After two fruitless negotiation sessions, German steel workers went on strike on September 22 for three days, demanding a six percent increase in wages which the employers have called unreasonable. The strike is expected to end today, September 24.
The strike covers the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Bremen. On September 22, workers at Salzgitter, Germany's second largest steelmaker, went on strike. According to a spokesperson for the IG Metall union at Salzgitter, the strike involved at least 1,300 employees, while six hundred workers walked out at ThyssenKrupp in the western German industrial city of Duisburg.
The IG Metall union said 11,500 of its members were on strike on Thursday, up from 2,000 the day before.
Salary negotiations in Germany's steel industry are often used by unions in other sectors as a benchmark for their salary demands.