Germany: bolstered by increased membership numbers, the IG Metall union intends “to conquer the world of digital work”

On 20 January 2016, in Frankfurt, during the annual conference of the metals and electro-technical union IG Metall, its new president Jörg Hofman, announced that last year the organization had recorded higher membership numbers for the fifth consecutive year, making a total of 2.274 million members. The union has set itself three priorities for 2016: gain a presence in companies that do not as yet have collective agreements, “conquer the world of digital work”, and continue the combat against abuses of service provision contracts. In the short to medium term however the union intends first to fight for “higher real incomes” during the upcoming regional metals sector collective negotiations that are due to commence in March 2016.
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An increase in youth, employee, and female membership. The IG Metall union that has for some time been systematically following a policy to recruit new members saw its efforts recompensed in 2015. Last year, the union won over more than 120,000 new members, up 2% from 20154. The union that traditionally has a broad presence across production sites was also very pleased to see an increase of almost 2% in the number of employees, engineers and technical experts joining up. At the end of 2015, IG

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