As Germany’s biggest union, IG Metall, begins discussions on demands for a wage increase of up to 8.2 per cent for the country’s 85,000 steelworkers in the coming weeks, Birgit Dietze expects reverberations for workers across Europe.

“When companies are making high profits, as they are at the moment, there can and must be compensation for the sharp rise in prices for employees,” Dietze, IG Metall’s chief negotiator in the east German steel industry, told the Financial Times ahead of a vote by the union’s board later on Sunday, when members are expected to back the proposed rise.

The IG Metall discussions, which are set to conclude by the summer, are expected to provide a benchmark for negotiation rounds in other industries tabled for later in 2022. “Everybody who bargains on wages looks very closely at what these negotiations in German industry are doing,” said Esther Lynch, deputy general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation.