Only one federal state was spared
Verdi announces a wave of strikes on buses and trains
February 22, 2024, 1:33 p.m
The list of labor disputes in the transport sector is getting longer in this young year. The Verdi union is calling for warning strikes in public transport nationwide next week. The climate movement Fridays For Future is also on board again.
The Verdi union is calling for warning strikes on local public transport nationwide next week. As the union in Berlin announced, the industrial action is planned on different days regionally, with March 1st as the main strike day. Bavaria is the only federal state not affected.
Parallel to the warning strikes, Fridays For Future is organizing numerous demonstrations against the climate crisis on March 1st. In the past few weeks there have been several warning strikes in public transport in individual federal states. On February 2nd, Verdi struck local public transport in a nationwide coordinated action in almost all federal states. At that time, according to union information, more than 80 cities and around 40 districts were affected.
“The signal that the employees sent with their strike on February 2nd was apparently not sufficiently understood, because collective bargaining in the individual federal states has still not produced any results,” said the deputy Verdi chairwoman Christine Behle according to the announcement. “In order to finally bring movement to the negotiations, pressure must now be put on the employers again. That is why we are calling on the employees to go on concerted strikes.”
Transport companies suffer from a lack of staff
The union is currently negotiating in parallel in all federal states, but the collective agreement has not been terminated in Bavaria. This means that strikes cannot take place there. In most rounds, the main focus is on the working conditions for the employees. Verdi is calling for, among other things, shorter working hours without financial losses, longer rest periods between individual shifts, more vacation days or more vacation pay. This is intended to relieve the burden on employees and make jobs in local transport more attractive. All transport companies suffer from a lack of staff. Bus drivers in particular are difficult to find. For this reason, the Berlin public transport company has been operating a limited bus schedule for months.
Higher wages and salaries are also being negotiated in Brandenburg, Saarland, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Verdi, for example, is demanding 20 percent more per month for employees in Bandenburg, but at least 650 euros. According to Verdi, the term of the collective agreement should be one year. A new collective agreement for the transport companies is being negotiated in Hamburg.
Verdi and Fridays For Future have been working together for some time, including in the “We ride together” campaign. During the warning strike at the beginning of February, young activists also mingled with the workers at numerous picket lines. Getting to the climate demonstrations, which are also scheduled to take place on March 1st, is likely to become significantly more difficult in many places due to the warning strike.
The new warning strikes join a growing list of labor disputes in transport this year. In addition to the public transport warning strikes, there were two multi-day labor disputes at the railway and, most recently, several work stoppages in air traffic.