Status: 08/24/2021 5:09 p.m.
For two days, train traffic was limited due to the train drivers’ strike. Deutsche Bahn wants to restart operations quickly from Wednesday morning. GDL boss Weselsky defended the industrial action again.
After the train drivers’ strike, Deutsche Bahn passengers can expect largely normal train traffic again from Wednesday. Corresponding preparations were underway at the railway, “so that the normal timetable can be run again after the end of the strike,” said the company.
Trains would have to be transferred to their various take-off stations overnight and employees would have already been on their way to pick up their trains at the right place for the start of operations. The company spoke of an “overall quiet operating situation”. At the same time, the second day of the strike in passenger traffic meant “massive restrictions” for customers.
Claus Weselsky, GDL chairman, with current background to the collective bargaining dispute
lunch magazine 1:00 p.m., 8/24/2021
Big regional differences
The union of German locomotive drivers (GDL) had paralyzed large parts of the rail traffic with its second strike this month since Monday in order to force higher incomes. The strike should end on Wednesday at 2:00 a.m.
From the beginning of the week, Deutsche Bahn maintained a basic offer of around 30 percent in long-distance transport. In regional transport, 40 percent of the trains were in use, but depending on the region there were big differences in terms of the range of services.
The railway assumes that in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia only 10 to 15 percent of the trains could run. It is much more so in the West. Because there are still 3000 of the 20,000 train drivers from earlier days of the Federal Railroad and are not allowed to strike. In Munich, the train wanted to run about every second train on the S-Bahn.
Birgit Virnich, WDR, with information about the strike of the train drivers
tagesschau24 11:00 a.m., 8/24/2021
GDL turned down the offer
Even if the situation for passengers at the stations should relax in the foreseeable future, there is still no convergence in sight in the tariff conflict between the railway and the GDL. Numerous employees also met today for rallies in Cologne and Munich, among others, to draw attention to their demands.
The GDL and the railways are arguing in the collective bargaining dispute mainly about the term of the contract and the start of wage increases. The union is demanding, among other things, 3.2 percent more money and a corona bonus of 600 euros this year. The railway does not want to pay the wage increase immediately, but in two steps: 1.5 percent on January 1, 2022 and 1.7 percent on March 1, 2023, with a term until the end of June 2024. The GDL rejected this offer.
Power struggle with the EVG
in the ARD lunch magazine said GDL boss Claus Weselsky, the mood was in the basement, as the managers served themselves indecently and want to let the little railroad workers sit with bread and water. The railway board is responsible for this.
The GDL boss defended the rail strike, although the working atmosphere in the two competing unions of the railways, the railway and transport union (EVG) and GDL, continues to deteriorate. “We’re not turning things upside down, but here things are being turned upside down on purpose, just to discredit the GDL. And I have to turn against that.”
A power struggle between the GDL and the larger EVG has been simmering for some time. The train drivers’ union sees its influence at risk due to the Unified Collective Bargaining Act. According to the law, only the collective agreements of the larger employee representatives apply in companies with several unions. The chairman of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), Reiner Hoffmann, accused the GDL boss of wanting above all to ensure the survival of the GDL – it is in competition with the much larger DGB union EVG.