Because the employers have not shown any concessions in the current collective bargaining round, Verdi is calling for a nationwide daycare warning strike for International Women’s Day.
Berlin/Frankfurt – In a new wage round, the Verdi services union is negotiating with employers in social and educational services for better working conditions and higher salaries. However, because the employers “missed the opportunity during the initial negotiations and made no concessions regarding the relief for employees in social and educational services”, the trade union is calling for a nationwide warning strike for International Women’s Day on Tuesday (March 8th, 2022).
The federal states in which educators have already announced that they will keep daycare centers and social facilities closed on this day include Hesse and Lower Saxony, as well as Hamburg, Bremen and Saxony-Anhalt. According to Verdi, 330,000 employees are affected by the collective bargaining nationwide. Since 83 percent of them are women, the union has proposed International Women’s Day as the day of the strike.
Kita strikes on March 8th: Union calls for better working conditions
The relief that the union has demanded for the employees of the affected facilities includes improvements in working conditions, measures to counteract the shortage of skilled workers and financial recognition of the work. A central requirement of Verdi is time for preparation and follow-up of the pedagogical work. Most recently, the GEW union had also criticized savings proposals for daycare centers in Hesse*.
The fact that employers do not seem to take the demands of their employees seriously has caused great dissatisfaction among employees, explained Verdi Vice Chairwoman Christine Behle last Tuesday (March 1st, 2022) in Berlin. Especially under the circumstances in which day care center employees have been in the past two years during the corona-Pandemic*, a lack of accommodation is a disappointment. “After two years of particular challenges caused by the pandemic, they feel left out in the rain.”
Strike in day care centers and social services on March 8: workers in Hesse and Lower Saxony go on strike
In addition to numerous other Verdi state associations, trade unionists in Hesse and Lower Saxony have also called for work in daycare centers and social services to be stopped on March 8th. For Hesse, where, according to Verdi, 40,000 employees are directly involved in the collective bargaining dispute, “brisk participation” can be expected, said the Verdi state association in Frankfurt. In addition to Frankfurt and Kassel, rallies and demonstrations are also planned in Offenbach, Gießen and Marburg.
In Lower Saxony, the negotiations are about the working conditions of 20,000 employees in day-care centres, around 8,000 employees in child and youth welfare and around 2100 employees in disability aid. This was announced by the Verdi district of Lower Saxony-Bremen on Tuesday.
Collective bargaining round for employees of day care centers and social services: demands “not financeable”
At the end of February, collective bargaining between the trade unions and the Association of Municipal Employers’ Associations (VKA) for social and educational services began in Potsdam. The union’s demands were rejected by VKA President Karin Welge, on the grounds that the unions’ demands “would lead to serious imbalances in the wage structure of the municipal public service and to disproportionate and unaffordable increases in personnel costs”. The next bargaining round will also take place in Potsdam. It is scheduled for March 21st and 22nd. (ska with AFP/dpa) *fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
#facilities #remain #closed