Union strikes jolt Germany

Ernst Lihl, brick mason and member of Germany's striking construction union, is ready for a long struggle. He is angry about illegal construction workers, with construction companies, and especially with Germany's politicians.

Sitting at a silent construction site, where, until last Thursday, builders were transforming Munich's old convention center into apartment buildings and shopping centers, Mr. Lihl complains that construction workers like him, from western Germany, are being driven out of the industry.

"There are companies who fire their own workers to hire cheaper foreign workers," he says. "And the politicians sit around and do nothing. It doesn't matter how long the strike takes. Four or five weeks – it doesn't matter to me."

With the Sept. 22 election approaching, the expanding strike, currently involving almost 21,000 workers at more than 1,500 building sites across the country, comes at an awkward time for Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Polls already show that voters see his opponent, Bavaria's president Edmund Stoiber, more capable of solving Germany's economic woes.

In a study conducted earlier this month by the Election Research Center in Berlin, 32 percent of those polled believed Stoiber can better solve Germany's economic problems, while only 15 percent thought Schroder could.

The latest strike by the IG Bau union is now the third in a series this spring, following IG Metall's metal workers' strike in early May, and an ongoing strike by the services union Ver.di in the banking sector. Some 6,000 employees who are members of the Ver.di union walked off the job last week.

After his unsuccessful efforts to ward off IG Metall's strike, Schroder has so far remained silent on the recent labor unrest.

The cumulative nature of these strikes, say analysts, could take a toll on Schroder's reelection chances and damage the German economy's nascent recovery.

"There are a lot of people in the union who are disappointed in the red-green coalition," says Michael Fichter, political science professor at the Free University in Berlin, referring to Germany's current governing partnership, made up of Schroder's Social Democrats and the Green Party. "But given the alternative, they would rather have Schroder. Nevertheless, if this strike continues for a long time, it will really hurt Schroder. And this strike could go on for a while."

The strike by the 350,000-member IG Bau union, the first in the German construction industry since World War II, began last Monday with work stoppages in northern German cities such as Hamburg and Berlin following the breakdown in this year's round of wage negotiations early this month. So far, aside from a few scuffles in Hamburg and Munich, the strike has proceeded peacefully, although workers fear that the chances for violence will grow next week as nonunion workers try to continue work at construction sites. "I am afraid because of the strike," says one Croatian union member who asked not to be identified.

IG Bau is asking for a 4.5 percent rise in wages, reflecting IG Metall's demands earlier in the year. They also want a single minimum wage for all construction workers in Germany and more money for worker training. They are targeting building sites with tight timetables in an effort to force the industry to give in.

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