Status: 01/28/2023 12:33 p.m
Thousands of employees at Deutsche Post also stopped working on Saturday. The trade union ver.di spoke of a high participation. The delivery of letters and parcels could sometimes be delayed by days.
Around 13,500 Deutsche Post employees across Germany also stopped working on Saturday, the group announced. It is the third day in a row that employees are taking part in warning strikes called for by the ver.di trade union.
According to Deutsche Post, the renewed strike does not affect all locations nationwide. According to ver.di, only selected companies in the parcel and letter centers as well as in parcel, letter and group delivery are affected. Among other things, the delivery in the Bonn area, in Bochum and in the Münsterland was on strike. Mannheim, Stuttgart and Freiburg were also affected.
As Deutsche Post further announced, around a third of the workforce at the affected locations would have stopped working. On average nationwide, the delivery of about every fifth parcel and every eleventh letter was delayed – a failure rate of 20 and nine percent. In the regions affected by the strikes, however, the rate could be higher. According to a company spokesman, as a result of the warning strikes, shipments could “only arrive a few days later” at the addressees and thus “depending on the end of the strike activities on site only in the coming week”.
According to ver.di, high participation at locations on strike
On Saturday, Ver.di was satisfied with the course of the renewed deficits. A spokeswoman for the federal association of trade unions spoke of an extremely high level of participation without giving specific figures.
According to ver.di, around 24,000 Swiss Post employees across Germany had already stopped working on Thursday and Friday. There was also a three-day warning strike last week, in which, according to the union, around 30,000 employees took part.
15 percent more wages demanded
The next negotiations in the collective bargaining dispute are due in about a week and a half. Deutsche Post has already announced that it intends to submit an offer, but at the same time emphasizes that ver.di’s demands cannot be met.
The trade union insists on a wage increase of 15 percent for the approximately 160,000 collective bargaining employees nationwide with a term of the collective agreement of twelve months and justifies its demand with the high inflation, which must be compensated. In addition, the training allowances for each year of training are to be increased by 200 euros per month.
Post criticizes strike as “excessive”
The deputy ver.di chairman and negotiator in the collective bargaining dispute, Andrea Kocsis, referred to the record profit of around 8.4 billion euros, which the post office expects for the past year. “The company owes this success to the work of its employees. Against this background, too, our wage demands are necessary, fair and feasible,” stressed Kocsis.
The employer, on the other hand, had criticized the ongoing warning strike on Friday as “excessive” and also emphasized that the pay increase demanded by the union side was “not justifiable”. Deutsche Post needs financial leeway for investments in order to remain competitive and thus secure jobs. In addition, the company’s profits are “generated for the most part in international business”.
According to information from the dpa news agency, Deutsche Post DHL generated only about a sixth of its operating profit (EBIT) last year from the processing and delivery of letters and parcels within Germany. However, about a third of the staff is responsible for this area. The worldwide express and freight business is significantly more profitable than the core business.