rallies
Call for a big wage plus on Labor Day
Aviation Handling Services GmbH (AHS) employees are demanding higher wages as part of a warning strike at Hamburg Airport. photo
© Gregor Fischer/dpa
Inflation and sharply increased prices: The trade unions are demanding significantly higher wages on May 1st – and see further challenges in view of digitization and the energy crisis.
In times of increased prices, warning strikes and tough collective bargaining, the trade unions are calling for rallies and demonstrations throughout Germany on May 1st.
This year’s motto of the umbrella organization DGB is “unbroken solidarity”. “The world is in permanent crisis mode: the energy crisis, climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, high inflation and the effects of the corona pandemic are creating uncertainty and throwing many people into existential concerns,” said the DGB. “We unions stand by their side.”
DGB chairwoman Yasmin Fahimi will speak at the main event at noon in Cologne. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is expected to attend a rally at the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz.
Verdi: Real wage losses due to inflation and the pandemic
The United Services Union Verdi emphasizes the role of successful collective bargaining policy in securing real wages. “After three years of the pandemic and the loss of real wages caused by high inflation, employees are demanding that their work be valued and that their wages are increased significantly to secure their income,” said Verdi chairman Frank Werneke in a preliminary announcement.
The union boss also pointed out that “considerable wage increases” had been achieved – for example at Deutsche Post, in the private energy industry, at bank service companies. “Such successes are only possible because an enormous number of employees took part in actions and warning strikes.”
IG Metall chairman Jörg Hofmann also pushed for more investment in employee qualifications. “The ecological and digital transformation requires new, sometimes different qualifications than those acquired in the learned profession.” It is therefore important to promote a change of lane in professional life – with time, money and offers for a second training course. Therefore, for Hofmann, the topics of qualification and second vocational training should not be questioned with reference to the debt brake or even placed under a austerity dictate.
Climate crisis another factor
Climate change and energy transition, the shift in industrial production away from fossil raw materials, education, poverty reduction and wage and labor market policy are likely to be topics of discussion.
May 1st is again this year the occasion not only for trade union rallies, but also for numerous demonstrations of the left and locally right scene. According to their own statements, the police have 6,300 officers on duty in Berlin alone. In previous years there was violence and attacks on the police in both the capital and Hamburg. In Berlin-Mitte, rioters demolished numerous cars and window panes on Saturday night.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned against peaceful forms of protest with a view to May 1st. “May 1 stands for social justice and social cohesion,” said the SPD politician to the German Press Agency in Berlin.