Deutsche Bahn has failed to avert the warning strike announced for Monday and Tuesday. After the strike announcement by the railway workers' union EVG on Thursday morning, the state-owned company approached the union once again; Statements by the EVG negotiators had also sown the hope that the strike could be averted in the short term: Until Friday noon at 12 noon, the railway had time to improve its existing offer, especially with regard to the minimum wage in the group, it was said on Thursday. However, the EVG does not consider the solution proposed by Deutsche Bahn to be sufficient.
The third - and so far largest - warning strike in the current round of collective bargaining will therefore begin as planned on Sunday evening at 22 p.m. and last until Tuesday night, 24 a.m. The railway decided to completely stop long-distance traffic during this time. DB Regio will also hardly run a train. However, the situation is different in public transport. Companies such as Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) explicitly pointed out that their subways and buses will run.
However, the warning strike will hit the entire freight traffic hard: The so-called dispatchers, who coordinate daily rail traffic on the entire German rail network, are also called upon to go on a warning strike. For this reason, the private freight railways, which are not involved in the collective bargaining conflict, are also affected.
Deutsche Bahn sees no reason for a warning strike
The railway sharply criticized the actions of the EVG: "We have tried everything until the last minute to avert the insane 50-hour warning strike of the EVG," said DB personnel board member Martin Seiler. "We approached the EDC again and reaffirmed that it will not fail because of the minimum wage. We want a solution. We have put forward several proposals. "In his opinion, the railway had fulfilled the demand of the EVG 1 to 1, "without tricks and without a cap".
The EVG countered with the accusation that Deutsche Bahn did not want to prevent the rail strike at all. "The minimum wage is just one issue on which we are at odds with Deutsche Bahn," EVG negotiator Kristian Loroch clarified. "We also continue to tread water with regard to collective bargaining." In total, EVG is negotiating for 180,000 employees at DB and another 50,000 at other railway companies.
On Thursday, the EVG had given the impression that the railway could avert a strike with a new offer for the lowest wage groups. As a result, the two sides met yesterday for more than ten hours of negotiations, which lasted until late in the evening. So far, the state-owned company has only paid the legally prescribed minimum wage of 12 euros for around 2500 employees, including cleaning and security staff, through surcharges. The union insists on first increasing the table wages to 12 euros and then adding the wage increases achieved in the collective bargaining. In principle, the railway is prepared to increase to 12 euros. However, the further demands for these occupational groups would result in a disproportionate increase. At the same time, the EVG demands a basic amount of 650 euros per month for each.