German construction workers in two north-western states have voted to go on strike after employers there rejected a nation-wide pay deal, the IG-BAU construction trade union said on Saturday. The union said the strike, which would be the first in the sector since 2002, could begin as early as Monday.
It had vowed to strike after groups representing employers in the states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein earlier this month rejected the results of a mediation process overseen by former economy minister Wolfgang Clement.
The union said a ballot of members in the two states showed 87.9 percent backed the strike. "The good participation in the strike ballot makes clear how angry our colleagues are about the rigid position of denial of the two employers' associations," IG-BAU chairman Klaus Wiesehuegel said in a statement.
Germany's construction industry returned to growth last year after spending most of the previous decade in a recession which held back the country's economic expansion.
IG-BAU had agreed to a provisional deal, which envisaged a 3.5 percent wage rise affecting the 700,000 workers in the sector from June 1 until March 31, 2009. But the employers' groups in the two states found the proposed wage deal too high.
The breakdown in the wage round followed months of talks. Originally, the construction union had demanded a wage increase of 5.5 percent while employers had said no more than 2 percent was possible.
Last month, employers and unions in the metals and engineering industry agreed a pay deal in the key state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, centring on a 4.1 percent wage increase from June, which paved the way for a nation-wide agreement.
In the first quarter of this year, construction investment rose by 3.5 percent from the final three months of 2006. However, a survey released earlier this month showed construction activity in Germany fell for the second month running in May.
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