Travelers in Germany will once again have to prepare for significant disruptions and numerous cancellations in air and rail traffic in the next few days. At Deutsche Bahn and other railway companies, further warning strikes are planned throughout Germany this Friday. As reported by trade union circles in Berlin on Tuesday, a nationwide strike is being called for Friday morning and morning between 3 a.m. and 11 a.m.
For this Thursday and Friday, the Verdi union has also called for all-day warning strikes in the security area at Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn airports. Verdi warned that longer waiting times and even flight cancellations or cancellations are to be expected. The aviation industry criticized the renewed strike.
It was not until the end of March that traffic with trains, buses and planes in Germany largely came to a standstill as a result of a large nationwide warning strike by the EVG railway union and Verdi. Millions of commuters and travelers as well as freight traffic were affected by the 24-hour industrial dispute. Even now, Verdi and the railway and transport union (EVG) want to increase the pressure in their collective bargaining.
The EVG wants to announce this Wednesday how it will proceed in the collective bargaining dispute with Deutsche Bahn and around 50 other companies. In the short term, more pressure must be exerted on those employers “who still think they can ignore the demands of the employees,” it said.
The EVG demands at least 650 euros more per month for a term of one year or twelve percent more for the upper income groups. The union is currently negotiating in the second round with around 50 railway companies. On Wednesday the union meets with the company Transdev. The next meeting with Deutsche Bahn is scheduled for next week. At the group, the collective bargaining affects a good 180,000 of the approximately 230,000 employees.
Deutsche Bahn was recently open to accepting the arbitration proposal in the negotiations for the public sector as a basis for its own talks. This initially provides for tax and duty-free special payments of 3000 euros in several stages. From March 2024 there will then be a base amount of 200 euros and then a wage increase of 5.5 percent. If no increase of 340 euros is achieved, the relevant increase amount should be set to this sum.
Passengers at Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Cologne/Bonn airports will also have to be prepared for noticeable disruptions and flight cancellations over the next few days. Verdi has called on employees in the aviation security area, in passenger control, personnel and goods control and in the service areas of the three airports to go on all-day warning strikes for Thursday and Friday. Hamburg Airport announced that all departures would be canceled due to the warning strike on Thursday and Friday.
The background to these warning strikes are the negotiations between Verdi and the Federal Association of Aviation Security Companies (BDLS) about time supplements for night, Saturday, Sunday and public holiday work as well as better collective bargaining regulations for overtime pay for security and service staff at commercial airports. The union emphasized that a written offer from the BDLS was insufficient and could not be agreed upon. Negotiations are scheduled to continue on April 27th and 28th.
The Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry (BDL) criticized that the ongoing succession of strikes at various airports in Germany had nothing to do with warning strikes. “With the renewed strikes, the unions are making the intensive preparations for summer travel more difficult,” said BDL general manager Matthias von Randow. “The victims are the travelers and also our companies, who are now committed to smooth flight operations again after the pandemic-related travel restrictions,” von Randow continued.
According to the BDL, in the first three months of this year alone there was a strike at an airport on around every eleventh day. Because of the widespread strike on March 26 and 27, 2023, around 3,500 flights had to be canceled on those two days. This means that the number of canceled flights due to strikes this year already significantly exceeds the number of canceled flights in the whole of 2019. At that time there were 3,300 flights throughout the year that, according to the BDL, could not take place due to strikes.
Further source: Communication from Verdi.
