Bavaria's metal pay talks stall as thousands strike at Audi and Airbus

Pay talks for Bavaria's metal and electrical industry have hit a wall. On Monday, thousands of workers took to the streets while negotiators met in Munich, and the union is now promising even more strikes.

What happened?

The third round of talks in Munich ended without progress. Bavarian employers rejected a proposal that IG Metall (Germany's biggest industrial union) had first put forward in Baden-Württemberg. It would allow individual companies to deviate from the collective agreement, but only in return for binding commitments on investment and keeping sites open.

"We haven't moved a single step forward," said Horst Ott, IG Metall's regional chief for Bavaria.

The employers' association vbm saw it differently. Its chief negotiator Thomas Kaeser accused the union of being unwilling to compromise. "We would have liked to make progress today, but that wasn't possible with IG Metall," he said.

Why were so many people on the street?

To add pressure, tens of thousands of employees took part in warning strikes across Bavaria. The biggest rally was held on the Audi Piazza in Ingolstadt. According to police, around 8,000 people from Audi, Airbus, Wacker Neuson, Scherm and other local firms gathered there. Further demonstrations took place in Aschaffenburg, Augsburg, Donauwörth and Nuremberg.

The employers criticised the strikes. They point out that Bavaria's metal and electrical industry has already lost 11,000 jobs this year alone.

What's next?

There is no date yet for a fourth round of talks. Attention now shifts to North Rhine-Westphalia, where employers and the union planned to meet on Monday afternoon.

IG Metall isn't backing down. "If that's the employers' answer, we'll turn it up a notch," Ott said. "We will expand the warning strikes."