Overview
- IG Metall, which reported results Tuesday, says it has won about 77–80 percent of works council seats so far in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony.
- Major auto plants returned clear majorities for the union, including 29 of 35 seats at Volkswagen’s Zwickau site and strong results at BMW Leipzig, Mercedes-Benz sites, and Porsche Leipzig.
- A widely expected shift to right-wing or extremist lists did not materialize in these early votes, according to union tallies.
- Tesla’s Grünheide factory was the outlier, where the management-aligned Giga United list prevailed and IG Metall has challenged the result in court over alleged employer influence.
- Turnout reached about 66 percent and women won roughly a quarter of seats, and further elections in larger workplaces are still due through the end of May with thousands of mandates to fill.