More than 45,000 German metal and electronics workers staged warning strikes Monday, trade union IG Metall said, escalating a pay dispute with firms already reeling from a global economic slowdown.

Two days before Chancellor Angela Merkel`s cabinet unveils measures to boost the economy, automakers were at the forefront of the stoppages, called on Friday after IG Metall angrily turned down employers` latest pay offer.

Around 4,800 workers temporarily stopping work at a Mercedes van factory in Duesseldorf, joined by 4,500 employees at another Daimler plant in Woerth in western Germany.

Production stopped for two hours at truck maker MAN, and other protest actions hit Ford`s factory in Saarlouis. Other protest actions were called at plants operated by General Motors`s Opel unit and auto parts maker Bosch.

In all the strikes hit 164 factories, with more than 16,000 workers demonstrating in Frankfurt, 10,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia, 6,100 in Bavaria, over 4,500 in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, according to IG Metall, Germany`s biggest and most powerful industrial union.

IG Metall is seeking an eight-percent pay increase -- the highest the union has demanded in 16 years -- for 3.6 million metal and electronics workers.

Employers have offered 2.1 percent from January 1 plus a one-off payment for November and December.

The government last month slashed its 2009 growth forecast to just 0.2 percent amid weakening demand for goods from the world`s biggest exporter, the slowest rate of growth since the 2003 recession when output shrank 0.2 percent.

The European Commission on Monday said it foresaw no growth at all in Europe`s biggest economy next year.

It also forecast a short, shallow recession for the 27-nation EU, predicting the bloc`s combined economy would shrink 0.1 percent in both the third and fourth quarters of 2008.