Lufthansa is not calming down. A three-day warning strike by technology employees began on Wednesday. According to Lufthansa and the Verdi union, passenger flights were not affected. At the same time, there is a threat of strikes by flight attendants at the Lufthansa subsidiary Cityline. The UFO union called for a ballot.
A Lufthansa spokesman said no flights were canceled on Wednesday due to the warning strike by technical staff. No outages are expected on Thursday either and people are optimistic for Friday too. Lufthansa still recommended that passengers always check the status of their flight on lufthansa.com or in the Lufthansa app.
According to Verdi, employees and trainees from Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Aviation Training and Lufthansa Technical Training are taking part in the nationwide action in the collective bargaining dispute for ground staff. According to Verdi, around 90 percent followed the call. Lufthansa Technik is also responsible for repairing and overhauling aircraft, parts and engines for other airlines. The airline, which was not on strike, does the daily maintenance itself.
Negotiations next Monday?
Lufthansa criticized: “This short-term call in the technical companies with just twelve hours’ notice for a third so-called warning strike lasting three days is an incomprehensible and completely inappropriate escalation.” Verdi was offered to continue negotiations at any time – that still applies. “Specifically, we would like to continue the negotiations on March 4th, i.e. on the first working day after the end of the strike.” The goal remains a quick agreement. The fifth round was previously scheduled for March 13th and 14th.
According to its own information, Verdi has already asked the company to meet for further negotiations before March 13th. March 4th is conceivable, but provided “an improved offer from Lufthansa is submitted in advance,” said Verdi negotiator Marvin Reschinsky.
The union rejected a new offer from Lufthansa during negotiations last week as inadequate. The union criticized the core demand of 12.5 percent set by Verdi, but at least 500 euros more per month, not being achieved in the new offer, which is more than twice as long as the demand.
Lufthansa said it had taken a big step towards Verdi. In detail, the first of two planned table increases of 4 percent would be brought forward from December to March. In addition, the inflation compensation bonus of 3,000 euros should be paid out more quickly.
There is a risk of a strike by flight attendants at Cityline
Meanwhile, there is a threat of a strike by flight attendants at the Lufthansa subsidiary Cityline. The UFO union called on its members to vote on industrial action from Thursday to March 6th. The union criticized on Wednesday that Lufthansa Cityline did not present a serious offer during collective bargaining negotiations.
“The employer gave us no choice but to call on our members at Lufthansa Cityline to vote on strikes,” said UFO negotiator Rachid Madmar. UFO is demanding, among other things, 15 percent more money for a term of 18 months for the approximately 900 flight attendants of the Lufthansa subsidiary.
Just last Thursday, UFO called on the approximately 18,000 cabin employees of the parent company Lufthansa to vote on strikes by March 6th. The union had declared the collective bargaining to have failed on the grounds that Lufthansa had not submitted a sufficient offer.
The airline is currently having to deal with a whole series of sources of conflict: In addition to the tariff conflict with UFO, there are also disputes with pilots from the subsidiary Discover, the ground staff and the aviation security forces at airports.