Due to several collective bargaining disputes, there will be further warning strikes in traffic in Germany this week. At the start of the week, employees at Berlin-Brandenburg (BER) and Hamburg airports stopped work, causing hundreds of flight cancellations. No plane with passengers could take off from BER on Monday – around 220 departures were actually planned. Of the 240 planned arrivals, around 70 have been cancelled. In Hamburg, more than 50 of 160 departures were cancelled. The Verdi union had called for the two airport warning strikes – which had already announced the next strikes in traffic for Wednesday.
Then around 40 transport companies with a good 5000 employees will be affected, most of whom offer local public transport or freight transport by rail. According to the union, actions are planned in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The background to the two airport warning strikes and those in local public transport on Wednesday are three different wage disputes.
On Tuesday, the railway and transport union (EVG) and Deutsche Bahn are also negotiating a new collective agreement in the third round – this dispute triggered the warning strike in rail transport last Friday. Since no conclusion can be expected from the consultations in Fulda, further warning strikes are also possible here in the next few days.
BER: situation on site quiet
At BER, employees in the aviation security area, in passenger control and in personnel and goods control went on strike on Monday. Since the passengers cannot be checked and then allowed into the security area without these employees, the airport canceled all departures of passenger flights shortly after the warning strike was announced on Saturday.
On Monday morning, the situation on site was calm. “It’s similar to the last few times: the warning strike was widely communicated over the weekend and the information reached a lot,” said an airport spokesman. At BER it was the third warning strike this year with a clear impact on air traffic. Since take-offs without passengers were basically possible, some airlines decided to bring people to Berlin and then fly on empty. A number of such empty flights have been registered, said the airport spokesman.
Hamburg: Warning strike announced at much shorter notice
The warning strike in Hamburg, which was announced at much shorter notice, affected passengers who wanted to take off for Zurich, Frankfurt, Brussels, Helsinki or Malaga. The approximately 300 employees of the handling service provider Aviation Handling Services Hamburg GmbH (AHS), who are responsible for check-in and boarding, among other things, were called to walk out. Red posters in the airport with the inscription “Warning strike” informed the passengers about the tariff demands. AHS looks after various airlines, including Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines. The employees were originally supposed to take care of 84 departures on Monday.
Hamburg Airport has also been the target of warning strikes several times this year. Most recently, warning strikes by security inspectors on Thursday and Friday largely paralyzed operations – i.e. the group of employees who went on strike at BER on Monday.
For some time now, Verdi has been negotiating surcharges for inconvenient working hours, such as weekends, and rules on overtime pay for these people. The next talks with the Federal Association of Aviation Security Companies are scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Verdi has already threatened: If the BDLS does not submit a negotiable offer and “continues to play for time”, “further strikes in air traffic in May and at Pentecost” are possible. The warning strike in Hamburg on Monday is not related to these negotiations.
