Warning strikes in German steelworks

GERMANY: Other demands are that trainees are given permanent status, and that older employees are offered to work part time. The employers have so far refused to make a proposal. Negotiations will continue November 21 in Düsseldorf.

A third of all German workers under the age of 35 have never had a permanent job. The IG Metall therefore wants to limit temporary employments, the use of work agencies and precarious working conditions in a new Bargaining Agreement.

At ThyssenKrupp Nirosta in Dillenburg, November 10 a total of 12,200 steelworkers downed tools for the second warning strike. Steel production was stopped in Bremen, Gelsenkirchen, Salzgitter, Peine, Bochum, Ennepetal, Hagen, Remscheid, Siegen and Dillenburg.

3,500steelworkers came to the main manifestation in Duisburg.

In Bremen 1200 employees at ArcelorMittal GmbH stopped work for two hours, and in Bochum 2000 steelworkers gathered for manifestations, the largest one in front of the gates of ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG.

On Monday November 14, the center of steel action was in Mühlheim, where employees at Vallourec & Mannesmann, the Pipe works of Mannesmann, Europipe and the Foundry of Friedrich-Wilhelm stopped work for two hours

On November 15 employees in Vallourec & Mannesmann in Düsseldorf-Rath down tools. November 16 it's the turn of steelworkers in Schmolz-Bickenbach at Herzogenrath Kohlscheid.

The next round of negotiations is planned for November 21 in Düsseldorf.