At the beginning of next week, the next strike at Deutsche Bahn and almost 50 other bus and train companies is imminent. The railway workers' union EVG will paralyze passenger and freight traffic for two days from Sunday evening from 22 p.m., as it announced on Thursday. Rail customers must therefore expect that train traffic in Germany will come to a complete standstill on Monday and Tuesday. This time, the focus will also be on freight transport. Because of the holiday on Thursday, the cuts are therefore likely to hit companies particularly hard.

Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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This is the third time that the union has called for a warning strike in this round of collective bargaining. This time, too, she calls the strike "inevitable" because, from the point of view of the EVG, the employers have almost without exception submitted a negotiable offer. There is little movement at the negotiating table, said EVG collective bargaining board member Cosima Ingenschay. "The patience of the employees is really at an end after three months. The anger is great." Now a stronger economic impact is needed to increase the pressure.

The renewed strike has already become apparent in recent days, and Deutsche Bahn is reacting to it with a mixture of bewilderment and fatalism. "What else do you have to do to get started in the negotiations?" asked Chief Human Resources Officer Martin Seiler at a press conference on Wednesday. Obviously, the railway can offer what it wants, but the offer is always rejected.

Most recently, the railway has offered wage increases of 10 percent for the lower wage groups, 8 percent for the upper ones. However, the increases are not to take effect until March 2024 in two steps, before which the railway offers tax-free one-off payments of just under 3000 euros, which is to be paid from June, also in two steps.

However, the EVG insists on a minimum payment of 650 euros per month for everyone. Such a "social component" would disproportionately benefit the lower wage groups. In addition, there must also be noticeable increases in the first year, which, unlike the tax-free one-off payments, are directly reflected in the remuneration table.

Most recently, there was a dispute over the question of how around 2500 employees should be treated, for whom Deutsche Bahn has so far only paid the statutory minimum wage of 12 euros with the help of surcharges. EVG negotiator Kristian Loroch called the railway's behaviour on this issue "very shabby" and unworthy of a federally owned company. It is about people who clean up the dirt and ensure safety at the stations.

So far, the two sides have only spoken for a few hours each in three rounds of negotiations and then broken off the negotiations. Both Deutsche Bahn and EVG accuse each other of wanting to enforce a "negotiating diktat".