Bahn and GDL: Weekend without strike – and with talks?

Rail customers can use the weekend to travel by train. Because at least then there shouldn’t be any new strikes. And the railway offered the GDL talks. However, it is unlikely that she will respond.

Deutsche Bahn called on the train drivers’ union GDL to negotiate immediately after the end of the strike. They are also ready to do this on the weekend, the railway said. However, the communication does not speak of an improved tariff offer. The GDL had named this as a prerequisite for talks and a waiver of new labor disputes.

“Either there will be an improved offer on the table, or we will again leave the trains in this country behind,” GDL boss Claus Weselsky had warned shortly beforehand. However, the union ruled out that a new strike would be called at the weekend. Instead, there will be a protest in front of the railway tower in Berlin on Tuesday to “show the management the red card,” said Weselsky.

Bahn: “Completely unnecessary and excessive”

The railway had recently offered the GDL wage increases in two steps: 1.5 percent on January 1, 2022 and 1.7 percent on March 1, 2023, with a term until the end of June 2024. This is not enough for the GDL. Among other things, she calls for earlier wage increases, a shorter term and a corona bonus of 600 euros.

Bahn personnel director Martin Seiler said that the demands of the GDL were not far removed. In order to get ahead, you have to sit down together in the worst crisis in the history of the railway company. “Continuing to threaten our travelers and rail traffic with strikes in the current situation is of no help in terms of content, is completely unnecessary and exaggerated,” explained Seiler.

Only every fourth long-distance train was on the way

Both sides assess the success of the two-day strike completely differently. The GDL top had “not achieved” their actual industrial action goal, said a railway spokeswoman. Their reasoning: Although around a quarter of the train drivers and on-board staff took part in the strike – otherwise “almost no one”.

According to its own information, Deutsche Bahn has a total of 217,028 employees in Germany. In addition to around 5,400 train drivers, just 72 signalmen, 30 maintenance workers and 18 service employees at train stations took part in the strike, according to the railway spokeswoman. “This is in complete contrast to the announcements by the GDL leadership that they want to represent employees in the network, in the workshops or at the train stations.”

The strike nevertheless had massive effects, because naturally no train runs without a train driver: three quarters of long-distance trains and around 60 percent of local trains were canceled during the strike days, affecting millions of passengers. In addition, around 300 freight trains stopped. So far, the railway has not provided any information on the economic damage caused by the strike.

From the GDL it is said that the strike was a “great success”. Weselsky said that the railway was trying in vain to downplay this. Contrary to what was claimed, the group could not even run a stable emergency timetable with a quarter of the long-distance trains.

Power struggle between unions

Formally, the conflict is about wage increases, but in the background there is a power struggle between the GDL and the second railway union, the Railway and Transport Union (EVG).

According to its own information, the GDL has around 37,000 members – mainly train drivers. The EVG is much broader and has significantly more members. The law on collective bargaining, however, stipulates that all employees in a company are subject to the collective agreement that was negotiated with the union with most of the members. The railway has around 300 individual companies – and in most of them the EVG is the dominant union.

Accusation of “recruiting”

Weselsky is therefore accused from several sides that he is not really concerned with the collective bargaining agreement, but with maintaining his power. Because with the better conclusion he could succeed in luring EVG members to the GDL and thus in other of the 300 individual railway companies to become stronger than the EVG.

Weselsky rejects this accusation: “We do not allow ourselves to be persuaded that this is a political strike,” he said of the statements made by the German government’s rail commissioner, Enak Ferlemann.

“Consequence of a completely wrong collective bargaining law”

The strike itself is criticized, especially with a view to the rising corona numbers, because the people on many of the trains that were still running could no longer keep their distance.

However, there is also clear criticism of the Unified Collective Bargaining Act from politicians and experts. “This strike is not least a result of the unspeakable law on collective bargaining of the Union and the SPD, which has increased competition between the two rail unions and makes it difficult for various collective bargaining agreements to coexist,” said Green parliamentary leader Anton Hofreiter to the “Handelsblatt”. The AfD also declared that the strike was “the inevitable consequence of a completely wrong collective bargaining law”.

The passenger association Pro Bahn spoke out in favor of cooperation between the rail unions. These should “get together and negotiate jointly,” said their honorary chairman Karl-Peter Naumann the broadcaster Phoenix. “Competition among trade unions does not really work, it is ultimately at the expense of the rail system.”