After 120 hours of strike, the trains are largely running as scheduled again – and it should stay that way for the time being. Starting next week, the GDL and the railway want to negotiate again. Both were optimistic.
With a view to the upcoming negotiations with Deutsche Bahn, the train drivers’ union GDL has expressed confidence. “I think this is a big step in the right direction,” said its boss Claus Weselsky at a press conference.
From February 5th, the railway and the GDL want to negotiate with each other behind closed doors. “The railway no longer sets any prerequisites,” said Weselsky. Negotiations are taking place about the infrastructure, the framework collective agreement for vehicle maintenance and the reduction in weekly working hours. Whether a moderator is needed for this will be decided during the negotiations.
The peace obligation applies until March 3rd. There should be no further strikes until then.
Deutsche Bahn thanks passengers for their patience
Deutsche Bahn also expressed optimism. “We are very confident that a collective agreement will ultimately be reached,” said company spokeswoman Anja Bröker. It is good that the railway and the GDL are talking to each other again. She thanked the passengers for their understanding and patience.
The GDL ended its multi-day strike on passenger transport early in the morning. The railway announced that the regular timetable would apply again. “Nevertheless, there will still be isolated restrictions on long-distance transport services over the course of Monday,” the company warned. “There may also be regionally different restrictions in regional traffic during the course of Monday.”
Only every fifth long-distance train ran
Since the passenger transport strike began on Wednesday morning, the railway has been working with an emergency timetable. In long-distance transport, around 20 percent of the usual offering was on the move. With the emergency timetable, the railway also wanted to enable operations to start as smoothly as possible after the strike.
In freight transport, the strike ended on Sunday evening. According to its own information, the railway has been working through the traffic jam since 6 p.m. “Experience shows that it takes several days until freight traffic is back in regular operation,” said a DB spokesman. In freight transport, trains are usually not canceled due to a strike; instead, a long traffic jam occurs.
The strike was actually supposed to last until Monday evening at 6 p.m. in both passenger and freight traffic. However, on Saturday night, the railway and the GDL agreed on an early end and on new negotiations.
What the GDL demands and the railway offers
The GDL’s most important concern is to reduce the weekly working hours for shift workers by three hours while maintaining the same wages. She also wants to achieve 555 euros more in wages for a twelve-month term of the collective agreement.
The current offer from Deutsche Bahn provides 4.8 percent more money for employees from August and a further five percent more from April 2025. According to this offer, from January 2026, train drivers and train attendants can then decide between a further pay increase of 2.7 percent or one hour less work per week.
The payment of a 1,500 euro inflation compensation bonus in March has already been firmly agreed. This payment is tax and duty free for the employees. The railway has also agreed to talk about a fixed fee increase. Until now, the federally owned company had always spoken out in favor of percentage increases. Fixed amounts generally help lower income groups in particular and are therefore often preferred by unions to negotiate.
There is a threat of a strike in public transport
After the warning strike at the railways ends, there is a risk of work stoppages on buses and trains in large parts of Germany. The ver.di union wants to provide information in the afternoon about possible warning strikes in local public transport (ÖPNV) in several federal states.
The union has been negotiating parallel collective agreements in public transport in all states except Bavaria for a few days. In some countries it is about higher wages, in other places the so-called collective agreements, i.e. the working conditions, are being renegotiated. According to the union, the collective bargaining round will affect more than 130 municipal companies and around 90,000 employees in the cities and districts.