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My Profile Top News Reuters top ten news stories delivered to your inbox each day. Subscribe You are here: Home > News > International > Article Home Business & Finance News U.S. Politics International Technology Entertainment Sports Lifestyle Oddly Enough Environment Health Science Special Coverage Video Pictures Your View The Great Debate Blogs Weather Reader Feedback Do More With Reuters RSS Widgets Mobile Podcasts Newsletters Your View Make Reuters My Homepage Partner Services CareerBuilder Affiliate Network Professional Products Support (Customer Zone) Reuters Media Financial Products About Thomson Reuters German unions find new allies in crisis Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:40pm EDT Email | Print | Share | Reprints | Single Page [-] Text [+] By Kerstin Gehmlich BERLIN (Reuters) - Anna has worked for German conglomerate Siemens AG for more than 20 years and never saw the need to join a trade union -- until now. After the company urged her to take voluntary early retirement, Anna signed up with IG Metall, Germany's largest union, and she was not alone. The 40-year-old is one of more than 2,000 workers in Berlin who have joined the engineering union over the past year, giving the local branch its first membership increase since German reunification nearly 20 years ago. "I wanted to have someone strong in the background to support me in these times," she said, declining to give her full name to preserve the anonymity offered by the union. "Accepting (early retirement) would mean I'd be unemployed from May. I won't do that. Where would I find a new job in this crisis?" Across Europe, trade unions -- whose force in collective bargaining had been weakened by the availability of cheap labor in emerging markets -- are regaining influence in the crisis, rallying large crowds to call on governments to protect workers. From France to Greece, Portugal to Britain, unions have organized rallies to protest against government policies, demand more job protection, or help for the poor. In Germany, few union protests have so far been directed against the government. The crisis has instead pushed politicians and employers into unusual alliances with lobby groups. After years of decline, Germany's two largest unions, IG Metall and services union Verdi saw their members hold steady last year at 2.3 million and 2.2 million, respectively. "New members tell us they are worried about the overall economic situation," said Klaus Abel from IG Metall's Berlin branch. "Many also want to address wider questions linked to this crisis, such as how to regulate capitalism." The challenge for German unions over the coming years will be to make the recent pick up in membership last and translate those gains into concrete results in wage talks -- a tough task against the backdrop of the global economic crisis. UNLIKELY ALLIES The unions' political clout has been boosted by new-found support from mainstream parties and through alliances with previously union-wary employers, who are siding with the lobby groups in their shared pledge for state aid in the crisis. At carmaker Opel, management and unions joined forces to call for government help for the struggling General Motors unit. Billionaire widow Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler also held a joint rally with unions at her family-owned bearings maker, calling on the state to help her group, which is heavily indebted after buying control of auto parts maker Continental. Continued... View article on single page Share: Del.icio.us Digg Mixx Yahoo! 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