Berlin (Reuters) – Deutsche Bahn wants to go to court to stop the train drivers’ union GDL’s sixth industrial dispute in this collective bargaining round. The railway announced on Monday that a corresponding urgent application for an interim injunction had been submitted to the Frankfurt Labor Court. “In particular, the far too short lead time of just 22 hours for freight transport is a sheer imposition,” explained Human Resources Director Martin Seiler. “We consider these wave strikes to be disproportionate.” From Tuesday morning, 2 a.m., the train drivers want to stop work for 24 hours. The strike in freight transport is scheduled to begin today (Monday) at 6 p.m. GDL boss Claus Weselsky did not rule out strikes over Easter: “We will not say how much we will strike and until when.” The strikes will be announced at short notice, but the pressure will be increased further with so-called wave strikes.
The Frankfurt Labor Court must decide quickly on the urgent application and will do so in the course of the afternoon. The railway had already tried to prevent a strike at the end of last year. But back then she failed in court. The federal government declared that it would stay out of the dispute at the state-owned company. Both sides should keep an eye on the impact on people, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit. However, Minister Volker Wissing’s Ministry of Transport emphasized that the appeal was aimed primarily at the GDL. A formal arbitration procedure is necessary. The GDL is overreaching, said a spokesman.
RAILWAY: UNPLANNERABILITY OF TRAIN TRAFFIC UNACCEPTABLE
“We are doing everything in the interests of our customers to prevent this strike,” said Seiler. “This unpredictability of train traffic is unacceptable. People have to go to work, goods have to go to the factories, coal has to go to the power plants, without the train nothing works in this country anymore.” Anyone who demands a reduction in working hours from 38 to 35 hours and could get 36 hours in an overall package should not paralyze the entire country.
The GDL had called for a new and improved offer from the railway in order to avoid strikes. The railway, in turn, offered new negotiations at the weekend based on a concept developed by moderators in the previous round of negotiations. Among other things, this provided for a weekly working time for shift workers of 36 hours with full wage compensation; currently it is 38. However, the GDL is calling for a reduction to 35 hours.
GDL boss Claus Weselsky told the foreign press in Berlin that he still sees room for negotiation when it comes to working hours. So one could talk about the gradual and temporal extension of the introduction of the 35-hour week. The GDL has agreed this with other companies until 2028. “The 35 hours as such are actually non-negotiable.”
(Report by: Markus Wacket, Martina Martinez and Christian Krämer; edited by Christian Götz. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or [email protected] (for companies and markets).)