Wage conflict at the railways: “It can be a very long strike”

The wage dispute at the railways is also so violent because of hostile unions. How justified the demands of the GDL are and how the conflict can be resolved, explains the expert Wolfgang Schroeder in tagesschau.de-Interview.

tagesschau.de: Mr Schroeder, the train drivers’ union (GDL) is demanding higher wages and says the strike is inevitable. How do you see it

Wolfgang Schoeder: This was certainly not inevitable, but this decision has a certain logic. Namely the logic of outbidding competition, which is closely related to the Unified Collective Bargaining Act. At Deutsche Bahn there was already a collective agreement with the competing trade union EVG last year. This collective agreement took into account the Corona economic slump and the enormous loss of income at Deutsche Bahn. The EVG had achieved plus 1.5 percent. In view of the fact that the railway is making a minus of seven billion euros, that was entirely acceptable.

Strategy of mobilization

tagesschau.de: Union leader Claus Weselsky accuses railway management of the Raffke mentality, while “ordinary” employees have decreed real wage losses. Are the railroad employees really that bad off?

Schroeder: The insults of management follow a certain mobilization strategy that says: Those up there are corrupt and don’t care about the interests of those who actually do the work. To what extent this is true has not yet been publicly proven empirically. So the question: Have the salaries of the Board of Management and those of the employees diverged since the last collective bargaining round? In this respect, at the moment it’s more of an emotional-populist debate that was kicked off. This is important for the GDL to mobilize its people.

“Uncrowned King of Railway Workers”

tagesschau.de: In the public eye, GDL boss Weselsky is often perceived as an agitator who scares off with rabid rhetoric and maximum demands. How is it received by Deutsche Bahn employees?

Schroeder: He’s a polarizer. But that is precisely why it is well received by the supporters of the GDL. With his rhetoric and his mobilization in the past, he has already achieved a lot for his club. And as we can now see from the result of the strike vote, there is definitely strong support from the GDL members. In this respect, he is the uncrowned king of railway workers who feel they belong to the GDL. It is the most important thing for a union leader to be supported by his own membership.

tagesschau.de: Is this strike really primarily about the competition between the GDL and the larger railway and transport union EVG?

Schroeder: That is at least the basis of the conflict. The law on collective bargaining stipulates that only the union that is the majority union there may conclude a collective bargaining agreement for the respective area. The GDL is only in 16 of the 300 companies at the railroad. She is now trying to gain more influence. According to her own assessment, she can only do this by attacking the other union, achieving better degrees and thus becoming more attractive for employees and gaining more members. That is the logic that the law imposes on the GDL as long as there is no clear division of labor between the unions. In this respect, the GDL’s approach is logically comprehensible from the structure of the Unified Collective Bargaining Act.

Kulturkampf in the group

tagesschau.de: How is this competition between the two unions affecting Deutsche Bahn?

Schroeder: A real culture war arose. The two groups are almost hostile to each other in many areas. That itself has an impact on everyday working relationships, as I am told again and again. In this respect, it is a devastating poisoning of the conditions that we can observe here. And that’s a huge problem.

tagesschau.de: How could this dispute be resolved?

Schroeder: The web guide plays a major role here. So far it has not been possible to bring about greater cooperation between the two unions. But that is also their job. Usually there is a conflict between employers and employee organizations in collective bargaining disputes. Here, however, there is primarily a conflict between two groups of employees. The railroad management is now called for by providing incentives to promote cooperation between the trade unions. One way that has failed many times, however, is to regulate responsibilities: which union is responsible where. And the GDL’s web routing must also leave room to survive.

GDL hardly has to fear the public

tagesschau.de: The public response to the strike was largely negative. Can the GDL care?

Schroeder: It’s like football. What matters is on the pitch, not in the spectator stands. As long as the employees of the railway, who are organized in the GDL, remain loyal to their union, they hardly have to fear the public. The GDL just has to make sure that it does not overdraw. Otherwise, at some point the dynamics will be transferred from the audience to the square. Then the railway workers get restless, and that would not only affect the willingness to strike, but also the further role of the GDL in the group.

tagesschau.de: How long will the strike last and what solution do you see for the conflict?

Schroeder: The strike could last a long time. The high level of willingness to strike shows that the members are convinced that the strategy is the right one. The GDL has succeeded in making it clear to its members: We are fighting for our existence, we are the victims, and if you do our laundry, we will fight back. As long as the members are convinced that there is an existential conflict for the union, it can be a very, very long strike.

Interview conducted by Peter Gerhardt, HR.