Engine driver strikes: power struggle over the railways

What is going on between the train drivers' union GDL and Deutsche Bahn in these weeks is no ordinary wage dispute. It is a power struggle that provokes the fundamental question of which political solutions are available if Deutsche Bahn cannot guarantee reliable transport under the given conditions. They are characterized by bitter rivalries between two trade unions in a company without strict budget restrictions - which is the limit of the usual collective bargaining conflict resolution models. The range of political options extends from civil servant status to idleness to privatization.

On the one hand there is the railway and transport union EVG with around 180,000 members, whose original self-image is to bring together the interests of all railway employees and to represent them vis-à-vis the employer. This universal claim almost inevitably means that individual professional groups such as train drivers who are particularly powerful on strikes do not see themselves represented as consistently as they can in their own union, which does not care about equalization in the entire workforce. Inept behavior by the TOE may have increased the perception of insufficient representation.

On the other hand, there is the German Locomotive Drivers Union (GDL) with around 25,000 members, which offers these groups an independent representation and which, in terms of collective bargaining policy, is moving further and further away from what was once (until 2007) the common world of collective bargaining.

Your strategic goal is to organize all the traveling staff and leave the rest of the workforce, less likely to strike, to the EVG.

The GDL wants a radical rail reform

Consequently, the GDL is also pursuing the political goal of radical rail reform: Instead of the integrated rail company, which is responsible for the operation of the rail network and trains in one hand, the two areas would be separated. A state company would take over the provision of a suitable rail infrastructure. There are also Deutsche Bahn and other railway companies that run their trains on the rails. And the GDL would be solely responsible for all their personnel - if, in the wake of the radicalization it promoted, new divisions did not arise at some point.

All of this is behind the current power struggle. Varying wage percentages, as we know it from normal collective bargaining rounds, will not be able to resolve the fundamental conflict between the actors in a peaceful manner: here the GDL - there the railway employer; and next to it its traditional counterpart, the EVG. In terms of personnel management, instead, an everyday problem worsens for Deutsche Bahn with every collective bargaining round: Your collective bargaining agreements with the EVG on the one hand and the GDL on the other are drifting further and further apart in terms of content and can hardly be used side by side where GDL and EVG members work side by side in one company. An obvious problem arises when working time and break rules no longer fit together.

There is a law on collective bargaining for this. It stipulates that, if necessary, the employer applies the collective agreement for all employees of a company, which is supported by more members in this company. The fact that the railway is now implementing this (a good quarter of 71 disputed companies received GDL tariffs) is viewed by GDL chairman Claus Weselsky as a “battle of destruction” against his organization and is now acting accordingly. The law offers makeshift remedies in the event of so-called tariff conflicts. Unfortunately, it does not prevent a completely poisoned climate from developing and calling reliable rail operations into question in the long term.

There are difficult ways out.

Rewarding recalcitrant train drivers with civil servants would not be a good signal.

Then the radical reform, i.e. the separation of network and operation, with greater openness to private competition - but please in combination with a tough legal framework for the settlement of collective bargaining disputes in public services.

These include: mandatory arbitration procedures before a strike can occur;

and in the event of a strike, a minimum notice period of one week so that customers can adjust to it.

A climate and transport policy that assigns an ever more important role to the rail transport mode must in any case not depend on the whims of the GDL and its chairman Claus Weselsky.