AS WALTER RIESTER prepared to address this week's annual gabfest of IG Metall, Germany's and Europe's largest trade union, a senior union official approached the podium and handed him a pendant emblazoned with the union's logo.
But players balked at the agreement reached by the union's senior leadership, and the union dug in by raising concerns about the validity of the blood test.
But the deliberations resumed after the union summoned senior financial advisers from Lazard in New York on Wednesday.
The FDA, the union for senior public servants and professionals, said that the civil service was "creaking under the weight of pay restraint".
The revised code has already angered the FDA, a union for senior civil servants, which branded the move draconian and intimidating.
"At some point in the next parliament a storm is coming," said Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the union for senior managers and professionals in public service.
In 1989, the Virginia-based union for senior officers developed a model policy on the issue that has fed rulebooks in major US cities and beyond.
"The conclusions we come to are dramatically different than the N.H.L.'s current claims of financial distress," Ted Saskin, the union's senior director, said.
And GMB general secretary Paul Kenny wrote to the union's senior officials saying that Mr Balls's speech could have a "profound impact" on its relationship with theLabour Party.
The FDA, the union of senior civil servants, also holds its conference this week and will oppose plans to increase pension contributions, while the Fire Brigades Union said cuts were pushing them to "breaking point".
