A Strike at Siemens

On the morning of April 2, 1993, a small group of labor organizers from the West German metalworker union, IG Metall, stand shivering in the dark outside a Siemens plant in the East German city of Rostock, passing out leaflets to the morning shift as it enters the plant. Siemens' West German management and other firms in the East have just tried to renege on an earlier promise to increase wages by 26 percent, claiming that they can no longer afford increased wage costs due to the disastrous conditions of the East German economy. That was the official story; but with 40 percent unemployment and massive job insecurity in the East, with no history of western-style collective bargaining, and with membership in free unions new and untested, the employers hope an aggressive united front against the union will win them reduced labor costs and more wage flexibility (Turner 1998:3).

It seems – in Lowell Turner's words – like “an employer's dream labor conflict” (p. 4). The business community and the business press urge restraint from the union, while the Economist titles its article on the coming conflict “Mass Suicide” (p. 3). On that chilly morning in early April, it is by no means clear that the union effort to fight the wage freeze will succeed. And the stakes are high: Should it fail, the future of social partnership and unionization are uncertain – not only in the eastern laender but in Germany as a whole.