The industry is facing considerable restructuring - mainly due to climate change and digitalization.
The unions fear job cuts and have demands on the future government.
Berlin - IG Metall demonstrated nationwide on Friday for a socially responsible restructuring of the industry.
According to the union, more than 50,000 people took to the streets in over 50 cities.
The background to this is the expected changes in the economy and society as a result of climate change, digitization and shifts in the global balance of power.
The union fears, among other things, job cuts in the course of climate protection measures.
IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann called on the possible traffic light partners SPD, Greens and FDP to take steps towards a social, ecological and democratic transformation.
"We need considerable investments in the future," said Hofmann of the German press agency.
Demands on the new government
With the day of action, the union wanted to emphasize its demands on the future federal government.
The Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union (IG BCE) also organized protests by its workforce and urged the next federal government to adopt a balanced policy for climate-neutral industrial restructuring.
At a rally near the Berlin Reichstag building, IG Metall boss Hofmann said that 500 billion euros would be needed over the next ten years to support ecological and digital change.
The union insists on binding commitments for employment and qualifications.
IG-BCE chairman Michael Vassiliadis said at a rally in Ludwigshafen, Rhineland-Palatinate, that the transformation could become the largest modernization and location protection program in German industry for decades.
However, change should not be decided over the heads of the employees.
It is right to expect industry to become more sustainable and climate neutral.
"Sustainable industrial policy must then ensure that the locations here have a future and can also change here."
Requirements for "sustainable change"
According to IG Metall, around 10,000 employees took to the streets in Stuttgart alone.
District chief Roman Zitzelsberger said: "Climate change, digitization and alternative e-drives are changing society and the economy and thus our working world." IG Metall is behind this transformation.
"However, companies and coalition partners must now create the conditions for social and ecologically sustainable change so that we still have safe and good jobs tomorrow."
The acting minister of labor and SPD deputy chief Hubertus Heil announced in front of the metalworkers that a traffic light coalition wanted to go “the way to the further education republic”.
Heil is in charge of negotiating the area of work with the Greens and FDP for the SPD.
Heil expressly supported the IG Metall concept of a transformation short-time work allowance, with which employees should be able to keep their jobs and gain further qualifications if a company is restructured due to technological change.
At the rally in Berlin, Greens federal manager Michael Kellner emphasized that the planned investments would create prosperity and the jobs of tomorrow.
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