Employees demand higher wages and job security in the country’s crisis-hit industrial sector
More than 413,000 workers across Germany’s crisis-hit industrial sector have taken part in strikes and rallies this week, demanding higher pay and job security, trade union IG Metall announced on Friday.
Germany’s largest union reported more than 2,800 actions nationwide since Sunday, hitting carmakers, engineering companies, metal producers, and suppliers after three rounds of wage talks failed to produce a deal.
IG Metall is demanding a 5% pay rise over 12 months for 3.7 million workers, higher apprentice wages, job guarantees, and profit-sharing at profitable companies. Employers have offered a one-off payment in 2027 and a 1.3% raise starting in July 2028 – which the union says amounts to a pay cut in real terms.
Walkouts sweep industrial giants
New strikes hit more than 30 companies in and around Nuremberg on Friday, including Bosch, Siemens, MAN Truck & Bus, and Schaeffler.
Footage from a Bosch plant shows workers blocking access, waving placards reading “Honk for the future” and “Honk for five percent.” The protest came as Bosch plans to cut more than 900 jobs at the facility by 2029.
In Saxony, Siemens and Thyssenkrupp workers staged a four-hour stoppage in Chemnitz, gathering outside the Siemens plant for a joint rally.
A day earlier, around 6,500 Audi workers walked out at the Neckarsulm plant in southwestern Germany. Workers fear the plant could close by 2034 without a long-term production plan, given Volkswagen Group’s ongoing cost and capacity cuts.
Mass strike by workers at the Audi plant in Germany. Protesters are demanding wage increases.
Over 400,000 workers in the metal and manufacturing industries have participated in protests across the country this week, according to local media. The core of the conflict: the IG… pic.twitter.com/YhH6avSNHU
— East_Calling (@East_Calling) November 7, 2026
Videos show crowds marching through the industrial district in two processions before converging for a joint rally.
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Thursday also brought walkouts at Mercedes-Benz in Sindelfingen and protests involving 12,400 Airbus workers across four sites. Earlier strikes hit Audi in Ingolstadt, Porsche in Zuffenhausen, BMW plants in Bavaria, and Volkswagen in Osnabrueck, where around 2,000 workers protested threatened job cuts. Thousands more joined actions at Ford, Mercedes, Daimler Truck, and suppliers including ZF and Schaeffler.
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