Union chief Claus Weselsky steers the GDL into a new strike during the holiday season. Train drivers are also systemically relevant, he says
Claus Weselsky wants to know again. The head of the union of German locomotive drivers (GDL) threatens a “hard argument”. Instead of isolated warning strikes, there is a strike vote on a real strike, on August 9th the count will be made, after which one could start. In the middle of the tourist traffic, shortly before the federal election.
How will it turn out this time? At the height of the last GDL strikes, a barrage of media rattled the union and its chairman, as if the GDL had been hijacked by a villain from James Bond films in order – following a perfidious plan – to ruin the German economy and to ruin innocent people Taking commuters and brave vacationers hostage. In the main role a cheeky, proud Saxon Ossi from Leipzig with a CDU party book.
Claus Weselsky, train driver and union official, was born in Dresden in 1959. He completed his training as a rail vehicle fitter and train driver at the Deutsche Reichsbahn before it merged with the Bundesbahn and became the DB. Weselsky, however, has not driven a locomotive himself for a long time; he has been a functionary of the GDL since the early 1990s and its boss since 2008.
The “railroad minded” like him picture said in an interview at the beginning of July about the last strike: “You can see that six years later I am still safe and sound and at my 62 years of age, at least that’s what my environment says, I’m quite agile. That’s why I say it didn’t hurt me. That didn’t hurt the engine drivers. That didn’t harm the GDL members. And there is a reason for that too. The published opinion did not agree with the public opinion. “
What should not have harmed him at the time is the way parts of the media reported about his role in the four and a half day strike in autumn 2014. Focus Online wrote: “He is currently probably the most hated German”, a “hardliner”, a “tough dog”, “the most uncompromising worker leader” of a “fighting union” who, driven by “lust for power”, attracts the “wrath of millions” and to top it all, live in a “neat old building”. On top of that, his private address was published at the time, which in addition to a reprimand by the press council also led to death threats and the need for police protection.
Weselsky says it didn’t harm him, but the reporting and its consequences did have a “lasting effect” on him. After the argument, he also used special methods to make me feel better again, including an Ayurveda cure.
Will the strike repeat itself this summer and with it the portrayal of the only East German at the top of an all-German union as a super villain? Two things could still prevent a strike: a negative vote by the GDL members by August 9th. Or a relenting of the railway management. Both are considered unlikely, especially since there is a third force between the GDL and the management of Deutsche Bahn. The DGB union EVG was set up by the management for the role of the “good guys”, while the GDLers are supposed to hand over the “bad guys”. Weselsky says: “If Deutsche Bahn seriously wants to close a deal with us that is close to this horror scenario that DB management concluded with another force, then it will specifically drive us into this labor dispute.”
In the cinema, the “bad guys” are only secretly loved. But they are absolutely needed to address hidden desires in the audience and move the plot forward. You could say that Weselsky takes the role offensively. When asked why another strike has to take place during the vacation or travel season, he replies: “We will not make it and we will never want to wait until the end of the vacation so as not to affect anyone. Should we strike between half past one and two at night, where no one would be affected more than half an hour late? That is not the effect we want to achieve. We have to be sensitive to the management and send clear signals from the railroad workers: Not with us! “
It is unclear who can get the public’s sympathy on his side: reports that the German economy is on the brink due to isolated warning strikes are likely to appear ridiculous in view of the recent mega-crises and natural disasters. The GDL can pull the Corona trump card out of its sleeve: Who did the dirty work in lockdown? Who continues to work and is needed, more than ever before? Especially if the thing with the climate should also be something else?
On the other hand, the opponents of the GDL can argue that it is simply not the time to demand salary increases. But when is it actually? Weselsky says: “It must not be the case that, of all people, the ‘systemically relevant’ employees will end up in the red this year.” Or, should anyone want to hear it more clearly: “We are opposed to stuffing one’s pockets upstairs and who just fooled down there. “
It will be exciting to see how the Greens position themselves in the next few weeks. In any case, the railway workers have a vital interest in a socio-ecological transformation of the economy and transport. And a realignment of both DB and the Ministry of Transport.
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