After the train drivers’ strike ends, the GDL union wants to give Deutsche Bahn a few days to think about it – and threatens longer and harder strikes if there is no accommodation on the issue of reducing working hours.
“After these strike measures have been completed, we will give the company some time to come to its senses,” said Weselsky on Friday evening in Berlin at the end of the latest labor dispute. “If they don’t do that, the next industrial action will follow. It will be longer and it will hit the company even harder.”
There can only be a resumption of collective bargaining if the railway shows itself to be open to the GDL’s core demand: The union wants a reduction in weekly working hours for shift workers from 38 to 35 hours with full wage compensation. The railway has so far rejected this and has offered to expand existing working time models. Anyone who reduces their working hours in this context must accept financial losses.
The third and longest strike by the German Locomotive Drivers Union began in passenger traffic early on Wednesday morning and in freight traffic on Tuesday evening. After its end, according to Deutsche Bahn, the emergency timetable will remain in effect until operations begin on Saturday morning.
