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FRANKFURT / BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – At the beginning of the week, there was not much left of the announced 50-hour warning strike in the wage conflict of the railways: After the short-term cancellation of the industrial dispute at Deutsche Bahn due to a court settlement, long-distance and regional transport ran on Monday largely smoothly. “We had already started to reduce train traffic and then had to start it up again,” said a railway spokesman in Berlin. “There has never been a situation like this before.” Almost all long-distance trains were on the move on Monday. This Tuesday it should be 100 percent. There were no longer any restrictions in DB regional traffic on Monday.
In the case of other regional railway companies, however, the railway and transport union (EVG) stuck to the call for a warning strike. This included the company Transdev, which operates the Bayerische Oberlandbahn and the Bayerische Regionalbahn in Bavaria, among other things. Abellio Mitteldeutschland was also still affected by the warning strike. The company is active as a provider, particularly in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. At the North German Railway Company, the Northwest Railway and the Westphalia Railway, the EVG also remained involved in industrial action.
With the exception of Bavaria, where there were still major restrictions on passengers on the regional and Oberlandbahn and on the Meridian, the effects on the railway competition were limited, according to an assessment by the competitor association Mofair.
The warning strike was to begin at 10 p.m. on Sunday and end at midnight on Tuesday. After a comparison between the EVG and Deutsche Bahn on the sticking point of the minimum wage was reached through the mediation of the Frankfurt Labor Court, the union canceled the labor dispute at the state-owned group at the weekend at short notice.
As a result, the railway had to “practically reorganize the already canceled train service,” said the spokesman. “We contacted thousands of employees over the weekend to fill as many shifts as possible.” Shift schedules had been redesigned and vehicles had to be moved to other locations. The “strength” was successful.
Because the dispatchers who coordinate the majority of all train traffic in Germany also had to go back to work, the regional trains still affected by the warning strike were largely able to keep to their timetables.
However, the collective bargaining conflict for the approximately 180,000 employees of Deutsche Bahn did not end with the cancellation of the warning strike. EVG and employers will meet again in Fulda next Tuesday and Wednesday. It is the last planned round of negotiations in the ongoing collective bargaining dispute.
With the comparison before the Frankfurt labor court, both sides were able to largely eliminate a major sticking point in the negotiations: For around 2,000 railway employees who have only received the statutory minimum wage through allowances, this will now be included in the tariff tables retrospectively as of March 1st. Future rate increases are therefore based on this higher basis.
On many other points, however, employers and employees are still far apart. In negotiations with the railways and dozens of other railway companies, the EVG is demanding at least 650 euros more per month or 12 percent for upper income earners. The term should be 12 months. In addition to an inflation compensation premium, the railway has so far only offered percentage increases and a term of 27 months./maa/DP/mis