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Strike at Premium Bread: 120 employees demand 7% more wages!
On November 5th, 2025, 120 employees at “Premium Brot” in Bexbach went on strike for better wages. NGG demands a 7% wage increase.
Strike at Premium Bread: 120 employees demand 7% more wages!
Today, November 5th, 2025, around 120 employees of the “Premium Brot” bakery branch in Bexbach started a 24-hour warning strike. The strike, organized by the Food, Pleasure and Restaurants union (NGG), began at 2 p.m. and is expected to last until Thursday afternoon. Employees are demanding more money and better working conditions, while employers have not yet offered a wage increase.
The background to the strike is a collective bargaining dispute in which the NGG is demanding a new company collective agreement with a wage increase of seven percent and a term of 12 months. This is the second warning strike at Premium Bread; the first took place in mid-October. In what is now the third round of negotiations, the employers only shortened the duration of the zero round from twelve to six months, which the union considers to be inadequate. Tobias Wolfanger, managing director of the NGG for the Saar region, spoke of a loss of real wages if employers did not agree to the demands.
Background and effects of the strike
Premium Brot produces frozen baked goods for restaurants and supermarkets, including well-known chains such as Edeka. The company took over the former Bäckerbub branch about 1.5 years ago. The current negotiations are creating pressure to reach an agreement in the upcoming collective bargaining on November 14th. The NGG collective bargaining commission broke off the negotiations after a short time, which significantly influenced the decision to call for a warning strike.
The right to strike, which is enshrined in the Basic Law for employees in Germany, allows them to negotiate with employers on an equal footing. It represents a central element of collective bargaining autonomy and ensures a balance of power between employers and employees. Nevertheless, the right to strike has been repeatedly questioned in recent years, most recently by the FDP in the summer of 2024, which tried to restrict its use. There were demands that strikes in important institutions such as the transport or energy sectors should only be allowed to take place after compulsory arbitration.
The suspicion is that such efforts may stand in the way of the free expression of workers' interests, which could further mobilize unions to defend and enforce their rights. At a time when economic pressure and real wage losses are a reality for many employees, the question of wage increases and the right to strike remains of great importance in the federal political debate.