Members of the EVG in a labor dispute in front of Berlin Central Station
Source: dpa/Annette Riedl
Twelve percent more wages – that’s what the railway and transport union (EVG) is insisting on in the current labor dispute. Deutsche Bahn and other companies have so far rejected this. The EVG therefore wants to go on strike again.
FPassengers will soon have to prepare for far-reaching warning strikes in rail traffic. The railway and transport union (EVG) wants this Thursday in the ongoing wage dispute at the German train and 50 other railway companies about the next round of warning strikes, as announced on Tuesday. She did not initially give any details. In previous rounds of industrial action, the announcements had been made only a few days before the warning strike actually began.
“Unfortunately, it can be said that little is happening at the negotiating table,” the EVG announced on Tuesday. A possible collective bargaining agreement is still “a long way off”. “Against this background, another warning strike is unavoidable.” The union did not name the exact period on Tuesday. The railway initially did not comment on the union’s announcement on Tuesday.
The EVG is currently negotiating higher tariffs for a total of around 230,000 employees with around 50 railway companies. The focus is on Deutsche Bahn. Three rounds of talks with the state-owned group have so far been unsuccessful. The union demands in discussions with the industry Among other things, at least 650 euros more per month or 12 percent for the upper income group with a twelve-month term.
There have already been two warning strikes on the rails in the past few weeks and months, with which the EVG has largely brought regional and long-distance traffic to a standstill. Most recently, the EVG had limited itself to a few hours in the morning and in the morning. EVG board member Cosima Ingenschay had recently indicated that further warning strike actions could be longer: “We could paralyze the railway for weeks,” she told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” at the end of April.
Bahn made an offer of 10 percent more wages
Deutsche Bahn, in turn, initially proposed a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment totaling 2,850 euros, which should be paid out over several months. From March next year there would gradually be a total of 10 percent for the lower and middle wage groups and 8 percent for the upper wage groups. The term would have been 27 months. The EVG rejected this offer at the end of April as non-negotiable.
Other railway companies had also submitted offers in the collective bargaining talks. In it, monthly fixed amounts instead of percentages were recently increasingly promised, according to the EVG. But in terms of the amount, the offers are still far from what they had in mind.
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