Germans have long taken pride in their social harmony and benevolent welfare state, which has virtually guaranteed decent living standards and generous health and vacation benefits. Now, the country is bitterly debating proposals to roll back benefits, particularly those for workers and the elderly. Meanwhile, a society once accustomed to upward mobility revises its expectations downward. In a poll conducted by TNS Infratest in October, nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they would be willing to give up some of their salaries to make their jobs more secure.
"Germany is now confronted with a process of fundamental change," said Ulrich Beck, a sociologist at the University of Munich. "We will have to redefine the notion of work and our entire social system. The notion that we can return to full employment is a great illusion. It will be a conversion from a society of having more to a society of having less."
Hans Gabriel, a worker at the Opel automobile factory in Bochum, Germany, joined fellow employees in a five-day strike in October.
(Michael Sohn -- AP)
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Siemens AG, the archetypal German electronics giant, now employs more people outside of Germany than within. It recently persuaded its German workforce to accept longer hours for the same pay by threatening to transfer jobs to Hungary. German manufacturer Robert Bosch GmbH used similar threats of shifting work to the Czech Republic to extract longer hours from workers in France, where unemployment is near 10 percent.
The transfer of work to the lower-cost east is particularly intense in the auto industry. In 1990, only about one-fourth of the cars produced by German brands were manufactured outside the country. By 2003, the share was close to half. The German wheel producer Continental AG employed about one-third of its workforce outside Germany in 1980. Last year, it was 60 percent. The company will soon churn out 16 million wheels a year at its factory in Temesvar, Romania, where wages are about one-tenth what they are in Germany.
"We have to adapt our labor costs at least to those in Western Europe," said auto expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer. "If we maintain our current standard, then everything will melt away."
The experience in Germany's Ruhr Valley suggests that the disparity with the east is so vast that minor adjustments will have little effect.
Bochum was dominated by coal until the 1950s, when lower costs in the United States shut down the mines. The Opel plant, opened in 1962, created jobs for 4,000 people. They built about 50 no-frills sedans for lower-middle-class families in an eight-hour shift.
By 1970, sales were exploding, with sports cars and higher-end sedans added to the mix. The factory was churning out 1,000 cars per shift with 20,000 workers on the floor. It was the largest employer in the region.
The factory was a key source of parts for other plants in Germany, giving workers here in Bochum outsized power. When they were rebuffed in demands for increased Christmas bonuses, a three-day strike secured the extra pay. In 1973, another three-day walkout yielded a lump-sum bonus. Longer strikes in the 1980s delivered the 35-hour workweek.
Germany's largest union, IG Metall, negotiates with an association of employers for a contract covering basic wages for metal and textile workers throughout the country. But worker councils at individual factories are free to negotiate for wages above those contract minimums, which the Bochum workforce regularly did successfully.
