“To justify strike”
Bahn accuses EVG of breaking off negotiations
5/10/2023 5:34 p.m
Train drivers are facing a new test of patience: the union wants to announce tomorrow when the trains should stand still. Deutsche Bahn accuses the EVG of strike fury. It’s not about negotiating, but about justifying a labor dispute.
The head of personnel at Deutsche Bahn, Martin Seiler, has accused the railway and transport union (EVG) of a lack of willingness to negotiate in view of the renewed warning strike that has been announced. “It’s all about the strike, it’s not about negotiations at the table,” said Seiler. “Unfortunately, that’s the insight we had to gain now.” In the collective bargaining dispute with Deutsche Bahn (DB), the EVG rejected the employer’s offer as “non-negotiable” and announced another strike. The trade unionists have not yet given a date for this. It will be announced at a press conference on Thursday.
Seiler pointed out that the railways had made a lot of concessions to the union on the central issue of the minimum wage. The demand for the statutory minimum wage of twelve euros to be laid down in the collective agreement as a basis was essentially approved. The EVG contradicted this in the afternoon, the demand only seemed to be fulfilled “at first sight”. Personnel manager Seiler replied that the question now arises as to “whether what is on the table is understood at all from a technical point of view”. Otherwise, the EVG is obviously just trying to “twist and complicate everything somehow (…) in order to justify the strike in the end”. Apparently she doesn’t want to negotiate.
The EVG calls for around 180,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn for a period of twelve months wage increases of a total of twelve percent, but at least 650 euros gross more per month. The union has already rejected two offers from the railways as insufficient. Above all, they provided for longer terms and one-off payments, which the union rejects. In order to increase the pressure, the EVG had already called for warning strikes in March and April, which paralyzed rail traffic nationwide for hours.