faq
In the collective bargaining dispute with the railway, the GDL is calling for the longest strike in the company’s history. The fronts have hardened. Do rail travelers now have to expect permanent strikes?
The Federal Republic is facing a new week of strikes. The German Locomotive Drivers’ Union (GDL) is once again calling on its members to take industrial action. Employees of the DB Cargo freight transport division are to stop working from Tuesday evening. Passenger transport will be on strike from Wednesday morning.
The GDL wants to go into industrial action for a full six days – longer than ever before in the history of the DB. How severe will the strike be? And will GDL boss Claus Weselsky be successful with it?
Why are the fronts so hardened?
According to the GDL, the railway is – as of now – not prepared to negotiate on two of the union’s core demands. On the one hand, the GDL also wants to reach a tariff agreement for driving service providers. The railway rejects this. On the other hand, the GDL is calling for a gradual reduction in weekly working hours in shift work from 38 to 35 hours per week with full wage compensation. The railway has not yet wanted to negotiate on this either.
Previous offers fell well short of the GDL’s demands. Starting with the term – the railway offered 32 months, while the GDL demanded twelve months – through the scope of validity up to the working time model, the GDL saw no basis for negotiation in the respective offers.
In fact, the latest offer from Deutsche Bahn includes an option to reduce working hours by one hour per week while maintaining the same salary; However, those employees who want to continue working a regular 38 hours are entitled to a percentage wage increase of 2.7 percent, so that employees with reduced working hours would de facto earn less. In addition, the railway reserves the right to suspend this part of the collective agreement if the staffing level is too low.
The railway argues that due to the shortage of skilled workers, it will not be possible to hire enough staff in the coming years to enable its employees to reduce working hours with full wage compensation. The GDL counters this on two counts: Firstly, a more attractive job profile would also attract more applicants; Secondly, it refers to collective agreements that have already been reached with rail competitors, who, despite the tense personnel situation, have responded to the union’s core demands and are gradually reducing working hours.
Is the strike particularly long?
The current strike could set a railway record in terms of length. However, the GDL has also frequently scheduled strikes lasting several days in previous collective bargaining rounds, which were only just below that. In 2021 the GDL went on strike for five days and in 2015 once for six days.
In general, the railway is one of the industries in which there are few strike days. According to Statista, in the manufacturing sector there were an average of 47.2 days lost due to strikes per 1,000 employees in 2022; for all private and public service providers combined there were around seven days lost due to strikes in the same year.
Because, according to the company, on average more than ten million people use the railway services every day, the strike is more noticeable there, at least for the majority of the population.
Does a confrontational approach help to achieve better deals?
Peter Renneberg, who advises unions on their strategy for industrial action, says: “With every day of the strike, the pressure on the employer increases. And it may be that the result comes closer.” However, conversely, the pressure on the union is increasing to actually achieve a better result in order to “get out of history while saving face”. This could become a problem at the GDL.
“In fact, it is not automatic that tough and confrontational negotiations lead to a better deal,” says Heiner Dribbusch, a collective bargaining expert at the trade union-affiliated Economic and Social Sciences Institute of the Hans Böckler Foundation. This is what happened with the Cockpit pilots’ union in 2015. They announced in the fall that they would stop work every week until the end of the year. “In the end, the union still had to compromise because Lufthansa threatened to relocate jobs abroad,” said Dribbusch.
Renneberg, who works with the GDL competitor union EVG, but also NGG and ver.di, among others, advises in the interview tagesschau.de from strikes that are too conflict-prone. “But there are cases in which it may be necessary from the union’s perspective to take a very confrontational approach, for example if the other side has no interest in negotiating with a union, like Amazon or Tesla.”
In the past, however, there has been repeated criticism of what observers see as the EVG and its predecessor unions’ lack of willingness to engage in conflict. At one point, those forerunners even had to withdraw their consent to collective agreements after they underestimated the resistance within their own ranks.
What influence does public opinion have on collective bargaining parties?
Currently the mood towards the GDL seems to be becoming increasingly critical. But strategy expert Renneberg says that growing public criticism can also have the opposite effect. “There are union members who say: ‘That’s enough, we can’t burden customers anymore.'” But for many people it’s also true that pressure from outside brings us together within. At the same time, a positive view from outside can have a supportive effect on one’s own concerns, says Dribbusch.
According to Dribbusch, the fact that the train driver’s job is systemically important has had no influence on pay, at least in the past: “If that were the case, the train drivers would earn significantly more than they do.”
However, when it comes to a strike, public perception can definitely matter. There have recently been tariff improvements in the health sector because the industry was the focus of the pandemic.
What’s next?
One factor is how well filled the GDL strike fund is. Because if you go on strike, the union will compensate you for part of your lost wages. How long the strike can continue financially depends on these resources. It is currently unclear how the GDL’s coffers are doing.
“But it is clear that the escalation level is likely to be even higher if there are strikes again,” says Renneberg. Because the strikes usually get harder from time to time.
An indefinite strike is possible based on the results of the strike vote; However, GDL boss Weselsky has so far ruled out this measure. But there are other methods to tighten things up and increase the pressure on employers: for example, so-called wave strikes. In individual departments and shifts, work is stopped for different periods of time at different times. Defensive measures – in the case of the railway an emergency timetable – are often no longer possible for the employer to plan.
In the current tariff strike between the railways and the GDL, arbitration can only take place voluntarily, if both sides agree to it, explains expert Dribbusch. The railway allowed an agreement with an obligation to arbitrate to expire in 2021. And union boss Weselsky has also spoken out against it – as of now.