Martin Seiler seems imploring when he makes his suggestion. “We still have time, we can still sort this out,” said Deutsche Bahn’s human resources director on Friday afternoon. Seiler wants to avoid foreseeable strikes, which the train drivers’ union (GDL) has already indicated. After the major warning strikes during the first round of tariffs this year, train passengers are threatened with new, massive cancellations.
First, the EVG union negotiated in the spring and agreed a wage deal in the summer. Now it’s the turn of the GDL, which is making even higher demands – including at least 555 euros more salary per month and a 35-hour week without wage deductions. Even before the first round of negotiations on November 9th, union leader Claus Weselsky indicated that strikes could soon occur.
Railway manager Seiler is now countering this with an unusual move. Instead of the usual negotiations, “experienced conflict advisors” should be at the table right from the start. A “protected space” closed to the public should make it possible to test solutions without this becoming known. The whole thing would be like a kind of arbitration, which is not formally planned at all. As with arbitration, the union should refrain from strikes – until a wage deal is reached, probably after Christmas.
In order to win the union over to the initiative, Seiler offers a financial bonus: Even before a wage deal has even been agreed upon, rail employees should receive a tax-free inflation bonus of 1,500 euros. By temporarily waiving strikes, the union could send a signal that it would allow the population to have an undisturbed Christmas season.
The idea for this arose at the company because the GDL made it clear that labor disputes should start quickly. Seiler speaks of “excessive demands coupled with blatant strike announcements.”
“We don’t know of such unfulfillable demands from any other union.”
His reaction to the union’s financial ideas indicates that these will be extremely difficult negotiations, whether in a protected space or not. The manager calculates that the GDL demands would increase personnel costs for the employees in question by 50 percent: “We don’t know of any other union that has such unfulfillable demands.”
Now the GDL only organizes ten thousand employees, including train drivers and a few others. That’s only five percent of all railway employees, which is why the additional costs are limited. But of course the company doesn’t want to pay these employees much more than the other employees, especially since the GDL and EVG unions are in fierce competition. For around 200,000 employees, the railway has agreed with EVG at least 410 euros more wages per month and an inflation bonus of almost 3,000 euros.
Right from the start, train driver boss Weselsky is demanding significantly more than the EVG has demanded this year. Group human resources director Seiler said he was prepared to offer above-average wage increases. However, he identifies several sticking points in the catalog of demands. On the one hand, Weselsky wants the working hours for shift workers to be reduced from 38 to a four-day week of 35 hours. And without employees losing a euro in salary. “That leads to considerable costs,” says Seiler. “We would have to hire thousands of new employees.”
Another sticking point is that the GDL wants to organize infrastructure employees for whom there are already collective agreements with the EVG. In addition, it is unlawfully demanding that the railway not apply a valid law: namely, that in a sole proprietorship of the group, only the collective bargaining agreement of the union that has more members there applies. This initiative is intended to give the GDL more influence.