Rail and air traffic was severely disrupted on Thursday March 7 in Germany due to several strikes. For the fifth time since November 2023, train drivers of the public company Deutsche Bahn have been on strike since the early hours of Thursday morning until midday on Friday. Only 20 percent of long-distance trains are running and there are “clear regional differences,” Deutsche Bahn spokesman Achim Stauss told public broadcaster ZDF.
In the airline sector, the walkout of ground staff at Lufthansa, the leading European air transport group, planned until Saturday morning in the main German airports, is closely followed.
The company clarified on Thursday that it would only be able to operate “10% to 20% of its flight schedule” for the duration of the movement. Frankfurt am Main airport (Hesse), the largest in the country, has warned that departures will be completely paralyzed because in addition to the strike at Lufthansa there is a work stoppage by security agents at the platform. in good shape for Thursday.
Multiplication of social conflicts
These strike movements illustrate the proliferation of social conflicts in Germany for several months, in supermarkets and in services, where negotiations on wages and working conditions are hardening after a long period of soaring prices.
The German Train Drivers’ Union (Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer, GDL), for example, is demanding a move to a working week of thirty-five hours without loss of pay, compared to the current thirty-eight hours. The union is threatening to harden the movement, which resulted in a paralysis of rail transport for five days in a row in January, by organizing strikes without the usual forty-eight hours’ notice.
At Lufthansa, the Verdi union is demanding salary increases of 12.5%, or a minimum of 500 additional euros per month, and judges that the group “will not move until the pressure increases”. After the ground staff, for whom this Thursday will be the fourth walkout in a few months, Lufthansa cabin attendants are also expected to go on strike soon, after the failure, recorded on Wednesday, of a new negotiation session on salaries and labor conditions. This new salary mobilization comes as the group announced on Thursday a doubling of its net profit last year, driven by an increase in demand and increases in ticket prices.