IG Metall plans more partial walk-outs on Wednesday: union

BERLIN (Reuters) - Hundreds of workers at German carmaker Daimler went on strike on Wednesday, engineering trade union IG Metall said, after wage talks affecting 70,000 employees in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia stalled last week. Daimler's Sprinter plant in Duesseldorf was hit by the walk out during the early morning shift as 800 workers downed tools, starting a wave of warning strikes planned for Germany's industrial heartland, IG Metall said. "Our patience is at an end, we want a 6.5 percent wage increase," Oliver Burkhard, a regional union leader, said in a statement. ...

Germany's IG Metall union plans more partial walk-outs on Wednesday after about 2,500 workers walked off the job in Berlin, Bavaria and in several other states early on Sunday to back their demand for ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Thousands of workers in Germany's engineering sector walked out on strike over a wage dispute on Wednesday, in what the powerful IG Metall trade union warned could be just the start of warning strikes that aim to drive forward wage negotiations. Around 30,000 workers in Germany's manufacturing sector downed tools until midday, affecting more than 100 companies, including German carmaker Daimler , after regional wage negotiations stalled in April. "Our patience is at an end, we want a 6.5 percent wage increase," Oliver Burkhard, a regional union leader, said in a statement.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Thousands of workers in Germany's engineering sector walked out on strike over a wage dispute on Wednesday, in what the powerful IG Metall trade union warned could be just the start of warning strikes that aim to drive forward wage negotiations.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN – Germany signaled on Wednesday it was ready to back plans for the European Central Bank to be made the chief supervisor of banks, raising the prospect of a breakthrough on the European Union’s most ambitious financial reform. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the German cabinet he was “optimistic” about a deal ahead of a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, a German official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A record-breaking pay deal will give millions of German workers their biggest rise in wages in two decades, boost consumption in Europe's biggest economy and help towards adjusting the regional imbalances that have caused severe tensions within the euro zone, analysts said on Sunday. Germany's largest industrial union IG Metall agreed to a 4.3-percent pay rise from employers just before dawn on Saturday -- giving the 3.6 million car and engineering industry workers their biggest wage increase since a 5.4 percent deal in 1992. The eye-catching 4. ...

Toyota said sales last year soared 22.6 percent to 9.75 million vehicles, while Nissan saw a 5.8 percent on-year rise to 4.94 million units. Honda, Japan's number-three automaker, recorded sales of 3.81 million vehicles, up from 3.09 million a year earlier, as strong US and Asian demand boosted its results.

Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen, said Tuesday it has agreed a 3.2 percent wage hike with Germany's top trade union IG Metall, setting a key benchmark for the country as its economy booms.VW and IG Metall also agreed on a one-off bonus equal to one percent of a worker's annual pay, with a minimum payment of 500 euros ($680), a statement said.The pay increase is to take effect on May 1, effectively bringing it forward by eight months, VW added.