Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The ballot of the train drivers’ union GDL on a labor dispute at the state-owned Südwestdeutsche Landesverkehrs-GmbH (SWEG) and the SWEG Bahn Stuttgart GmbH (SBS) will go until next Tuesday. This was announced by a GDL spokesman on Friday. He assumes a high level of participation by union members. The ballot has been running since September 23rd.
The wage conflict is about the fact that the union of German train drivers wants to negotiate a wage agreement not only for SBS, but for the entire SWEG group with its 1800 employees. SWEG categorically rejects this. The GDL had already twice called for warning strikes.
The SBS is the former Abellio Rail Baden-Württemberg. The Abellio daughter got into financial difficulties at the end of 2021. The company then took over the state-owned SWEG for an initial period of two years.
The parent company probably does not want to keep the company beyond that. The supervisory board is currently speaking out against submitting a bid for the upcoming tender for the former Abellio routes, SWEG had recently declared. This would mean a change of ownership by the end of 2023 at the latest. A decision is expected in mid-October.
