Bmore irritating than that German train can hardly: The state-owned company and the railway workers’ union EVG have been in collective bargaining for more than three months without anything moving. A 50-hour “warning strike” is imminent, and an intrepid trial judge manages to avert it in the final meters, to everyone’s surprise.
Officially, there is no “forced arbitration” in the wage disputes at Deutsche Bahn, but this intervention can confidently be described as such. The danger of the rail strike is anything but banned, but now the two brawlers are returning to the negotiating table – at least earlier than planned.
A big winner?
The agreement in court cannot hide the fact that the EVG has gambled enormously. With cumbersome negotiations, which include 50 other companies in addition to Deutsche Bahn, she inflates an already complex collective bargaining round into a bureaucratic monster. Meanwhile, around 230,000 EVG members are hoping that things will change. Inflation is on the mind of many.
In addition to the waiting, they are now also disappointed that the EVG management first swore them to an excessively excessive warning strike and now has to call it off without a word. It has long been clear that this tariff round will be expensive for the railways and cannot be avoided. The rail customer, who is plagued by the strike, cannot even imagine the howls of joy from the competition from the train drivers’ union GDL.
After the judicial intervention, Deutsche Bahn could feel like a big winner if the EVG were not right in its main allegation: that a state-owned company only pays the statutory minimum wage through surcharges cannot be explained to anyone.
The group should have eliminated this weak point much earlier. You should also think that the judge in the comparison ultimately only cemented an agreement that was already in the room on Thursday evening. This shows how great the distrust of the EVG is, which now has to be dispelled. A quick and fair solution is more urgent than ever.