German public workers: 6.3 pct raise over 2 years

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BERLIN (AP) -- Some 2 million German public-sector employees are to get a pay rise totaling 6.3 percent over two years, employers and a union said Saturday after marathon talks that followed disruptive walkouts in recent weeks.

The hard-fought agreement banishes the ver.di union's threat to ballot members on an all-out strike campaign had a deal not been reached.

"We have agreed to raise public service wages by 6.3 percent over 24 months, in three stages," Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich - the chief government negotiator - announced after talks in Potsdam, outside Berlin, that overran by more than a day.

That is well short of ver.di's original demand of a 6.5 percent raise this year alone for federal and municipal employees as diverse as garbage collectors, teachers and civil-service administrators.