With warning strikes, the trade union Verdi wants to paralyze public transport in parts of Germany today. The action is to take place together with the climate activists of Fridays for Future, which has called for protests for more climate protection on Friday. In six federal states, there will be massive disruptions to buses and trains in local transport. Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate are particularly affected.
For example, in Lower Saxony, but also in Munich, there were already severe restrictions on Thursday. In Bavaria, Verdi wants to extend the warning strikes to other regions and cities on Friday. For weeks now, many citizens have been feeling the effects of warning strikes in the public sector. Verdi and the civil servants' association dbb want to underpin their demands in the current collective bargaining round for the municipalities and the federal government.
Tough negotiations
The negotiations for the approximately 2.5 million employees of the federal government and municipalities had been tough since the start in January. Verdi and the civil servants dbb demand 10.5 percent more income, but at least 500 euros more per month. In the second round of negotiations last week, there had been no rapprochement despite an offer from the employers. The decisive third round is scheduled for the end of March. Verdi boss Frank Werneke had already said that a ballot on a regular strike was "on the agenda" if the third round did not bring a breakthrough.
In many cities, there are likely to be significant failures. In the southwest, for example, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Mannheim, Heilbronn, Ulm, Esslingen, Konstanz, Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe are affected. In Stuttgart, however, S-Bahn trains run because they are operated by Deutsche Bahn.
Buses and trains are also expected to come to a standstill in North Rhine-Westphalia's largest cities. According to Verdi, the focus will be on the Ruhr area and the Rhineland, but also in the Münsterland and East Westphalia collective bargaining employees want to lay down their work.
Fierce criticism of Verdi came from the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA). They accused the union of its cooperation with Fridays for Future. This was "a dangerous border crossing," said BDA chief executive Steffen Kampeter of the German Press Agency in Berlin. "Strikes are permissible in order to reach collective agreements regulating working conditions." But anyone who mixes labor disputes and general political goals quickly finds himself on a playing field beyond German collective bargaining autonomy. Political or quasi-political strikes are illegal in Germany.