The strike continued at 6:00 a.m. Monday in the states of Bavaria, Berlin and Brandenburg. In Bavaria alone, 2,500 employees at 18 locations were expected to join the industrial action, a ver.di spokesman told the dpa news service. In North Rhine-Westphalia, 2,000 union members were called on to strike.

"All areas will be effected like the call centers and the technical customer service," strike leader Ado Wilhelm said.

Private customers would notice the disruption and could expect long waits, the union said.

Ver.di called for the first strike in Deutsche Telekom's history in response to CEO Rene Obermann's plans to outsource 50,000 jobs in the service divisions. The employees affected would be expected to work 38 rather than 34 hours per week and earn 9 percent less.



The industrial action started Friday, with 11,000 Telekom employees joining in. Over the weekend, 1,500 people took part in the strike.

Sleepless nights

Ver.di's Wilhelm said that strikers had been threatened with being sacked and that Deutsche Telekom had tried to hire strike breakers from temporary employment agencies. The union said Telekom had offered employees 300 euros ($400) bonuses to break the strike.

"The strikers certainly won't allow themselves to be bought for a few bits of silver," ver.di's Susanne Becher told dpa.

Obermann responded to the strike over the weekend by threatening to sell the company's service divisions to control costs. He also warned that the company, which was privatized 10 years ago, could be subjected to a foreign takeover.

He had had sleepless nights, he told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, "At the end of the night, I always come back to the same result: We have no alternative to the reforms."