W. German Labor Backs Easterners; Thousands Support Walkouts Over Wages
More than 300,000 workers throughout Germany took to the streets today in an escalating showdown between unions determined to protect postwar gains and employers eager to halt a deepening recession.</br></br>Ten days into eastern Germany's first strike in more than half a century, workers in three states in the formerly communist east voted overwhelmingly to join the job action, while western German workers staged demonstrations and brief walkouts in sympathy.</br></br>About 40,000 metalworkers and workers in related industries in the eastern part of the country have joined the stoppages.</br></br>The strike started May 3 after employers unilaterally canceled a two-year-old contract that promised eastern workers a 26 percent pay raise this spring and parity with western wages by 1994. The strike - a potentially fatal blow to many eastern firms that have been unable to compete in the new western economy - is a watershed in German labor relations, a level of confrontation not seen since the 1920s.</br></br>"In 1928, we suffered the same conditions as now," Manfred Foede, a leader of IG Metall, Germany's largest union, told a rally here today. "Mass unemployment, a trend toward right-wing radicalism and broken union contracts. The unions did not protect themselves enough then, and we all know what happened. This time, we will protect ourselves."