Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The train drivers’ union GDL protested in Stuttgart on Friday for a group wage agreement at the state-owned Südwestdeutsche Landesverkehrs-GmbH (SWEG). Union boss Claus Weselsky criticized the negative attitude of the management and statements by the head of the supervisory board, Uwe Lahl. This tended to intervene in the strike rights, this is improper behavior. Lahl explained in a letter to Weselsky: “We don’t want GDL in our parent company.”
The GDL has been on strike again since Thursday at SWEG and the subsidiary SWEG Bahn Stuttgart GmbH (SBS). The wage conflict is about the fact that the union of German train drivers, according to their own statements, would like to negotiate a wage agreement for the more than 500 railway workers not only for SBS, but for the entire SWEG group. The group has a total of 1800 employees.
However, SWEG does not want to take over the former Abellio Rail Baden-Württemberg – today SBS – permanently. 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 Europe-wide re-tendering of the Stuttgart networks, which the SBS serves, has now taken place. It is divided into three lots. In the previous award, Deutsche Bahn had also applied for the lucrative routes. However, she was then excluded due to an allocation error.
