As of: February 26, 2024 11:16 p.m
The nationwide warning strike week in local public transport called by the ver.di union began on Monday. The actions are also planned regionally on different days in northern Germany. The main strike day will be March 1st.
According to ver.di, there will be strikes on different days until Saturday, “mainly all day long and mostly lasting several days.” Private bus companies started in some regions of Schleswig-Holstein on Monday.
The “Fridays for Future” movement supports the warning strike week. She is calling for a so-called climate strike with numerous demonstrations on Friday. In the north, events are planned in Hamburg, Kiel, Flensburg, Lübeck, Rostock, Greifswald, Hanover, Hildesheim, Göttingen, Lüneburg, Braunschweig and Bremen, among others.
Schleswig-Holstein: Five days of strike – but not in big cities
In Schleswig-Holstein, ver.di has called on employees in the private bus industry to stop work for five days – from the start of operations on Monday up to and including Friday. But there are exceptions: urban traffic in Kiel, Lübeck and Neumünster is not affected by the warning strike at all, in Flensburg only partially.
“I would expect that there is hardly any reliable bus transport in the countryside,” said ver.di spokesman Frank Schischefsky before the strike began. Another ver.di representative estimated the outages on Monday morning at around 85 percent. However, it is not yet possible to fully estimate how many buses will actually be canceled during the week.
The negotiator of the Omnibus Association North (OVN), Klaus Schmidt, said that there could be no question of a nationwide strike: “50 percent of the bus drivers or more will drive.” The OVN described strikes in the private bus industry as “unnecessary and superfluous” at the beginning of the month. A reduction in weekly working hours to 35 hours is not feasible, also because there are too few drivers.
Lower Saxony: Warning strikes in several cities
In Lower Saxony, the warning strikes will only have an impact on bus and train traffic at the end of the week. Ver.di has called on employees in the local transport collective agreement in Hanover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Wolfsburg and Goslar to strike on Thursday and Friday. According to the announcement, the warning strike in Göttingen will last from Wednesday to Friday.
Ver.di negotiator Marian Drews explained the planned actions in Lower Saxony: “The employers came to the negotiation on February 22nd completely unprepared and interrupted the meeting for four hours in order to cobble together an offer on site is absolutely inadequate because it does not provide relief for everyone, but only for a few employees.” Further actions are being planned, which ver.di will provide information about at a later date.
Hamburg: Buses and trains affected from Thursday
In Hamburg, ver.di has called on employees of the Hochbahn and the Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein GmbH (VHH) to go on a 48-hour warning strike from Thursday. The work stoppage should therefore begin at 3 a.m. and end at the same time on Saturday night. The night buses from Friday to Saturday are also affected, according to the union.
Further information
The ADAC Hamburg is expecting traffic jams in the Hanseatic city as a result of the warning strike on Friday. However, they are unlikely to lead to traffic chaos, according to ADAC spokesman Christian Hieff: “On the one hand, Friday is no longer the day with the most traffic jams, that is Wednesday and Thursday,” he said in an interview with NDR. de. “And on the other hand, employees and employers have become much more flexible since the Corona pandemic: especially during shorter strikes and warning strikes, many people stay in their home office.” For those who have no other option on Friday, Hieff recommends one of the commuter platforms to share a car.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Warning strikes on Friday
After warning strikes in public transport on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, there will be a strike in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Friday this week. Employees of local public transport and the Vorpommern-Rügen transport company are called upon to take part. This means that local transport companies in almost all parts of the country are affected, the union said. But there are also exceptions: the Neubrandenburg transport company, for example, should not go on strike.
“The employees’ signal was not understood”
In the past few weeks there have already been several strike actions in individual federal states. On February 2nd, ver.di struck local public transport in a nationwide coordinated action. At that time, according to union information, more than 80 cities and around 40 districts were affected. “The signal that the employees sent out with their strike was apparently not sufficiently understood, because collective bargaining in the individual federal states has still not produced any results,” said ver.di deputy chairwoman Christine Behle . “In order to finally bring movement into the negotiations, pressure must now be put on employers again.”
Shortage of staff in all transport companies
Ver.di is calling for, among other things, shorter working hours without financial losses, longer rest periods between individual shifts, more vacation days or more vacation pay. This is intended to relieve the burden on employees and make jobs in local transport more attractive. All transport companies suffer from a lack of staff. Bus drivers in particular are difficult to find.
The union is currently negotiating in parallel in all federal states, but the collective agreement has not been terminated in Bavaria. This means that strikes cannot take place there. In most rounds, the main focus is on the working conditions for the employees. A new collective agreement for the transport companies is being negotiated in Hamburg.
Further information
