2024-03-08 18:41:23
The train drivers are on strike again. Many travelers are angry – but some also understand.
Numerous train connections are canceled these days, hundreds of thousands of people have to postpone their trips. The GDL staff has been on strike since Wednesday evening after the union broke off collective bargaining with the railway on Monday. There will also be no S-Bahn trains arriving at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz on Thursday. Passers-by with suitcases stand around and check alternative connections on their cell phones.
Two older tourists are annoyed. You would now have to take a detour to the hotel with your luggage. “Weselsky should learn what a compromise is,” says one of the women. It’s not just the two pensioners who are angry. The head of the GDL, Claus Weselsky, is currently facing a lot of criticism. This is not only due to the repeated strikes.
On Monday, the GDL boss claimed at a press conference that the arbitrators had suggested a 37-hour week as a compromise. In fact it was 36 hours, just one hour more than Weselsky demands. He spoke of a “mistake in thinking,” but he still did not withdraw the strike. Here you can read more about it. The two tourists consider the compromise proposal to be sufficient. “In a dispute, both sides have to approach each other,” says one of the pensioners.
GDL demands “disproportionate”
Michaela K., a psychologist from Frankfurt am Main, also has little understanding for Weselsky’s unwillingness to compromise. “After all, the railway has met the demands.” The 39-year-old defended the strikes for a long time, but she now considers the demands to be disproportionate. Guido H. also finds the GDL’s strike plans “impossible”. The early retiree comes from Berlin-Hellersdorf and often has to go to the doctor in Berlin-Mitte because of a disability. “I got rid of my car because I have good transport connections right on my doorstep. But suddenly I can’t get away anymore,” says the 56-year-old.
Not only in Berlin, but all over Germany, travelers are currently annoyed. At the Hamburg train station, for example, 35-year-old Ukrainian Anastasia Smirnova is traveling with her 15-year-old daughter. You want to go to Berlin and have now switched to the Flixtrain. “Bombs are falling in our homeland and the trains are still more punctual,” says Smirnova. “I’m wondering how that can be.”
In Cologne, a young man deals with the situation calmly. “I have to go to Koblenz today and I’m glad I came here first,” he says while standing in the DB information queue at the main train station. He’s lucky and just has to take another train from Cologne/Messe-Deutz. He is happy to accept the delay – also in view of the previous days when the Cologne transport company went on strike and there was absolute standstill in the cathedral city.
A pensioner and his wife are annoyed instead. They live in Cologne-Kalk and are also waiting in line at the DB information desk, which is still manageable on this Thursday afternoon. It seems as if the strike day hasn’t really started, some connections and trains are still running. However, it is questionable whether the couple will make it to Würzburg today as planned. “You don’t get any information from the railway,” says the pensioner. He still understands the strikers. “It’s not the strikers who are to blame, but rather the railway, which is not trying to reach an agreement in this dispute.” His wife agrees: “And you only get information bit by bit.”
Weselsky as “Knight of Law”
There are also some at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz who understand the strike. The 48-year-old Frenchwoman Sandra Laporte understands “that the strikers want to be heard.” There are regular strikes in France and it is simply normal for them to have to adapt to this.