Potsdam, Germany  - Negotiators representing Germany's 16 state governments consented Sunday to pay rises of about 5 per cent for government employees, averting more of the strikes that have disrupted education and other public services for weeks.

If union members accept the deal announced Sunday in Potsdam, near Berlin, by Lower Saxony Finance Minister Hartmut Moellring and Verdi trade union leader Frank Bsirske, some 700,000 non-tenured employees would receive staged rises effective this week.

The terms are likely to be extended to hundreds of thousands of other German public servants who work alongside unionized staff.

One of the state premiers, Peter Harry Carstensen of Schleswig- Holstein, said Sunday he would grant the same rises to those state servants who enjoy tenure but lack the legal right to unionize and strike.

German schools and public administrations have suffered repeated closures in recent weeks as non-tenured staff staged one-day strikes. dpa