For those striking at the gates of the SRW scrap metal plant just outside the eastern German city of Leipzig, time can be counted not just in days (136 so far), but also in the thousands of card games played, liters of coffee drunk, and armfuls of firewood burned.
Or it can be measured by the length of Jonny Bohne's beard. He vows not to shave until he returns to the job he has held for two decades. Mr. Bohne, 56, wears his red baseball cap and tends the fire in an oil drum. He looks like an unkempt Santa Claus.
The dozens of workers at the SRW recycling center say their strike is the longest in Germany's postwar history – a dubious honor in a country with a history of harmonious labor relations. (The previous record of 114 days was held by shipyard workers in the northern city of Kiel who went on strike in the 1950s.)
While month-long strikes are commonplace in some other European countries such as Spain, Belgium and France, where worker protests are something of a national pastime, Germany has long prided itself on trouble-free collective bargaining.
A wave of strikes this year has Germans wondering whether that will change now. In some ways, the first three months of 2024 saw the most strikes in the country in 25 years.
Striking workers have brought railways and airports to a standstill. Doctors have left hospitals. Bank employees stayed home from work for days.
“Germany – strike nation?” asked a recent headline in the German magazine Der Spiegel. Jens Spahn, deputy leader of the conservative Christian Democrats in parliament, denounced “strike madness” that he said threatened to paralyze the country.
The strikes are the latest chapter in the story of how Germany, the “economic miracle” of the 20th century, risks becoming a cautionary tale for the 21st century.
Germany has long been Europe's economic powerhouse and is now the slowest-growing country among the 20 countries that use the euro. The country entered a recession in 2023 and is expected to stagnate in 2024. Burdened by rising energy prices and falling production, the country suffered its highest inflation in 50 years last year.
Low- and middle-income workers were hit hardest. According to a recent study, their real wages have fallen more sharply since 2022 than at any time since the Second World War.
At the same time, Germany is faced with an ever-increasing labor shortage and an aging population. Official estimates suggest there will be a labor shortage of seven million by 2035. This means problems for the generous social system that German citizens have long depended on.
It is a unique moment of opportunity for workers at a very vulnerable moment for the national economy.
“Germany is coming out of the crisis more slowly than expected,” Economics Minister Robert Habeck said last week, criticizing what he called “a little too conspicuous.”
“We really can’t afford that,” he said.
For decades, the German economy was profitable, supported by exports to China and cheap gas from Russia. But Moscow's invasion of Ukraine prompted Europe to distance itself from the Russian gas that fuels German industry. And Beijing's deepening “Made in China” strategy is turning a huge Asian market that was once a source of growth for Germany into an industrial competitor.
The impact on Germany has been worse than elsewhere in Europe, precisely because of its huge manufacturing industry, which accounts for a fifth of the country's total economic output – almost twice as much as in France or Britain.
For lower-income workers now bracing for a future less prosperous than the present, there is little to fall back on. Around 40 percent of households have little or no net savings, said Marcel Fratzscher, President of the German Institute for Economic Research.
“The concerns, dissatisfaction and fears of young people are completely justified – and of course also of parents who fear for their children,” he said.
“People had trusted that social welfare could deliver,” he added. “It can no longer offer what it used to do.”
At the scrap metal plant, workers like Mr. Bohne work in shifts to maintain their 24-hour strike outside the main gates, warming themselves in construction containers or at makeshift fireplaces fueled with scrap wood.
Due to the shutdowns, the factory had to stop its night shifts and only one of the four production lines is operational. The strikers, who want an 8 percent pay rise, feel emboldened.
“You can tell that solidarity has become stronger,” said Christoph Leonardt, 35, one of the picket workers.
But it's not just about the pay. Employees are also demanding better working conditions, the ability to plan work shifts and vacations well in advance, a better work-life balance and fewer hours.
“The worker has become more confident,” said Katrin Heller, a 61-year-old security worker who marched with hundreds of striking colleagues in fluorescent vests through Berlin airport’s shiny new departure hall last week, forcing flights to be canceled.
“We know we have value to employers, so we expect to be treated fairly,” she said. Officially, airport security guards are demanding a 15 percent pay increase to keep up with inflation, but many appeared more frustrated with shift schedules that force them to stand for up to six hours without a break.
Robert Wegener, 56, a security inspector for 19 years, warned that jobs like this are no longer attractive to younger people: “If we don't get these extras, there's not much incentive to work here.”
His employer Securitas agrees. Jonas Timm, a company spokesman, said recruiting had become increasingly difficult since the pandemic as he noticed a “change in mentality” around shift work.
Many employers have expressed frustration that, for example, more applicants are demanding shorter working hours or a four-day week.
Analysts disagree about why Germans want to work less, but many say a big problem is the German tax system, which taxes income far more heavily than personal wealth, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income workers.
Clemens Feust, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, says working full-time can be more expensive than staying at home. An ifo study found that a family in which one partner works full-time and the other works part-time has more income at the end of the month than two full-time working parents due to the tax structure of married couples.
“The fact that it doesn’t pay to work in our middle income brackets is really a problem,” he said.
If striking workers exert their power, there is a risk that costs to the overall economy will rise as critical infrastructure across Germany comes to a standstill.
The one-day strike at airports in Berlin and Hamburg last week grounded around 570 flights and affected 90,000 travelers, according to an industry group.
According to estimates by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the train drivers' strikes cost the German economy around 100 million euros a day.
Mr Feust said such costs were often offset by companies and affected travelers making adjustments. The more serious damage is to economic sentiment, he said.
“This is more about psychology,” he said, particularly at a time when Germany feels polarized by both economic and political struggles, including the war in Ukraine and the resurgence of the far right. “It leads to an increased sense of crisis.”
Striking workers say they, too, crave a sense of security along with higher wages.
“We need more reliability and have to be able to plan for the long term,” said Bohne.
Only then, he said, would he shave his beard.