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Tram depot in Essen: Hundreds of thousands affected
Photo: Rupert Oberhäuser / Rupert Oberhäuser / IMAGO
Those who rely on buses and trains in everyday life are having a hard time these days. The train drivers' strike on nationwide rail transport, which lasted several days, only ended on Monday. Now the service union Ver.di wants to show its claws to the municipal transport companies and is calling for all-day warning strikes in local public transport on Friday. Traffic will then come to a standstill in almost all federal states. Only Bavaria is excluded because there are currently no negotiations there. In Berlin, the strike should also be limited to the morning rush hour.
The background to the collective standstill is parallel collective bargaining in public transport in almost all federal states. The first rounds of talks have so far produced no results anywhere. The time has therefore come to put more pressure on employers, said Ver.di deputy federal chairwoman Christine Behle.
Commuters are likely to be hit hardest on Friday. According to Ver.di, more than 130 municipal companies in around 80 cities and around 40 districts as well as a total of 90,000 employees are affected by the collective bargaining round.
Different goals
Despite the nationwide negotiations, the union's goals and demands differ - depending on what type of collective agreement is being fought for in the respective federal state.
A new collective agreement is being negotiated
in
Hamburg
and at the
Hamburg-Holstein
transport company (VHH). In 14 other countries it is about collective agreements, which primarily regulate working conditions. Ver.di demands shorter working hours without financial losses, longer rest periods between individual shifts, more vacation days or more vacation pay.
In
Berlin,
on the other hand, it's more about the signaling effect. Here the fronts are less hardened because it's not about money. Nevertheless, a warning strike in the capital has long been considered likely due to the symbolic nature of Berlin and the nationwide coordination of local transport negotiations.
In
Brandenburg
, however, Ver.di is demanding a wage increase of 20 percent, but at least 650 euros more for local transport employees. The term of the collective agreement should be twelve months.
Where exactly there is a strike
In
Saxony,
the municipal transport companies in
Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig, Plauen and Zwickau
are affected. In
Saxony-Anhalt,
employees of transport companies in
Dessau, Halle, Magdeburg and the Burgenland district
want to go on strike. In
Thuringia
in
Erfurt, Gera, Jena, Mühlhausen, Nordhausen, Sondershausen, Suhl/Zella-Mehlis, Weimar
, the
Weimarer Land district
and the
Saale-Holzland district
.
According to Ver.di, seven municipal companies are affected in
Lower Saxony
and
Bremen
: employees of the
Braunschweiger Verkehrsgesellschaft
, the
Göttingen Verkehrsbetriebe
, Osnabus and SWO-Mobil in Osnabrück, Stadtbus
Goslar
, Üstra
Hannover
and the
Wolfsburger Verkehrsgesellschaft
should stop working.
There are
also restrictions in
Rhineland-Palatinate
and
Saarland
. The central strike rally is scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. on the Theodor Heuss Bridge, which
connects
Wiesbaden
and
Mainz
. Strikers from
Hesse
and
Rhineland-Palatinate
as well as from
Baden-Württemberg
and
Saarland
are supposed to come together here.
Commuters in
Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Heilbronn, Freiburg, Baden-Baden, Esslingen
and
Konstanz
have to prepare for an arduous journey to work on Friday. Strike meetings usually take place on site.
In the seven cities, the vehicles largely remain in the depot: Ver.di expects that buses and trains will be completely canceled. It was initially not known whether individual lines of the municipal transport companies on strike would be served or whether there would be replacement timetables.
However, the Ver.di plans are not yet fully known, so the list is not complete. But one thing is certain: Hundreds of thousands of people in the country are likely to be affected by the warning strike.
These negotiations are primarily about the issue of relief, said Behle. "Because this is actually the most important issue that we see for employees in local transport." It is also about countering the significant staff shortage in all companies through better working conditions. Employers have missed too much here in recent years.
Support for the climate movement
Things are more complicated in Brandenburg, Saarland, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. This is also about higher wages. In Brandenburg, Verdi wants to get 20 percent, or at least 650 euros, more for local transport workers. The term of the collective agreement should be one year.
The warning strike is supported by the environmental movement Fridays for Future (FFF). There have been joint campaigns by both organizations on the topic of public transport in the past. FFF is primarily committed to better working conditions and greater investments to make public transport more attractive as an alternative to cars. "The principle is simple: We are in the middle of the climate crisis," said spokeswoman Darya Sotoodeh. “What we need is more buses and trains, and that can only be achieved with better working conditions and only together with the employees.” FFF is calling on the federal government to make additional investments in public transport of 16 billion euros per year by 2030.
mik/dpa