More than 413,000 workers across Germany's industrial sector have taken part in strikes and rallies this week, the IG Metall trade union announced on Friday — one of the largest waves of industrial action in Europe's biggest economy in years. The union reported more than 2,800 separate actions nationwide since Sunday, hitting carmakers, engineering companies, metal producers and suppliers.
IG Metall is demanding a 5 percent pay rise over 12 months for the 3.7 million workers covered by the metal and electrical industry agreement, along with higher apprentice wages, binding job guarantees and profit-sharing at profitable companies, Reuters reported. Employers have offered a one-off payment in 2027 and a 1.3 percent raise starting in July 2028 — an offer the union says amounts to a pay cut in real terms.
Source: Reuters, Nov 2 2026 — German metal workers step up strikes in pay dispute
Bosch, Siemens, Audi, Airbus: the walkouts in detail
New strikes on Friday hit more than 30 companies in and around Nuremberg, including Bosch, Siemens, MAN Truck & Bus and Schaeffler, according to the union's reporting of the action. In Chemnitz, in Saxony, Siemens and Thyssenkrupp workers staged a four-hour stoppage. A day earlier, around 6,500 Audi workers walked out at the Neckarsulm plant, and protests involved 12,400 Airbus workers across four sites. Earlier in the week, 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.
At the Bosch plant in the Nuremberg area, workers blocked access with placards reading "Honk for the future" and "Honk for five percent" — while the company plans to cut more than 900 jobs at the facility by 2029, according to the reports. Audi's Neckarsulm workers fear their plant could close by 2034 without a long-term production plan, given the Volkswagen Group's ongoing cost and capacity cuts.
"Not cost-cutting — investment"
IG Metall leader Christiane Benner rejected further cost-cutting as the answer to the industry's troubles, calling instead for investment and innovation, the reports said. The union insists the dispute goes beyond pay: it wants binding guarantees for jobs, production sites and investment before it signs anything.
Talks resume on Monday in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, with the union threatening longer, potentially 24-hour walkouts unless employers improve their offer.
An industry under pressure
Germany's industrial sector has been hit by high energy costs since the loss of cheap Russian oil and gas, weak investment, US tariffs and fierce competition from China. The Federation of German Industries (BDI) warned in July that around 15,000 industrial jobs were disappearing every month, with 177,000 manufacturing positions lost over the previous year. Industrial output fell 0.4 percent in the third quarter, and energy-intensive production remained 1.9 percent below its level a year earlier.
What happens next is decided at Monday's bargaining table. A better employer offer ends the warning strikes; another stalemate points to the 24-hour walkouts the union has promised — and to fresh disruption at the car plants and engineering firms that anchor Germany's export economy.