Despite a renewed decline in members, IG Metall has shown itself ready to fight.

The members expected rising real wages and more security in the digital and climate-neutral conversion of the industry, said union boss Jörg Hofmann on Thursday.

Appropriate demands will be made in the collective bargaining for textiles, steel, metal and electronics and there will also be pressure for future collective agreements in which the strategy and employment of the individual companies will be agreed.

"Only those who draw up a plan with their employees at an early stage also have a future," said Hofmann.

The IG Metall boss demanded a promise of security for the employees when converting the industry through digitization and decarbonization.

“We will not master the transformation in Germany with the dark triad of dismantling, closing, relocating.

If Germany wants to remain a strong industrial country, massive investments must be made in the future, including that of its employees.”

With almost 2.17 million members at the end of 2021, IG Metall remains the largest single German union, but lost 2.1 percent of its members compared to the previous year.

After 2020, this is the second major decline since the financial crisis of 2008/2009, as Hofmann admitted.

The reasons are a lack of contact options during the pandemic and job cuts in the sectors covered by IG Metall.

Due to higher wages, membership fees rose slightly to 592 million euros, but did not reach the record level of 2019. Once again, a handsome amount of 89 million euros went to the reserves, which can be used for strikes, among other things.

"No political action, no strike will fail because of the money," explained chief cashier Jürgen Kerner.

Increasing wages as a target for the 2022 collective bargaining round

The second chairwoman, Christiane Benner, demanded digital access rights to the companies for the trade unions. This must be regulated by the Federal Government when the entire Works Constitution Act is due to be reviewed, instead of evaluating the “little reform” of the Works Council Modernization Act. In the upcoming works council elections, IG Metall does see competing lists being drawn up, but no serious increase in explicitly right-wing activities, said Benner. One wants to convince the employees through good work on site and achieve a high turnout.

According to Hofmann, in the forthcoming collective bargaining rounds, the union wants to be guided by the European Central Bank's inflation target of 2 percent, despite the comparatively high inflation. Together with the development of productivity and the scope for distribution, it forms the basis for the demand that the collective bargaining commissions are to discuss in the case of the metal and electrical industry from June. The M+E industry is undoubtedly still on the recovery path. In the medium term, more production will have to be relocated to Europe and Germany because of the fragile supply chains. Hofmann said: "The main thing is that it's cheap" is not a strategy that promises success in the long term."

The proposal to make the SPD politician and chemical unionist Yasmin Fahimi the new chairman of the German Trade Union Confederation is supported by all individual unions, said Hofmann.

According to him, IG Metall, which has the right to propose candidates, was not able to convince any suitable candidate from within its own ranks to agree to chair the DGB.

This obviously meant his deputy Benner, who is said to have ambitions to chair the IG Metall union.

The 66-year-old Hofmann confirmed that he no longer wanted to compete at the next trade union conference in autumn 2023.