Tariff dispute in local transport
Deutsche Bahn and EVG start mammoth round of negotiations
06/12/2023, 07:15 am
The dispute between Deutsche Bahn and EVG has been going on for a few months. The union demands significantly higher wages, the company wants to negotiate down. Both parties are now meeting for a five-day round of talks. If there is no agreement, indefinite strikes could threaten.
Those who negotiate don’t go on strike – this was the motto of the railway and transport union EVG in the tough wage dispute at Deutsche Bahn. The next round starts today at 2 p.m. and will last five days. It is about wage increases for a good 180,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn. It is unclear whether a conclusion can be reached – on the one hand many critical points are still open, on the other hand five days offer plenty of time for possible solutions. Accordingly, there are many conceivable scenarios for the next few days. Should the union get the feeling that no progress is being made, the next warning strike on the rails is imminent. Should the negotiations even be classified as having failed, a ballot on indefinite strikes is conceivable. Ultimately, it depends on whether the many points of conflict are resolved.
The focus of the negotiations is the question of how much more money the employees will receive per month in the future – permanently. The EVG demands at least 650 euros more, and in the upper wage brackets they want to achieve an increase of twelve percent with a term of the collective agreement of twelve months.
The representatives of the railway say far too much. So far, the group has offered to pay twelve percent more for the lower income groups, ten percent for the middle ones and eight percent for the upper ones. The increase will take place in two steps. In addition, the group wants to pay its employees 2,850 euros free of taxes and duties, a so-called inflation compensation premium. A lot of money that is only paid once and is not fixed in the tariff tables, so it does not improve the starting position in future negotiations. According to DB, the term of the collective agreement should be 24 months.
The aim of the EVG: a fixed amount instead of a percentage The EVG has repeatedly made it clear that it wants to achieve a fixed amount instead of a percentage increase. Because the lower income groups should benefit particularly clearly from the collective bargaining round, according to the wish of the trade unionists. Those who earn little have been hit particularly hard by inflation in recent months, because money was often tight even without the sharp price increases at the end of the month.
Competition between GDL and EVG
A major sticking point is the long term of 24 months that Deutsche Bahn recently proposed. The EVG wants to start negotiations again sooner in order to be able to react quickly to further price increases in the coming months. A long term of the collective agreement is important for the railways in order to get more planning security. The group is already struggling with high costs, for example because the ailing rail infrastructure urgently needs to be modernized. New negotiations with the EVG in just a few months would drive up personnel costs faster than HR Director Martin Seiler would like.
According to the political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder, the collective bargaining conflict must always be viewed with a view to the EVG’s competitive situation with the Union of German Locomotive Drivers (GDL). Last Monday, their boss, Claus Weselsky, presented his wage demands, which he will be negotiating with DB starting in the fall. The key points: 555 euros more per month, three hours less work per week for shift workers and 3000 euros inflation compensation premium.
With that, the GDL set the bar very high, says Schroeder. “And if the EVG were to get involved in the course of the railway management at an early stage, the impression could once again arise that the EVG is the yielding union and the GDL is the demanding union”. In doing so, the EVG would destroy the impression it had been trying to create for months – namely that it was the strong union within the group and that no other union was needed to assert the interests of the employees. Schroeder ultimately assumes that there will be another industrial dispute as part of the wage dispute.