IG Metall pay deal

IG Metall, Germany’s largest union, has agreed a pay rise of 4.2% over 18 months. The increase will be paid in two stages of 2.1% and also includes one-off payments worth around £540 in total.

The union had called for an 8.0% increase for Germany’s 3.5 million metalworkers (see Labour Research, October 2008). But Berthold Huber, the head of IG Metall, called the settlement “a reasonable result in a historically difficult situation”. Official figures show that Germany is now offically in recession — the October inflation rate hit 2.4%.