Essen/Cologne (dpa/lnw) – In the largest public transport warning strike to date, buses and trains in the largest cities in North Rhine-Westphalia are expected to stand still on Friday. According to Verdi, the focus will be on the Ruhr area and the Rhineland, but employees also want to lay down their jobs in the Münsterland and in East Westphalia.
According to an overview by Verdi, there are warning strikes in Dortmund, Bochum, Essen, Mülheim, Oberhausen, Cologne, Bonn, Aachen, Münster, Bielefeld, Hagen and Düsseldorf, and employees of the NIAG working on the Lower Rhine are also called upon to do so. As the transport companies DVG and WSW mobil announced, there will be no buses and (suspension) trains in Duisburg and Wuppertal on Friday. In some of the affected cities, however, individual lines are likely to run, the operation of which has been awarded to private companies.
The warning strikes are part of a larger action in local transport – Verdi has also called for this in several other federal states. The action is to take place together with the climate activists from Fridays for Future, who are calling for a global climate strike on Friday.
With the current income, the current transport performance in public transport cannot be maintained, Verdi traffic expert Peter Büddicker was quoted in a statement. Many employees turned their backs on the industry. For employees of transport companies that are in the hands of the municipality, the collective agreement of the public service in local transport applies. Verdi and the civil servants’ association dbb are demanding 10.5 percent more income for employees in the public sector at federal and local level, but at least 500 euros more per month. The unions rejected a counter-offer from the employers last week.
