Germany woke up this Monday with airports, ports and railways paralyzed. In an unprecedented show of force, the Ver.di and EVG railway and transport services unions joined forces and mobilized 350,000 workers across the country from midnight for 24 hours to cause the collapse of most of the transport of passengers and merchandise. The Deutsche Bahn company has suspended all its long-distance and regional trains nationwide, but also its suburban and urban trains in a good part of the country.
To these must be added the total stoppage of commuter transport – buses, subways, trams and ferries – in seven federated states, including some of the most populous such as North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg or Bavaria. Stoppages that have significantly increased road traffic. The vast majority of German airports are also paralyzed, including the air nodes in Frankfurt and Munich, but not in Berlin, although their traffic will be reduced to a minimum as they lose their links with the company’s two large bases. German Lufthansa.
At the Munich airport, the strike began already on Sunday with the suspension of all scheduled flights. The work stoppage also extends to sea and river ports, where it stops the personnel responsible for logistics and, among others, the lock operators in the strategic merchandise traffic through rivers and canals. Highway maintenance companies also participate in the strikes. “The willingness to strike is very high and the anger of the workers, given the lack of offers from the employer, is enormous,” Kristian Loroch, a member of the EVG union’s agreement negotiating board, said this morning.
Throughout the day there are convened throughout Germany more than 50 trade union acts. EVG is currently negotiating the agreement for the employees of Deutsche Bahn and 50 other small railway companies operating in Germany. It demands for the next 12 months and in the face of galloping inflation wage increases of 12% or at least 650 euros more per month for each worker. Ver.di begins the third negotiating round this Monday for some 2.5 million public service employees and demands a 10.5% rise in wages or at least 500 euros per month for those they represent.
Ver.di has been calling specific strikes throughout Germany for weeks to pressure local authorities and achieve a new agreement with appreciable increases in wages. Stoppages that have affected daycare personnel, municipal and community administrations, suburban public transport or garbage collection and urban cleaning services, but also ground and security personnel at airports, where there have already been the last month stoppages and the suspension of air traffic. Ver.di and EVG want with their coordinated mobilizations to increase their pressure in the negotiating rounds of their collective agreements.
Price increase
“With the strike in the transport sector we want to make it once again very clear to the employers that the workers support our demands,” said Frank Werneke, president of the powerful union Ver.di. As for the criticism that the strike is burdening the negotiations, Werneke stressed that “employees in the public services, but also the German middle class, consider the huge rise in prices for electricity, gas and electricity to be a great burden.” food”. Martin Burkert, president of EVG, accused Deutsche Bahn in turn of not having submitted an acceptable offer to negotiate the agreement for railway staff so far.
“What they have put on the table so far is ridiculous,” said Burkert, who accused the sector’s employers of raising “asocial counter-demands” such as cuts in vacation days. The head of the German transport and railway union also warned that he does not rule out calling warning strikes “during the Easter holidays” and that these mobilizations depend on “the railway executive presenting once and for all a decent offer.”
In light of the stoppages, the German Federation of Municipalities and Associations (DStGB) warned of a financial overload for the municipalities, many of which cannot meet the wage claims of their employees due to lack of means, and warned that new financial burdens will reverse negatively on citizens. “As everything becomes more expensive, many municipalities will be forced to raise, for example, their rates for garbage collection, the entrance to public swimming pools or the IBI,” said the head of DStGB, Gerd Landsberg.
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