German employers and metalworkers agreed on a pay rise to end a 10-day strike in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg that's cut production at companies including DaimlerChrysler AG.
As many as 870,000 workers will get a 4 percent pay rise from June and a 3.1 percent increase a year later, as well as a one-time payment of 120 euros (US$109), IG Metall, Germany's second-largest union, and the Gesamtmetall employers group said.
The strikes, the first in seven years, have made it more difficult for Europe's largest economy to recover from last year's recession. Unemployment rose in April for a 14th month in 16, while business confidence fell for the first month in six.
"Given the state of the economy, the wage deal is too high," said Ulrich Ruetz, chief executive officer of Beru AG, a maker of ignition systems for customers including General Motors Corp and DaimlerChrysler.
"It's a substantial increase in costs, which may prompt us consider moving production and jobs to other countries like Ireland, Hungary, France or Spain," he said.
The accord reached may set a precedent for other regions.
Still, IG Metall chairman Klaus Zwickel said at a press conference that it doesn't mean an end to the nationwide pay dispute.
"There's no all-clear for Berlin and Brandenburg," said Hasso Duevel, IG Metall's chief wage negotiator in the region.
Some 2,800 workers at nine companies will strike on "as planned" on Thursday, he said.
The European Central Bank has said it's worried higher wages and rising oil prices may boost inflation, spurring it to raise borrowing costs for the first time in 18 months.
Inflation has been at or above the ECB's 2 percent limit for 23 months. ECB President Wim Duisenberg said two weeks ago that inflation isn't slowing as much as expected. Consumer prices climbed in April in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Finland.
"It's a bearable agreement for the ECB. It will contain some of the upside risks the ECB has been mentioning in the past weeks," said Jose Luis Alzola, an economist at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney. "They will now be a little more relaxed."
The breakthrough is a boost for German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose party is trailing the opposition by as many as 10 percentage points in opinion polls before September's election.
"The voices of reason in both camps have prevailed," he said.
Some 23,000 workers at 25 companies went on strike today in Germany's south-western region, the home of 4,600 of Germany's 22,000 metals and engineering companies. Strikes cost an average 945 euros (US$862) in sales per day per worker, according to the IW economic institute.
"We welcome very much that the hard fought-over compromise means no further effects on car deliveries," said Guenther Fleig, DaimlerChrysler's head of personnel, in a faxed statement. "The positive outlook for 2002 thus remains intact."
IG Metall had raised pressure outside Baden-Wuerttemberg.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS