May 9, 2002 By David Mchugh Ap Business Writer 3 min read

FRANKFURT, Germany – Germany’s largest industrial union shut down 33 small and medium-sized companies Wednesday as it used a third full day of rolling strikes to target the employers who often are the most reluctant to yield to its wage demands. The IG Metall union said some 13,000 workers struck at firms across Baden-Wuerttemberg, a key industrial region in the southwest, where it has launched its first strike in seven years.

Also Wednesday, union leaders said they would extend their action to Berlin and the neighboring eastern state of Brandenburg starting Monday.

IG Metall is trying a new tactic of rotating one-day strikes, which began on Sunday night. It started with industrial giants such as DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen’s Audi division – but economists say the heaviest employer resistance to wage demands is often found among the small and medium firms that employ about 70 percent of German workers, as labor makes up a higher percentage of their costs.

German wage contracts are negotiated for entire sectors instead of company by company.

Dieter Seiler, the manager of Joseph Mehrer GmBH, based in the town of Balingen, said that Wednesday’s one-day strike by his 80 skilled workers “wasn’t an earthshaking event” for its production of industrial air and gas compressors.

But the union’s demand for a 6.5 percent pay hike “would be a blow,” Seiler said.

Even a 4 percent increase – the union’s last offer when talks with employers broke down last month – “would not be economically sensible,” he said. “The machine-building sector in Germany is suffering, and demand has fallen,” while a high settlement would make it harder to keep up with foreign competition.

For Ulrich Zahoransky, who heads Todnau-based Anton Zahoransky GmbH, a company that makes machines that produce brushes, the main consequence of the strike was that “I can’t get spare parts to customers that urgently need them for a couple of days.”

“I don’t see why they can’t sit down and reach agreement,” said Zahoransky, arguing that the management’s last offer of 3.3 percent wasn’t that far below what the union had been prepared to accept.

A deal in Baden-Wuerttemberg is expected to set the pattern nationwide.

Economists say a long strike, or a high wage settlement, could add to unemployment and inflation just as Europe’s largest economy emerges from a mild recession, though a strike of two weeks or less would do no major damage.

The union says the one-day strikes will minimize the chance of job losses as a result of the battle. It is suspending the stoppages Thursday – a public holiday in Germany – and plans again to target more small and midsized companies Friday.