Dhe Union of German Locomotive Drivers (GDL) is consistently continuing its strike at Deutsche Bahn. After the strike on Wednesday caused considerable problems in local and long-distance traffic, the railway expects numerous train cancellations until the announced end of the strike on Friday night. This Thursday too, commuters and tourists will face problems. According to the replacement schedule, three quarters of the long-distance trains will again not run, while the regional networks are expected to experience various disruptions. According to its own information, the railway is doing everything in its power to resume regular operations on Friday.
GDL boss Claus Weselsky threatened further strikes. You will not get away with the first measure, he told trade unionists in Berlin. “So we need staying power.” He had previously stated in the “Rheinische Post”: “I can’t guarantee anything. Let’s see whether the rail board has understood what we expect from him. If not, we will step up. ”A decision on further industrial action is to be made in the coming week.
Strike puts supply chains at risk
In Corona times, the lack of space in the few remaining trains causes additional concerns. “As a result, the trains naturally become fuller than they usually are. That doesn’t exactly make things any easier, because we try to provide as much distance as possible in pandemic times, “said a railroad spokesman in Berlin. He criticized the GDL for announcing the strike at short notice. “It is irresponsible of the train drivers’ union to allow only 15 hours between the strike announcement and the start of the strike.”
According to Deutsche Bahn, the strike also endangers the supply chains of German and European industry. At the moment, around 190 freight trains are stuck in traffic, the state-owned company reported. With great effort and close cooperation with other rail companies, the freight transport subsidiary DB Cargo drives the supply-relevant trains to power plants or large industrial companies, for example.
Many travelers had heard the GDL announcement from Tuesday morning and switched to other means of transport. Because of the rush of passengers, Lufthansa uses larger types of aircraft on its domestic German flights up to and including Friday, as a spokeswoman reported.
Long-distance bus provider Flixbus and rental car providers also recorded significantly increased demand. This also increased prices. Flixbus and Lufthansa work with automated booking systems that open up more expensive booking classes when spaces are scarce. On the other hand, there were no unusually long traffic jams in rush hour traffic. In the majority of the federal states there are school holidays.
40 percent offer in regional transport
In the densely populated North Rhine-Westphalia, ten DB Regio lines and two S-Bahn connections failed completely. In many other metropolitan areas such as Frankfurt or Stuttgart, the S-Bahn only ran every hour. The railway spoke of 40 percent offer in regional traffic.
For example, vacationers were affected on the way to the islands of Usedom and Sylt and in Erfurt people stood in line at the DB travel center except for the street. If a long-distance train did pull in, it was said “The train is busy. No ride possible without a reservation ”. Replacement buses were also in use on some routes, for example between Leipzig and Nuremberg and Berlin-Dresden. In the east, the GDL is traditionally more powerful, because in the west there are even more officials from the Bundesbahn era and are not allowed to strike.
Competitors of Deutsche Bahn, which have considerable market shares in regional and freight transport, were not on strike. However, restrictions are also possible for them if dispatchers also join the GDL strike. In freight transport, everything went normally for rail competitors on Wednesday, according to the European Railways Network. For the passenger railways, the Mofair association only reported isolated disruptions in Berlin, Memmingen and Unna.
Demand: Corona premium and wage increases
The train drivers’ union is fighting for more money and better working conditions for its members at Deutsche Bahn. Unlike the larger railway and transport union (EVG), it does not want to accept a zero round in salaries this year. The GDL wants to score points with the employees in the power struggle with the EVG.
The GDL is calling for wage increases of around 3.2 percent, as in the public sector, as well as a corona bonus of 600 euros in the current year. “We expect appreciation and recognition of the work,” said Weselsky. The term of the collective agreement is to be 28 months. There is also a struggle for company pensions. Due to billions in losses in the pandemic, the railway wants to distribute the increase to later stages, with a contract term of 40 months. In addition, there would be benefits for old-age provision and the exclusion of redundancies for operational reasons.
EVG boss Klaus Hommel accused the GDL of only representing a minority in the railway workforce. “According to our calculations, around 5,000 railway employees voted for the strike.” The company conveyed a great deal of incomprehension to the train drivers’ strike, said Hommel. The labor dispute is not about a normal collective bargaining round, but about the GDL’s struggle for existence. Their boss Weselsky had given the goal of pushing the larger EVG out of the company.
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