Warning strikes in daycare centers and all-day schools: around 26,000 employees lay down work

Status: 05/04/2022 5:15 p.m

Nationwide, parents today had to look for an alternative to care in a daycare center or all-day school. Thousands of workers took part in a warning strike. Unions want to put pressure on him before the next round of negotiations.

Nationwide, around 26,000 employees of day-care centers and all-day schools took part in a warning strike that was intended to increase pressure in the ongoing collective bargaining conflict for social and educational professions.

Warning strikes by day care centers and all-day schools for better working conditions

Johannes Jolmes, NDR, daily news 5:00 p.m., May 4th, 2022

According to the trade union ver.di, which had called for the strikes, around 8,000 employees in North Rhine-Westphalia laid down their jobs. According to the Education and Science Union, more than 1,000 employees took part in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, and more than 3,000 employees in Lower Saxony and Bremen, as well as in Hesse. Strikes had also been announced in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hamburg.

For many parents, this meant having to look for other types of care. Only a few day care centers offered emergency care.

Third round of negotiations in May

The third round of negotiations with the employers, in this case with the union of municipal employers’ associations, is due in around two weeks – on May 16th and 17th. Negotiations were last held on March 22, but without reaching an agreement.

Ver.di and the civil servants’ association dbb are calling for better pay for the approximately 330,000 employees in social and educational services nationwide, as well as improved working conditions and more measures by employers to counteract the existing shortage of skilled workers. There should be better pay for many through changed classifications.

Ver.di threatens to “massively expand” strikes

“The day care center employees and the school all-day employees put pressure on again today to show the employers that they finally have to move and take their demands seriously,” said Christine Behle, deputy ver.di chairwoman, summarizing the situation strike day. With a view to the next round of negotiations, she warned: “If the employers don’t get the signal and the next round of negotiations doesn’t produce a result, we will have to massively expand the strikes.”

ver.di boss Frank Werneke had also previously announced lengthy warning strikes in the event that the next negotiations failed to bring about a breakthrough. “At the moment we are going on strike on a very targeted basis on a daily basis in the hope that the employers will finally move,” Werneke told the “Welt” television station. If no movement succeeds, “we will expand the strikes,” Werneke continued.

Social workers had already stopped working on Monday. On Thursday, the employees of the handicapped assistance should follow.

The employer side had recently regularly criticized the warning strikes as disproportionate and stated that constructive negotiations were under way.

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