Train cancellations and delays: The strike on Deutsche Bahn passenger transport has been going on since the early hours of the morning. Only 20 percent of long-distance journeys take place. But the great uncertainty only comes afterwards.
The new strike by train drivers in Deutsche Bahn passenger transport began in the early hours of the morning. The company said there had been disruptions to regional and long-distance traffic since 2 a.m.
The emergency timetable “has worked well so far,” said DB spokesman Achim Stauß in joint morning magazine from ARD and ZDF. But it is “just a basic offer”. Around 20 percent of trips take place in long-distance transport, while in regional transport there are “clear regional differences,” said Stauß.
Passengers who do not travel due to the strike can have the ticket price refunded. The train connection for March 7th and 8th has been cancelled. It was said that rail traffic should only run as usual again on Saturday.
GDL threatens “wave strikes”
It is the fifth strike in the ongoing collective bargaining dispute between the train drivers’ union GDL and Deutsche Bahn. It is scheduled to last 35 hours and end at 1 p.m. on Friday. The strike in freight transport began on Wednesday evening.
The current work stoppage is to be followed by so-called wave strikes – unlike before, the GDL no longer wants to announce them 48 hours in advance. They should also be longer.
The railway asked the GDL to inform in good time about possible further strikes. “We urgently appeal to the GDL to announce strikes in advance,” said railway spokesman Stauß. This is the only way the railway can organize a “basic offer”. This only works with advance notice.
This is exactly what the GDL wants to prevent with the “wave strikes”. “This means that the railway is no longer a reliable means of transport,” GDL boss Klaus Weselsky said after the union declared the last round of negotiations had failed.
Dispute over 35-hour weeks
Bahn and GDL sat together behind closed doors for four weeks to find a compromise. Two external mediators were called in: Former Federal Minister Thomas de Maizière and Schleswig-Holstein’s Prime Minister Daniel Günther moderated the negotiations. The crux of the discussions continues to be the GDL’s core demand for a reduction in weekly working hours for shift workers from 38 to 35 hours with full wage compensation.
Weselsky’s misrepresentation of the current state of the negotiations recently caused criticism, which he justified as a “mistake in reasoning”. A compromise proposal from the moderators called for a reduction in working hours to 36 hours by 2028 in two stages. According to Weselsky’s description, the proposal was much further away from the GDL demand than it actually was. The GDL boss had to correct this.
Weselsky justifies the strike
In the joint morning magazine from ARD and ZDF Weselsky justified the strike. This was unavoidable despite his “error in thinking”. There were “a number of points in the proposal that were overall unacceptable to us.” It wasn’t just about working hours.
Weselsky accused Deutsche Bahn of now publicly naming concessions that it had not made in the negotiations. This is “skillful PR, quite clearly” – “up to and including now the railway has not offered this”.
Fuest: “Is it all still proportionate?”
The President of the ifo Institute, Clemens Fuest, described the current strike, which is running simultaneously with the work stoppage at German airports, as: Morning magazine as an additional damper on the already weakening economy in the country.
Fuest reiterated the view of other economic experts that a recession, which Germany is currently sliding into, is reducing the willingness to make concessions in collective bargaining disputes. “The pie that needs to be distributed becomes smaller and then the dispute increases. It is much easier to make concessions in a growing economy than when your back is already against the wall.”
Fuest pointed out: “These are systemically important areas; they reach the entire population. That’s why you have to consider whether all of this is still proportionate.” Fuest also doesn’t fundamentally reject suggestions to restrict the right to strike: “You could at least change the rules of the game a little and say, for example, that as long as collective agreements are still in effect, there will be no strikes.”