Berlin - Tens of thousands of workers in Germany's engineering sector walked off their jobs Monday as their union expanded rolling strikes to press its demands for an 8-per-cent pay raise.

The one-day strikes, which began Saturday, are to continue at different factories each day till Friday. The IG Metall union has rejected an offer of 2.1-per-cent more income in 2009 plus a one-off bonus of 1.6 per cent.

The union called it a "provocation" that the 3.6 million employees in the metal-products and electrical industry had not been offered raises to compensate for inflation.

A car plant owned by Ford Motor Co in Saarlouis near the French border and a Gillette factory making razors in Berlin were among the sites idled by the strikers, the union IG Metall said.

The union called at total of 30,000 members out on strike Monday at hundreds of companies in four states: Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate, Thuringia and Saarland. Lesser numbers stopped work in other states.

Negotiators from both sides are to meet again November 11 for a fourth round of talks.

If there is no breakthrough by mid-November, the union can declare the talks a failure and have its members vote on an all-out, open-ended strike.

A German newspaper, Bild, claimed Monday the union had reserves of 2 billion euros (2.5 billion dollars) to pay striking workers. In Germany, unions use membership dues to compensate strikers for lost pay.

The strikes come at a time when carmakers such as Daimler AG, General Motors' Opel division and BMW have announced temporary closures of factories to save costs after a drop in orders triggered by the global credit crisis.

In Bavaria state, the main BMW factories began a five-day closure Monday and 40,000 employees stayed home.

German companies usually have compensation schemes for staff during factory closures. (dpa)