German farmers and train drivers are scaring the country’s bosses
The country’s industrial relations are being tested like never before
In GERMany, where workers and bosses run many companies jointly, a big strike is unusual. A wave of big strikes is almost unheard of. Right now the country of “co-determination” is simultaneously facing an eight-day “action week” by irate farmers, who blocked roads with tractors, a three-day strike of railway workers and, to top it off, a looming strike of doctors, who already closed surgeries between Christmas and New Year’s Day. This Mistgabelmop (pitchfork mob), as some have taken to calling it, will test Germany’s harmonious labour relations in the year to come.
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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Labour’s love lost”
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