2024-09-02 21:35:17
The union boss is retiring. He has always lashed out against Deutsche Bahn and other companies on behalf of the train drivers.
He has repeatedly brought the country to a standstill and, as his last major project, pushed through the gradual 35-hour week for his train drivers – but now it’s over. Claus Weselsky, long-time head of the German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and an uncomfortable critic of the railway, is retiring. Mario Reiß is to be elected as his successor at the GDL general meeting next week.
Weselsky rarely minced his words. His tirades during wage negotiations with Deutsche Bahn are legendary. He often got personal. Some of Weselsky’s sayings will be remembered, and he regularly used the “rivets in pinstripes” – the image of the managers in the Bahntower who, in his view, were aloof. t-online shows a selection:
Weselsky, now 65, is a trade unionist through and through. The Dresden native was there when the GDL was founded in East Germany and became chairman of the Pirna local group in 1990. Two years later, the trained train driver left the tracks: he worked for the GDL from the office as a personnel and works council member, and from 2002 he was completely released from his duties to work for the trade union. In May 2006, Weselsky was promoted to vice chairman of the GDL.
Weselsky became famous in 2007 when the then boss Manfred Schell left for a health resort on Lake Constance in the middle of the heated phase of the industrial dispute. At that time, Weselsky showed that as a negotiator he uncompromisingly represented the position of the train drivers.
The result achieved after months of dispute in early 2008 was impressive from the GDL’s point of view: eleven percent more pay. A few months later, the members of the train drivers’ union elected Weselsky as Schell’s successor – with 90 percent of the vote.
Weselsky, who has been a member of the CDU for years, also fought hard in the subsequent wage negotiations. Again and again he caused strikes at Deutsche Bahn that lasted for days, tested the patience of passengers and attacked the company in a rude tone, including reprimanding the management. His bluster sometimes led to calls for the GDL boss to resign – even in union circles his negotiating style was controversial. “He acts as if he were calling for a holy war. Just to boost his ego,” his predecessor Schell once complained.
But Weselsky is used to headwinds. He is repeatedly portrayed in public as a troublemaker, referred to as the “nation’s bogeyman”, and the “Bild” newspaper calls him a “big-time railroad fanatic”. The railway repeatedly accuses him of wanting to push through “egoistic power interests”. The small GDL is in competition with the larger EVG and the train drivers’ union is worried that its influence in the company could be reduced as a result of the Collective Bargaining Act.
“The history of the GDL and Claus Weselsky is a story of a struggle for survival,” Weselsky recently admitted in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”. But he also always makes it clear that he is fighting above all for the railway workers. And for them, after months of hard wage negotiations with long strikes, he pushed through more money and a gradual reduction in the working week to 35 hours.
“The GDL has done its job and the chairman is now taking a break,” Weselsky said in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”. He also made it clear that the nation will be hearing from him again. “I will definitely continue to speak out about Deutsche Bahn and the failure of the board.”