Verdi wants to increase the pressure in collective bargaining for the public sector. The union announces strikes in public transport in numerous cities at the end of the week. The action is carried out together with activists from Fridays for Future. Six states are affected.
The Verdi union wants to paralyze local public transport in numerous cities in several federal states with warning strikes on Friday. Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate are particularly affected, as the union announced. Actions are also planned in individual cities such as Munich. The strikes are intended to increase the pressure in collective bargaining for the local and federal public sector.
The warning strikes are to take place at the same time as a global climate strike by the climate movement Fridays for Future this Friday. “We want to combine the global climate strike day with the 200 actions of Fridays for Future with warning strikes in local public transport,” said deputy Verdi boss Christine Behle. “A traffic turnaround will not be possible without investing in employees as well.”
In the negotiations for the approximately 2.5 million federal and local employees, the Verdi union and the DBB civil servants’ association are demanding 10.5 percent more income, but at least 500 euros more per month. No agreement was reached in the second round of negotiations last week. The unions had rejected an offer from the employers as insufficient. The offer includes, among other things, a pay increase of five percent in two steps and one-off payments totaling 2,500 euros. Behle said: “This is a slap in the face to the employees.”
For the six federal states in which the employees want to go on warning strikes on Friday, the collective agreement of the public service in local transport applies. The third and probably decisive round of negotiations is scheduled for the end of March. The negotiations have been accompanied by warning strikes in various cities for several weeks, including work stoppages in hospitals and garbage disposal.
At the beginning of the week, strikes by municipal employees also largely paralyzed Düsseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports. Increasing outstanding debts are expected until the third round of negotiations.
