As of: February 29, 2024 6:02 a.m
On day four of the nationwide strike week in local public transport, Hamburg’s subway and bus services are now at a standstill. In addition, numerous cities in Lower Saxony are joining the strikes. There should be further expansions on Friday.
Employees of the Hamburger Hochbahn and the Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein GmbH (VHH) have been on strike for 48 hours since operations began. According to the statement, both companies expect a widespread standstill of their bus and subway traffic in Hamburg and the surrounding area. The night buses from Friday to Saturday are also affected, according to ver.di. The Hamburg S-Bahn is not affected by the warning strike. According to Hochbahn, the HADAG harbor ferries also run as scheduled. In addition, the Hochbahn school bus routes should run despite the strike.
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Lower Saxony: Warning strike now also in Hanover and other cities
As of today, employees in the local transport collective agreement are also on strike in several cities in Lower Saxony. The Üstra transport company in Hanover and the Braunschweiger Verkehrsgesellschaft are leaving all light rail and buses in the depots, the Osnabrück Metrobus and the Goslar city bus are suspending bus operations, and in Wolfsburg more than 80 percent of all buses are canceled. In Lüchow-Dannenberg, the Lüchow-Schmarsauer Eisenbahn transport company is on strike.
Bus traffic in SH and Göttingen is already on strike
It started on Monday with employees of private bus companies in Schleswig-Holstein organized in the ver.di union. The work stoppages there are expected to continue until Friday. Likewise in Göttingen, where there has been a strike since yesterday.
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From Friday, municipal bus companies in Schleswig-Holstein will also be affected
There will be an expansion of the warning strike in SH on Friday: the municipal bus companies in Kiel, Neumünster, Lübeck and Flensburg will also be on strike starting in the morning – for three days. And because the next negotiation date with the employers is not scheduled to take place for another four weeks, ver.di has already announced that until then it will call for a warning strike every weekend on Fridays from 3:30 p.m. to Sunday evenings.
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Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Warning strikes on Friday
There will also be a strike in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Friday. Employees of local public transport and the Vorpommern-Rügen transport company are called upon to take part. This means that local transport companies in almost all parts of the country are affected, the union said. But there are also exceptions: the Neubrandenburg transport company, for example, should not go on strike.
In Bremen, strikes are also only planned for Friday
There were collective bargaining negotiations in Bremen on Tuesday, at the end of which ver.di also called on the employees of Bremer Straßenbahn AG (BSAG) to go on a warning strike on Friday. The BSAG announced that it would then stop bus and tram traffic. “Between Friday, around 3 a.m., and the start of operations on Saturday, neither buses nor trams run on the BSAG lines. The night lines are also affected,” said a spokesman.
Shortage of staff at all transport companies
There have already been a number of strike actions nationwide in the past few weeks. Ver.di demands, among other things, shorter working hours without financial losses, longer rest periods between individual shifts, more vacation days or more vacation pay. This is intended to relieve the burden on employees and make jobs in local transport more attractive. All transport companies suffer from a lack of staff.
The union is currently negotiating in parallel in all federal states. In most rounds, the main focus is on the working conditions for employees. A new collective agreement for the transport companies is being negotiated in Hamburg. Only in Bavaria is it not possible to strike: there the collective agreement has not been terminated.
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“Fridays for Future” calls for a “climate strike”.
The environmental movement “Fridays for Future” supports the warning strike week in public transport. She called again for a “climate strike” on Friday under the motto: “For good work and climate-friendly mobility.” Numerous demonstrations are planned in the north, including in Hamburg, Kiel, Flensburg, Lübeck, Rostock, Greifswald, Hanover, Hildesheim, Göttingen, Lüneburg, Braunschweig and Bremen.
