2023-11-01 03:49:33
The head of the German Locomotive Drivers’ Union (GDL), Claus Weselsky, is threatening strikes during the Christmas season. “I don’t want to rule that out,” he told the Funke media group in response to a question. Railway board member Martin Seiler called for 14 days of Christmas peace. “I had to answer that we would make it dependent on how the negotiations went, not on his wish list.”
At the same time, the union boss made it clear that the holidays themselves would be exempt from a strike: “People say that I’m tough, but they never say that I’m stupid.”
In the new round of collective bargaining, which begins on November 9th, the GDL is calling for a 35-hour week for shift workers with full wage compensation and 555 euros more for everyone.
Thiemo Heeg Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2
Weselsky had already announced that he would once again rely on a quick strike vote in order to be able to carry out indefinite strikes. Railway personnel manager Martin Seiler considers the union’s demands to be “unfulfillable”. However, he made a proposal on Friday to avert a rapid escalation of the conflict. “We want to get out of the conflict spiral, we want to get into a solution mode,” said Seiler in Berlin. He therefore suggested to the GDL that “the conversation should be moderated from the outset with the help of conflict advisors in the style of a kind of arbitration.”
The discussions should begin immediately “in a protected room, ultimately behind closed doors”. Possibilities and compromises could be explored in the form of an exploratory exercise. Experienced conflict mediators should be on board right from the start and look for a solution.
Mediated discussions usually take the form of arbitration when regular collective bargaining has failed. In the most recent round of collective bargaining between the railways and the larger railway and transport union (EVG), such a procedure ultimately brought about an agreement. Seiler has now suggested a format based on this to the GDL right from the start.
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