This study of the strikes led by the German Metalworkers' Union (Deutscher Metallarbeiter-Verband, DMV) and of this union's strategy pursues the dual goal of understanding union action on the one hand and of union interpretation of its strategies of class struggle on the other. Union action must be at the center of research about labor unions because associations of workers were perfectly able and willing to generate their own strategies and to pursue them in practice. They actively intervened in the historical process of labor conflicts rather than being driven by external forces. I start with the conviction that to deny workers and their unions the role as independent actors in a tense and contradictory environment is historically incorrect. It also withdraws dignity and responsibility from workers and their associations.

The DMV was the first German union that organized itself along the lines of an industrial union. The model of industrial unions is commonly considered to be progressive, as opposed to traditional trade unions organized along craft lines. The “modern” principle of the industrial union is stated to be the appropriate organizational form for the phase of “organized capitalism.” It is credited with having played a decisive role in the changes in the form and function experienced by the labor struggles around the turn of the century. This view is reflected in various approaches, most of which, however, are reductionist.

Existing studies of strike developments in Germany are characterized by their obvious avoidance of workers' organizations. Along with case studies of spectacular labor struggles, the major emphasis has been on quantitative analyses.