After the train drivers’ union GDL announced a warning strike at Deutsche Bahn, the company canceled the second round of collective bargaining this week. “Either you go on strike or you negotiate. You can’t do both at the same time,” said Human Resources Director Martin Seiler on Wednesday. The talks planned for this Thursday and Friday will therefore not take place.
After the first negotiations, both sides agreed on a timetable for the collective bargaining round. Negotiations should continue on a weekly basis. “Anyone who breaks these agreements in this way and calls for strikes at short notice and thereby makes travelers liable cannot expect us to continue to sit at the negotiating table,” said Seiler.
The GDL surprisingly called for a 20-hour warning strike on Tuesday. “Apparently the companies misunderstood the GDL’s concession, perhaps even interpreted it as weakness,” criticized the union. The strike is scheduled to begin on Wednesday at 10 p.m. and last until 6 p.m. the following day. Those called upon include train drivers, train attendants, workshop employees and dispatchers. The railway assumes that more than 80 percent of long-distance traffic will be canceled due to the industrial dispute. There should also be significant restrictions in regional and freight transport.
The GDL is demanding, among other things, 555 euros more per month and an inflation compensation bonus. The sticking point is the demand for a reduction in working hours from 38 to 35 hours per week for shift workers with full pay.
In the first round, the railway submitted its own offer, which, among other things, provided for a wage increase of eleven percent over a term of 32 months. There is nothing in the offer about working hours. “Anyone who believes that they can cynically play for time at the expense of the employees is mistaken,” said GDL boss Claus Weselsky.
What happens next is unclear. The next agreed interview dates are November 23rd and 24th. Both sides left it open whether these would take place.
