application to the court
Bahn wants to legally stop 50-hour warning strike
05/13/2023 10:36 am
No ICE, no IC for 50 hours – and hardly any regional either: EVG will paralyze rail traffic for the third time this year. Deutsche Bahn wants to prevent this with all its might – and is now even going to court.
Deutsche Bahn has filed an urgent application with the Frankfurt labor court to stop the warning strike by the railway and transport union (EVG). This step is now necessary in the interests of customers, the state-owned company said. The announced strike is “disproportionate and harms customers and uninvolved third parties”. The hearing is said to begin at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday.
The union has announced a nationwide strike at Deutsche Bahn and almost all competing railways. From Sunday evening 10 p.m. to Tuesday night 12 p.m., it should paralyze practically all traffic nationwide. The third warning strike in the bargaining round would also be the longest. A 50-hour warning strike is “very annoying for the passengers,” said EVG collective bargaining officer Cosima Ingenschay in Cologne. “But we have to go on strike for this length of time, because then we simply have a stronger economic impact and can thus increase the pressure.”
The EVG and 50 railway companies have been arguing about new collective agreements since the end of February, and negotiations are stalling. The union insists on twelve percent more wages for around 230,000 employees, but at least 650 euros more per month. The railway offered ten percent more wages for lower and middle incomes, eight percent more money for higher incomes and an additional 2850 euros inflation compensation premium for everyone.
All professional groups at the railways are called to the warning strike – including the employees at the signal boxes who coordinate all rail traffic on the German rail network. As a result, the warning strike has a very large impact – it is foreseeable that it will also affect railway companies that are not involved in the wage conflict. Freight traffic is also likely to come to a standstill.