One of the rituals repeated annually is the criticism of Germany’s government by workers and trade unions during the Labour Day rallies held on 1 May. This year, Germany’s trade unions, union apparatchiks and, at times, even union members celebrated big wins wherever trade unions concluded collective agreements.
This year, German trade unions had reasons to celebrate the day of work, albeit in the context of the – as usual – crisis of capitalism, made worse by Donald Trump’s attack on Iran and the subsequent closing of the Strait of Hormuz.
This year’s calls, such as “our jobs”, appeared amid substantial job losses caused by artificial intelligence, the transition to a sustainable economy, and Trump’s war. For union officials, there was a very clear motto: corporate coffers are full. Workers will retain a “kind of existence” under capitalism – an exchangeable commodity.
Despite all the doom and gloom of Germany’s corporate press, there is still economic growth. Germany’s capital, Berlin, was even celebrated as a boomtown by the press. But it is not the workforce that is booming.
In many industries, thousands of jobs were lost, particularly in sectors under pressure. The majority of East Germany’s provinces act as an extended workbench – low-cost manufacturing with few benefits for workers.
East Germany is home to none of Germany’s major corporations. Corporate Germany maintains only “branches” – and these are presented in quotation marks, i.e. ready to be closed down. When it comes to shutting factories, East German branches, rather than West German factories, are the ones that close.
Corporate Germany still treats East Germany with disdain. Not much has changed since conservative politician Helmut Kohl promised “blooming industrial landscapes” during the 1990s – an electoral lie.
Germany’s chemical giant BASF illustrates this clearly. In February 2026, BASF announced a comprehensive “restructuring plan” – managerial code for job losses. Its works council and the trade union swung into action on the spot. For the East German state of Brandenburg, the management plan would mean production and services being outsourced or transferred.
In Berlin alone, management threatens the loss of 2,800 jobs. BASF’s corporate apparatchiks want to “combine” – a conveniently vague word – its Berlin services with those in India. This means severe job losses are on the horizon. In other words, corporate bosses treat workers as a disposable human resource.
Despite the attacks of corporate management on workers, German trade unions also had reasons to celebrate. Trade unions managed to fend off attacks by Germany’s government and its “private jet–flying” and neoliberal-worshipping chancellor on the eight-hour day.
Meanwhile, the very same multi-million-euro chancellor frustrated Berlin’s inhabitants, the unemployed, and social welfare recipients with political attacks on what remains of the welfare state after Kohl, Schröder, and Merkel.
Not just on 1 May, Germany’s peak union body, the DGB, issued a massive counterattack against Germany’s conservative government. Unionists spoke of the largest assault on Germany’s welfare state and public services since the 1990s.
Instead of neoliberal cuts, Germany’s unions are calling for forward-looking policy, investment, and improved conditions so that companies can maintain operations.
Unionists from IG BCE (mining, energy, chemicals) said there is strong resistance inside companies to these government plans, and that this resistance is substantial. Yet, in upcoming collective bargaining rounds, employers are preparing to challenge workers.
In Germany’s public transport system, unions have put forward a comprehensive wage claim. Unionists said it is about public transport as such. Yet employers in East Germany’s Thuringia seek to increase working hours to 42 hours a week – an attack on the eight-hour day.
In other words, government policies and corporate bosses work hand in hand when attacking Germany’s welfare state and workers’ conditions. Regularly, German employers’ associations – the direct counterparts of trade unions in collective bargaining – advocate loudly for far-reaching restrictions on collective bargaining. While employers seek to contest hard-fought agreements, collective bargaining provides security for workers.
Yet only 42% of all workers in Berlin and Brandenburg, for example, are covered by collective agreements – far too low. For only 16% of companies does a collective agreement apply. Taken together, the DGB trade unions have lost ground in the context of industrial and demographic changes. Yet they have also gained members, as recent strike waves have been rather successful.
What German trade unions observe is that wherever unions enter disputes, wherever they engage in conflict and strike action, particularly young people are joining trade unions. This is a positive development. It also means that trade unions can slow their losses, halt them, or ideally reverse them.
Sadly, the once-revolutionary day – 1 May – has all too often degenerated into a commercialised street festival. Instead of “workers unite!”, today it is “revellers unite!”. This trend may be reinforced as a majority of young people connect through TikTok and Instagram.
Yet calls for union-organised rallies still dominate and remain visible. Rallies on 1 May also include queer, feminist, and “take back the night” demonstrations. At least one revolutionary rally countered this trend while trying to make up for the prevailing tendency. About 25,000 people took part. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands gathered to celebrate and attend large radical-progressive rallies across the country.
Many still agree that 1 May is, without a doubt, the most important holiday of the working-class movement. For the past 136 years, workers have celebrated it as one of the few secular holidays around the world. As the day of the working class, it became established in 1889 in Paris. On one 1 May, workers were shot and killed in Chicago by police officers while demonstrating for the eight-hour day.
For many workers, 1 May remains an important day. In 2026, this is also because of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s attacks on the basic rights of workers – an attack on the working class as a whole.
In mid-January 2026, the conservative, neoliberal, and rather zealous Merz (CDU) spoke in Halle in East Germany against Germany’s long-standing Working Time Act. He called for its abolition. The act regulates, among other things, the right to the eight-hour day and the 40-hour week.
Merz’s assault was an attack on workers’ rights, but it was also offensive to those who once fought for the labour movement and the eight-hour day. So far, major protests against Merz’s attacks have remained limited. Perhaps his insults against – in his view – workers will change after 1 May, at least for a few days.
As in many countries, there has been, at least since the 1960s, a well-engineered decay of a unified working-class movement. Corporate bosses, along with an ever-compliant business press, constantly question the usefulness of trade unions – every year.
It is, as the actor Sean Penn might say, “one battle after another” to defend workers against the sustained onslaught of corporate media, CEOs, right-wing politicians, pro-business think tanks, corporate lobbying, and the adjacent propaganda apparatus of capitalism.
Despite all this, people still take to the streets every year on 1 May across Germany. Even if workers are no longer as highly organised as they once were, union rallies are still held in almost all cities.
Some union rallies count more than 10,000 participants. In some cities, there were radical left-wing rallies. One rally included 800 anarchists – not a strong tradition in Germany – organised under the black-and-red flag. Around 3,000 people attended a Communist Revolutionary 1 May rally. The youth bloc at a DGB rally argued against compulsory military service, holding posters that read:
if hundreds of billions can be spent on arms,
why not on schools, universities, and healthcare systems,
where funding is lacking?
In other words, 1 May remains an important day. At some rallies, the powerful metalworkers’ union IG Metall (IGM) was accused of hypocrisy. On the one hand, IGM opposes arms manufacturing. On the other hand, it participates in it, for example at the Blohm + Voss shipyard. A similar contradiction is currently playing out at Volkswagen.
IGM knows that €1 million creates 6.9 jobs in arms manufacturing, compared to 10 in sustainable energy, 14.3 in healthcare, and a striking 19.2 in education – almost three times more. In other words, the critique of Germany’s most powerful trade union, IGM, is not unfounded. Yet while job creation is minimal, profits in Germany’s military-industrial complex are far from minimal.
In fact, 1 May is almost the only day of the year when workers, trade unions, and the labour movement rally against the injustices of corporate capitalism. On this day, people demonstrate that the social composition of Germany’s working class still exists – despite claims by the pro-business media.
In spite of their best efforts, political workers have not vanished into thin air over recent decades. In other words, as long as there is capitalism, there are workers – and as long as there are workers, there are organised workers. These workers continue to rally on 1 May.Email
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