East German steel workers strike for 35-hour week

摘要

Members of trade union IG Metall in east Germany are staging their second week of warning strikes, lasting two to three hours, in protest at working longer than their west German colleagues. Around 1,500 downed tools on the morning of May 13 at EKO Stahl. Eisenhuttenstadt as well as at Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes and Schmiedwerk Groditzer, said an IG Metall spokeswoman. Steelworkers in the ex-German Democratic Republic are subject to a 38-hour week with the same pay and conditions as those in the former Federal Republic, who work 35 hours.