IGBCE

Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau, Chemie, Energie (IGBCE) is Germany's third-largest trade union by membership, representing approximately 600,000 workers in the mining, chemicals, energy, oil, natural gas, glass, rubber, ceramics, plastics, paper, and related sectors. It was founded in 1997 through a merger of IG Bergbau und Energie and Gewerkschaft Chemie-Papier-Keramik, and is headquartered in Hannover. Michael Vassiliadis has chaired IGBCE since 2009, consistently re-elected with more than 97% of delegate votes.

IGBCE represents workers at the intersection of Germany's energy transition and industrial competitiveness. Its membership spans both legacy coal and fossil industries and the modern chemicals sector, giving it a distinctive voice on policies that affect employment in structurally changing regions, particularly in East Germany and the Ruhr.

At the 24 June 2026 Wirtschaftsausschuss hearing on StromVKG, IGBCE raised the Südbonus as the law's critical unresolved fault line, arguing that the regional uplift mechanism discriminates against new gas-plant capacity in East Germany. The Südbonus awards lower auction ranking to plants outside defined southern German grid areas, making eastern plant bids structurally harder to win in the capacity tender. IGBCE's critique reflects its exposure to East German industrial communities where coal-to-gas transition jobs are directly tied to whether new gas capacity wins subsidy in the September auction. The Bundeskartellamt shared related concerns, though neither surfaced as a formal amendment at the hearing. For the capacity market, the Südbonus is now the single live variable before the Bundestag summer recess.