Rail strike: Claus Weselsky admits “errors in thinking” but remains firm

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GDL boss Claus Weselsky

Photo: M. Popow / Metodi Popow / IMAGO

The railway will be on strike again from Wednesday evening.

The GDL had broken off collective bargaining with Deutsche Bahn because, according to the union leadership, the company had not offered them enough accommodation.

Now the mediators entrusted with the negotiations, former Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and Schleswig-Holstein's Prime Minister Daniel Günther (both CDU), have put something right in a letter to both collective bargaining parties.

GDL boss Claus Weselsky then admitted in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that he had made a mistake.

"I made a mistake in my thinking at the press conference," he told the newspaper.

But this mistake does not change his rejection of the moderator suggestion, he explained.

Because this does not contain any step towards a 35-hour week, the GDL's initial requirement.

Specifically, it is about reducing working hours.

In the collective bargaining dispute, the GDL is demanding, among other things, a reduction in weekly working hours for shift workers to 35 hours without financial losses.

The moderators had suggested reducing working hours in two stages from the current 38 to 36 hours, with full wage compensation.

The first hour should be reduced on January 1, 2026, and the second on January 1, 2028.

Weselsky explained at a press conference on Monday that the mediators' proposal only envisaged a reduction to 37 hours with full wage compensation.

The railway had rejected this representation, and now Thomas de Maizière and Daniel Günther are also correcting their suggestion.

Moderator suggestion should actually make conversations easier

"Due to different interpretations of the suggestion made by us as moderators for the further progress of the discussions between Bahn and GDL, we are publishing this for clarification," said de Maizière and Günther on Tuesday.

"With this proposal we wanted to reach an agreement in this collective bargaining dispute."

According to its own statements, the railway had agreed to the compromise proposal.

The GDL does not, which is why negotiations failed last week without an agreement.

Union leader Weselsky has called for another 35-hour strike in passenger transport next Thursday and Friday.

(Read what rail travelers need to know about the strike here.) There will be further strikes after that, but without prior notice.

The GDL's strike announcement has caused incomprehension in many places.

The CSU accused the union of “abusing the right to strike,” while the Pro Bahn passenger association made serious allegations against both collective bargaining parties and declared that the federal government was now responsible.

mgo/dpa