Bahn continues to complain
The sixth rail strike has begun
March 12, 2024, 3:58 a.m
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An urgent application by the railway to court has failed, the next strike by the GDL is underway. The railway wants to go to the state labor court. But even if this judges differently than the previous court, not much is likely to change for the passengers.
A new strike by the train drivers’ union GDL has begun in the collective bargaining dispute with Deutsche Bahn. The strike on passenger transport began on Tuesday night “at exactly 2 a.m.,” as a railway spokeswoman confirmed. The strike is expected to last 24 hours and an emergency timetable applies, with around a fifth of the usual train volume running. The work stoppages in freight transport began the previous evening at 6 p.m. It is already the sixth strike in the current collective bargaining dispute.
Yesterday evening, the labor court in Frankfurt am Main rejected an urgent application from the employers’ association AGV Move, which is negotiating on behalf of Deutsche Bahn, for an interim injunction against the renewed industrial action. The court classified the strike as “not disproportionate”.
The railway then announced that it would appeal. The Hessian State Labor Court responsible in this case explained that if “an appeal and justification” were received early on Tuesday morning, the oral hearing would probably take place around midday from 12 p.m. If the court decides differently than the lower court, the GDL must call off its strike. However, that would not mean an immediate end to the restrictions, because the timetable change cannot be accomplished so quickly.
Railway spokesman refers to 36-hour compromise
The GDL federal chairman Claus Weselsky explained after the decision: “The court has confirmed it once again: the GDL strikes are proportionate, permissible, legal and therefore suitable for pursuing the legitimate demands of the railway workers through industrial action.” The train drivers’ union hopes “that the Hesse State Labor Court will confirm the legality of our industrial action,” he emphasized.
The crux of the collective bargaining dispute continues to be the GDL’s demand for a 35-hour week for employees in shift work. During the moderation, the railway accepted a compromise proposal that envisaged a reduction in working hours from 38 to 36 hours in two steps by 2028. The GDL rejected this.
DB spokesman Achim Strauss sharply criticized the union. “You have to ask yourself why a union that wants to go from 38 to 35 hours, when it could have 36, why would it then paralyze the entire country and endanger the economy and disrupt the travel plans of millions of people,” he said in the program RTL Direkt.