picture alliance / Geisler-Fotopress | Christoph Hardt/Geisler-Fotopres
According to information from Business Insider, the Verdi union is calling on employees of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (GKK) to go on strike on Easter Saturday in several federal states, including Hesse. The employee representatives are calling for the department store chain to enter the collective wage agreement.
CEO Miguel Müllenbach and insolvency general representative Arndt Geiwitz warn the union in a fire letter that the insolvency will fail if the strikes are actually carried out. You write of “ruinous damage” that would be caused by stopping work.
Geiwitz and Müllenbach write that the strikes are also illegal because they violate the principle of proportionality and the regulations of the integration and transition collective agreement. The letter is available to Business Insider.
As the creditors of Karstadt Kaufhof Gallery (GKK) approved the insolvency plan less than two weeks ago, waived a large part of their claims and gave the department store chain another chance, high-ranking company insiders spoke of the “last cartridge”. If another external shock came, such as a war, superinflation or the next pandemic, the department store chain would not survive it. Now the department store group is facing an internal quake.
Die Union Verdi calls for strikes in several federal states on Easter Saturday, more than a dozen branches are said to be affected. The employee representatives are calling for a collective agreement, a member benefits scheme of 750 euros per year and a “respect bonus” for departing employees of 1000 euros per month for three months. This is shown by a written call for a strike by Verdi, which is available to Business Insider. Meanwhile, GKK is still in the protective shield procedure, which has been extended due to the lack of approval by the EU Commission for the insolvency plan and is expected to last until May.
“Strike action manifestly unlawful”
The GKK board member Miguel Müllenbach and insolvency administrator Arndt Geiwitz apparently heard about Verdi’s strike plans and sent the responsible Verdi board member Stefanie Nutzberger a fire letter in which they warned that the bankruptcy would fail if the employees stopped working. “The planned strike measures are obviously illegal and threaten to cause ruinous damage for which you would be held liable,” write Müllenbach and Geiwitz.
In the letter, you remind that Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof is still in insolvency proceedings and in an “existential crisis situation”. “The bankruptcy plan is based on the expectation that the company will be able to settle the claims after the waiver. In such a situation, deliberately inflicting massive economic damage on the company by having branches on strike on one of the key shopping days of the year and forcing them to close blatantly thwarts the insolvency plan’s goal of being able to satisfy at least a small proportion of the claims,” write the Galeria -bosses.
Leaps of trust are willfully destroyed, write the GKK bosses
A strike would also send fatal signals to the chances of success of the restructuring plan, write Geiwitz and Müllenbach. “With a strike, you wantonly threaten to destroy the trust in the ability of the company to be restructured, which the creditors’ meeting announced less than two weeks ago.”
Geiwitz and Müllenbach write that the strike is illegal because it violates the integration and transition agreement and the principle of proportionality. In addition, he would aim to disadvantage creditors and favor employees “by short-term collection of funds from the insolvency estate,” write the GKK bosses.
The Verdi bosses and the striking workers would be held personally liable for the resulting damage. “We expressly point out that this not only includes the direct damage caused by a loss of sales in the branches affected, but also, in particular, consequential damage that, in the worst case, results from a possible failure of the insolvency plan as a result of the strike measures and their illegal claims,” write Geiwitz and Mullenbach.
But the strike is not only met with resistance from employers. As Business Insider learned, the GKK works council also rejects the action. Representatives speak of an “ideological strike”. “You have to doubt the economic expertise of the Verdi leadership if branches are to remain closed in such a precarious situation that we are in,” says a works councillor.