Frankfurt/Main (dpa) - With thunderous applause and a lot of advance praise, IG Metall has elected a woman to its leadership for the first time. The 55-year-old Christiane Benner received 96.4 percent of the votes at the trade union conference in Frankfurt - putting numerous prominent predecessors in the shade. Not since the legendary Otto Brenner in 1965 has an IG Metall boss begun his term of office with such a vote.

IG Metall and the industrial workers it represents are in the midst of an unprecedented restructuring, as the sociologist Benner is of course aware. The steel industry is worried about state subsidies for climate-neutral steel production and a bridge electricity price subsidized by taxpayers' money. Car manufacturers and mechanical engineers are in the midst of digitalization and the transformation to electric drives. After her election, Benner said: "Our goal is to keep industrial value creation in Germany. What's gone is gone. We will have lost that." The green transformation offers a lot of business opportunities.

Jobs are at stake in all of this. Benner promises to fight for every single job and to develop prospects in the regions. To do this, he says, it is also necessary to expand co-determination in strategic company issues. The current vice-chairwoman wants to make the interests of employees more visible in particular and has apparently seen deficits in this area to date. "We don't come forward enough. I would like to lead the way."

First woman to head a trade union

After Benner won a power struggle, the IG Metall trade union in Frankfurt made it easy for her to get started. The delegates cheer enthusiastically for their beaming chairwoman as she holds up a poster with the slogan "We can do it - change is female". One of the first to congratulate her was DGB head Yasmin Fahimi, whose post Benner had refused to let herself be swept away in 2022. Instead, she persistently pursued her goal of becoming the first female head of Germany's most powerful trade union with more than 2.1 million members.

Women make up less than 20 percent of IG Metall members. At the trade union conference, 142 of the 421 delegates were female and the statutory quota was clearly exceeded at around 34%.

Benner's predecessor Jörg Hofmann (67), who had envisaged a different successor, did not stand for re-election after two terms in office for reasons of age. In its 132-year history, IG Metall and its predecessor organizations have only ever had male chairmen. Benner also improved on her previous election result of 87% from 2019 in Nuremberg by almost ten percentage points.

The ballot for the Executive Board was interrupted by a medical emergency involving an older NRW delegate who had to be taken to hospital. Together with the new boss, four other metalworkers stood for election as Executive Board members one after the other. The previous head treasurer Jürgen Kerner was elected second chairman with 95.6 percent. Like social politician Hans-Jürgen Urban, who was also confirmed, he was already a member of the previous Executive Board.

The new leadership of IG Metall

Nadine Boguslawski, the former Stuttgart representative, is the new head treasurer and Ralf Reinstädtler, who previously headed the Homburg-Saarpfalz office, is the new head. There were no candidates running against this team of five.

This means that the top management of Germany's largest and most influential trade union with 2.1 million members has been reduced by two heads. The statutes had been amended with a two-thirds majority before the elections. The provision that at least one of the two chairpersons must be a woman was also newly enshrined.

The President of the employers' association Gesamtmetall, Stefan Wolf, congratulated the new board and offered to look for compromises together. He explained: "There are always areas of overlap that need to be explored, because compromise is the principle. Both social partners have an interest in a competitive location, because this is the only way to retain many jobs in the metal and electrical industry."

Up to and including Thursday (October 26), around 540 motions will be discussed at the conference. According to the Executive Board's basic motion, one of the issues to be discussed will be the demand for a 32-hour week, as is already being called for in the steel industry. Benner left open whether this will be extended to other sectors. The union wants to attract skilled workers by guaranteeing training for young people and more socially acceptable working conditions, among other things.

Benner has announced a keynote speech for this Tuesday. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is also expected in the Frankfurt exhibition hall on this day. The union expects him to make a clear statement on the bridge electricity price for particularly energy-intensive industries such as steel and chemicals.