Tough Contract Talks Due Next Month : Trade Unions Set for Fight in W. Germany

BONN — The once-powerful trade unions of West Germany are preparing for a showdown with employers and the conservative government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. And the union leaders realize that they have a tough fight on their hands and may not win it.

Union stability helped fuel the postwar “economic miracle” in West Germany, but now the unions are in disarray.

Because of the economic slump of the early 1980s, the employers have gained the upper hand. And the government has pushed through tough laws that make it more difficult to bring off a successful strike.

Further, the union movement has been hit by a major scandal in connection with the forced sale of the near-bankrupt Neue Heimat (New Homeland) housing corporation, the largest in Europe, which was owned by the German Federation of Trade Unions.

Former Chairman Arrested

The former chairman of Neue Heimat was arrested recently during a conference in Hamburg of the largest trade union in West Germany, IG Metall, which represents 2.5 million metalworkers in the auto and heavy machinery industries.

The official, Alfonse Lappas, who had been held in contempt for refusing to testify before a parliamentary investigating committee, was later released, but the incident made headlines around the country, and the publicity has not enhanced the unions’ prestige.

The metalworkers then elected as their leader Franz Steinkuehler, 49, an urbane negotiator who will seek to persuade employers to accept a 35-hour workweek when contract talks open in December.

Settlements with the metalworkers generally lead the way for contracts in other industries. In 1984, the metalworkers struck the automobile industry for a 35-hour workweek. The walkout lasted seven weeks, cost German car makers millions of dollars and resulted in a reduced workweek--to 38 1/2 hours from 48.

Change in Strike Benefits

But today the unions face a different situation. The Bundestag (Federal Assembly) has changed the rules. In the 1984 strike, workers were paid unemployment compensation when assembly lines were closed by strikes at factories that supplied parts. The law now denies compensation to workers idled by a strike elsewhere. If there is a strike now, the unions will have to provide strike benefits.

The union federation’s sale of Neue Heimat to Horst Schiesser, a Berlin bakery owner, for the nominal sum of a single deutsche mark (49 U.S. cents) has proved to be almost as much of a shock to the labor movement as the Bundestag legislation.

Neue Heimat was developed in the 1960s and 1970s to provide inexpensive housing for workers and their families--to meet a social need rather than to make a profit. Hailed as an example of enlightened business with a social conscience, it became the largest building society in Europe.

In the late 1970s, however, Neue Heimat became overextended and encountered serious financial problems. In 1982, some of its officials were charged with mismanagement and corruption, and the society’s fortunes suffered further.

Last month, in a move that caught much of West Germany by surprise, Neue Heimat was sold to Schiesser, who took over the society’s 190,000 housing units and the greater part of the $8.5 million in debts it owed to about 150 banks. The deal went through without a word to creditors or tenants.

After the sale to Schiesser, the ruling Christian Democratic Party promptly attacked the trade unions and their allies in the opposition Social Democratic Party.

“The behavior of the (union federation) and its biggest business concern has made a complete mockery of the union’s fanatical fight for industrial democracy,” Bavarian party leader Franz Josef Strauss said. Chancellor Helmut Kohl called the sale “a betrayal of the people.”

According to political observers, the Lappas and Neue Heimat affairs are likely to affect the union’s standing, and that of the Social Democrats, in the eyes of German voters--and a national election is scarcely three months away.