Under the contract the 950,000 workers in the industry are to receive a 3.2 percent pay hike and a further increase of 2.4 percent in April of next year.

The union had initially demanded an immediate hike of 4.5 percent, while the employers had offered 3 percent. Minimum wages in eastern and western German are also to be increased.

Union members will vote on the tentative agreement by mid-July.

Some 32,000 workers walked off the job at about 2,800 sites across the country in strikes that began June 17 in Berlin and the industrial Ruhr valley. The strike was organized by IG Bau, representing 340,000 workers or about a third of the workforce.

"Workers have become disgruntled," the BBC reported June 25, "following one of the deepest recessions in the German construction industry," with many building firms facing bankruptcy.  
 
 
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