BERLIN Germanl IG Metall Union called Monday on tens of thousands of workers to hold warning strikes throughout Germany to protest for higher wages. In the southern state of Bavaria, the engineering and autoworkers union urged 8,000 workers at 18 firms to strike. Similar actions were set for firms in the eastern state of Berlin, the nothern states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, and the western states of Hesse and Saarland, AFP reported. Hundreds of employees stopped work in Wolgast and Stralsund in Mecklenburg-western Pomerania in the north and around 1,500 others walked off the job at factories in the eastern state of Thuringia, the union said. The union has called on some 30,000 workers at 40 companies, including Daimlerchrysler in the southwest state of Baden-Wuertemberg, to strike. IG Metall Chief Klaus Zwickel told ****Bild**** newspaper Monday that 50,000 to 60,000 employees would take part in the warning strikes nationwide each day. IG Metall had last week handed employers an ultimatum to resolve the pay issue by April 22 or face nationwide strikes. IG Metall, which has 2.8 million members nationwide, is campaigning for a 6.5-percent pay increase for the sector's 3.6 million workers this year, a demand employers say is unreasonable in recession-hit Germany. Employers are offering pay hikes of two percent. The union began calling the regional warning strikes late last month. Thousands of workers have taken part. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who faces an election in September and whose Social Democrats have traditionally been close to the unions, has warned IG Metall against taking a hard line in the current wage round that could crush the budding German economic recovery. The wage talks will be the main focus of a three-day IG Metall conference in the eastern city of Magdeburg. Schroeder was expected to hold talks there with union leaders, who also want to approve a paper outlining their position on the general election.