FRANKFURT (AFP) - Around 15,000 workers at German car giant Volkswagen walked off the job in warning strikes aimed at turning up the pressure on management in deadlocked wage talks.
At VW's factory in Brunswick, northern Germany, close to 3,000 workers downed tools for four hours overnight, with demonstrations staged at different gates of the factory, the IG Metall labour union said.
Similar walkouts were staged at VW's other sites in Kassel, central Germany, and the northern plants of Salzgitter, Emden and Wolfsburg.
Speaking at a reception in the regional state parliament of Lower Saxony in Hanover, German President Horst Koehler said: "I believe it's in everyone's interests that the conflict should be settled as quickly as possible."
He favoured a solution that would guarantee jobs in the region, Koehler added, and said the VW wage talks would send an important signal to the German auto sector as a whole.
The so-called "Friedenspflicht" deadline banning industrial action during wage negotiations ended last Thursday and already on Friday 4,000 workers walked off the job temporarily.
And as management and unions met for a sixth round of wage talks on Monday, both sides showed signs of digging their heels in.
Europe's biggest car maker is seeking a two-year wage freeze for the 103,000 staff on German assembly lines and a 30-percent reduction in labour costs by 2011.
IG Metall, for its part, is demanding job guarantees for 10 years and a four-percent increase in wages. But it has signalled it is willing to review its demand for higher wages if it can obtain an "acceptable" solution with regard to the job guarantees.
IG Metall's deputy chief Berthold Huber said in a newspaper interview Monday there was no question at the present moment of workers going on an all-out strike.
"We have no intention of striking. We'll only pose the 'strike question' if talks don't yield an acceptable result," Huber told the local daily Maerkischer Allgemeine.
And the top union official acknowledged that given the current economic situation there was no room for big pay rises.
"The fight is primarily about job security," Huber said. He nevertheless rejected management's demands for a pay freeze.
11/01/2004 - 12:03 GMT - AFP