkrupp Rasselstein in Andernach in the Rhineland. In Baden-Württemberg, work at the auto supplier Kolbenschmidt in Neckarsulm was to be suspended for a limited period.

In the negotiations that have been conducted regionally so far, the employers have each offered one-off payments of 3,000 euros and also an unspecified increase in the wage tables for a period of 30 months. The one-off payment should reach the employees directly, free of taxes and duties. The union, on the other hand, is demanding eight percent more money for the approximately 3.9 million employees for a period of twelve months.