More than 413,000 workers across Germany's crisis-hit industrial sector have taken part in strikes and rallies this week, demanding higher pay and job security, trade union IG Metall announced on Friday. Germany's largest union reported more than 2,800 actions nationwide since Sunday, hitting carmakers, engineering companies, metal producers and suppliers after three rounds of wage talks failed to produce a deal.

IG Metall is demanding a 5 percent pay rise over 12 months for 3.7 million workers, higher apprentice wages, job guarantees and profit-sharing at profitable companies. Employers have offered a one-off payment equal to about 1 percent of annual pay in July 2027 and a permanent 1.3 percent raise from July 2028. The union has rejected that offer, describing it as a minus offer and a pay cut in real terms.

The walkouts have spread across the country's industrial heartlands. New strikes hit more than 30 companies in and around Nuremberg on Friday, including Bosch, Siemens, MAN Truck and Bus, and Schaeffler. Footage from a Bosch plant showed workers blocking access and waving placards reading Honk for the future and Honk for five percent. The protest came as Bosch plans to cut more than 900 jobs at the facility by 2029.

A day earlier, around 6,500 Audi workers walked out at the Neckarsulm plant in south-western Germany. Workers fear the plant could close by 2034 without a long-term production plan, given Volkswagen Group's ongoing cost and capacity cuts. Thursday also brought walkouts at Mercedes-Benz in Sindelfingen and protests involving 12,400 Airbus workers across four sites. In Saxony, Siemens and Thyssenkrupp workers staged a four-hour stoppage in Chemnitz, gathering outside the Siemens plant for a joint rally.

Earlier strikes hit Audi in Ingolstadt, Porsche in Zuffenhausen, BMW plants in Bavaria and Volkswagen in Osnabrueck, where around 2,000 workers protested against threatened job cuts. Thousands more joined actions at Ford, Mercedes, Daimler Truck and suppliers including ZF and Schaeffler.

IG Metall insists that the dispute goes beyond pay, demanding binding guarantees for jobs, production and investment. Union leader Christiane Benner rejected further cost-cutting as a solution to the industry's troubles, calling instead for investment and innovation. The first walkouts began at midnight on Sunday 1 November, when around 300 employees of Thyssenkrupp's Rasselstein unit and workers from surrounding companies downed tools. Jorg Kohlinger, head of IG Metall's central district, said at the time that the midnight warning strike was merely the start of a massive phase of warning strikes.

The dispute reflects the deep strain on German industry. Germany's once-mighty industrial sector has been hit hard by soaring energy costs following the loss of cheap Russian oil and gas, weak investment, US tariffs and fierce competition from China. Factories are closing, production is moving abroad, and industrial giants including Volkswagen, Bosch and Mercedes-Benz are cutting thousands of jobs. In July, the Federation of German Industries called the situation critical, warning that around 15,000 industrial jobs disappear every month, with 177,000 manufacturing positions lost over the previous year. Although industrial output edged up in September, it fell 0.4 percent in the third quarter, and energy-intensive production remained 1.9 percent below its level at the same time last year.

Talks resume on Monday in Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, with the union threatening longer, potentially 24-hour walkouts unless employers improve their offer. Monday's talks are now the key test of whether the employers will change their position.

The walkouts are part of a wider wave of strikes and labour protests sweeping Europe. In France, hundreds of thousands protested on Thursday for higher pay and public investment, disrupting transport and schools. Spain faces a nationwide general strike on 11 November following weeks of protests over soaring rent and evictions. In Ireland, more than 300,000 public-sector workers are preparing to strike on 12 November after pay talks collapsed.