The nationwide warning strike in local public transport paralyzed local and school transport in Bavaria on Monday. Especially in large cities like Regensburg and Nuremberg, numerous buses stayed in the depots in the morning. Hardly anything went by rail anymore. Even cross-border connections, for example in regional traffic to Austria, fell by the wayside due to a lack of dispatchers and signal box employees.
In view of the expected restrictions, the Bavarian Ministry of Education announced last week that all students who could not come to school due to a lack of transport would be exceptionally exempt from face-to-face classes. How many of them ultimately made use of was initially unclear on Monday.
However, when asked by SZ, associations and schools reported that the feared chaos had not materialized. “Of course it’s difficult,” said Jürgen Böhm, chairman of the Bavarian Realschule Teachers’ Association. But “on the whole” the lessons at the secondary schools are going as usual, students and parents have adjusted to the situation in advance. Böhm does not fear any problems with the speaking tests scheduled for Monday – part of the final exam at secondary schools in English. Anyone who was unable to appear for the test or was unable to appear on time due to the strike should make up for it during the week after consultation with the school.
In fact, the problems with going to school were not the same everywhere – because public transport was not equally affected everywhere. Private bus providers sometimes drove; especially in rural areas they often serve school transport. Emergency operation was also possible in some places; in Landshut and Schweinfurt, for example, individual school lines operated. Elsewhere, schools had announced distance learning for all students in advance, such as the Cham vocational school.
At the high school in Bruckmühl (Rosenheim district), there was little sign of the strike on Monday morning. All the students are there, said headmaster Walter Baier, who is also state chairman of the association of directors of Bavarian high schools. “We informed the parents and students last week and they all found a way to get here,” he says. In general, he is relatively relaxed about the strike. “There have always been times when buses or trains don’t run. With preparation, that’s not a problem for schools.” If transport associations go on strike more often in the near future, it will be so, because the written Abitur exams will take place from the end of April to the beginning of May. “That would be pure chaos during the high school graduation period and unfair to the high school graduates,” says Baier.
According to the German Press Agency, major traffic jams were only occasionally reported by the police: those who could apparently stayed in the home office. The unions Verdi and EVG had called for the strike. Verdi and the civil servants’ association dbb are currently negotiating with the federal and local governments about a new collective agreement in the public sector. At the EVG railway workers’ union, talks are pending with various railway companies from mid-week.