The German train drivers’ union GDL will end the ongoing strike at the railway company Transdev early this Friday at 12 p.m. The company and the German Locomotive Drivers’ Union (GDL) announced on Friday morning that negotiations should be resumed. ÖBB trains are only scheduled to run to and from Germany again from Saturday. The strike at Deutsche Bahn (DB), however, continues.
Since the ÖBB in Germany cooperates with Deutsche Bahn, the earlier end of the strike at Transdev, the second largest German rail and bus company, will not change the strike-related train cancellations, an ÖBB spokesman said in response to an APA request. The strike at DB is expected to last until 6:00 p.m. today. From tomorrow, traffic towards Germany should function smoothly again. The night trains – the connections to Amsterdam and Hamburg – will resume tomorrow evening. ÖBB trains via Deutsche Eck and Westbahn trains were not affected by the strike.
In Germany, however, efforts are being made to return to “business as usual”. “Our subsidiaries will do everything they can to keep the strike-related restrictions and after-effects as low as possible in order to be able to offer passengers regular transport operations again as quickly as possible,” Transdev announced on Friday. The company has submitted a new offer. Transdev operates regional railways in North Rhine-Westphalia, the northwest, Saxony and Bavaria, among others.
Transdev assured the union in a written offer that it would “seriously negotiate all the core demands of the current collective bargaining round,” said GDL boss Claus Weselsky. According to Transdev, the meeting will take place on Monday. The multi-day train drivers’ strike at Transdev, like at Deutsche Bahn, was actually supposed to last until Friday evening at 6 p.m. At Deutsche Bahn, an early end is currently not foreseeable.
The GDL’s core demand is to reduce working hours from 38 to 35 hours for shift workers with full wage compensation. Bahn and Transdev have so far rejected this. The GDL had therefore previously declared the negotiations for both companies to have failed.