German construction strike over

FRANKFURT, Germany -- German construction workers have won a 3.2 percent pay increase as part of an agreement to end their first strike in post-war history.

The IG BAU construction union reached agreement with employers on Tuesday to end a wage strike involving some 30,000 workers.

The deal, reached after a 22-hour bargaining session in Wiesbaden, calls for a 3.2 percent wage increase beginning September 1 and an increase in the minimum wage for construction workers in the formerly communist east.

The union had sought 4.5 percent, while the employers had offered 3.0 percent.

Employers and some economists said the strike could make things worse in the construction sector, which contracted by about 20 percent in 1995-2001.

Negotiations broke down June 1 even after involvement of a mediator, and the strike began June 17, spreading gradually to more than 1,000 construction sites across the country.

The deal covers around 950,000 workers employed in the sector.

Political analysts said if the strike -- the latest round of labour unrest this year -- had dragged on, it could have damaged Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's election campaign this summer.

Schroeder trails conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber and only recently began closing the gap in voter surveys.

The construction strike and rolling stoppages organised by the services sector union Verdi in several other industries opened the prospect of a summer of labour unrest in the run-up to a September general election.