Profitable Plant, Planned Exit: Thermo Fisher's Czech Move Adds Fuel to German Labor Fire

Tensions are mounting across Germany's labor landscape as disputes over wages, working conditions, and job security converge. While some companies report healthy earnings, their decisions to cut costs or relocate are drawing fierce pushback from unions and workers.

A case in point is the Bremen site of US-based technology company Thermo Fisher. The facility produces mass spectrometers and recently posted revenue of roughly €700 million, with a profit of nearly €300 million. Yet management plans to shift that production to Brno in the Czech Republic, affecting around 100 of the 520 jobs. Employee representatives are outraged; the works council fears the move could be a first step toward a complete shutdown.

That conflict is playing out alongside a string of other labor disputes. At Postbank, wage talks between management and the Verdi union have broken down entirely. The union will hold a ballot on indefinite strikes starting in mid-June, running into early July. To authorize industrial action, 75 percent of eligible voters must approve. Verdi is demanding an 8 percent pay rise, with a minimum increase of €300 per month.

Staff at the university hospitals in Freiburg, Heidelberg, Ulm and Tübingen have already walked out. A two-day warning strike drew between 1,500 and 1,600 participants, forcing operating theatres to close and leaving beds empty. Emergency services continued to operate. The union is asking for 7.5 percent more pay, with a floor of €320 per month. The employers’ association AGU has said it will table an offer in the next bargaining round but pointed to the clinics’ strained finances.

At DHL’s major hub in Leipzig, the DPVKOM union alleges a covert reduction in staff. The numbers are stark: the site employed more than 7,000 people at the start of 2024, but by early 2026 that figure had slipped to just over 6,000. The works council sees a deliberate, structured downsizing. DHL attributes the decline to natural attrition and falling parcel volumes since 2022.

A broader international index from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) shows that workers’ rights in Europe have deteriorated to their worst point since 2014. According to the ITUC, 73 percent of countries surveyed saw violations of the right to strike, more than half recorded restrictions on collective bargaining, 41 percent hindered the formation of unions, and nearly a quarter of cases involved violent attacks. Against that backdrop, worker representatives are demanding that social conditions be written into public procurement contracts – which represent an annual volume of roughly €2 trillion.

Working conditions are also in the spotlight. The DGB’s “Good Work 2025” index finds that 43 percent of employees regularly work more than eight hours a day, often against their will. Nearly half report feeling burnt out after work. Researchers at the Institute for Economic and Social Sciences (WSI) have warned against moves to relax the daily maximum working hours.

In the care sector, the Caritas association in the diocese of Aachen is raising the alarm. A proposed law aimed at stabilising statutory health insurance (GKV) contribution rates, it says, could end the contractual refinancing of certain outpatient care services, leading to significant gaps in provision.

More walkouts and protests are spreading. In Rosenow, garbage collectors paused their strike to return to the bargaining table. In Saarbrücken, union members are pushing for a local waste management firm to adopt the public sector collective agreement. In Austria, police officers are resisting a new duty-time model scheduled for 2027, which they argue will cause substantial income losses.

Finally, the chemicals and energy union IGBCE is grappling with internal problems. An external law firm is investigating allegations of systematic sexism and sexual harassment within the union’s youth wing.

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