Employees of airports, railways, shipping, highway companies, local transport are called from midnight to 24:00 hours away from work.
This mobilization is part of a context of growing social tensions in Germany, where strikes for wages have multiplied since the beginning of the year, from schools to hospitals, including the Post Office.
Unlike in countries like France, such a unitary movement between the EVG and Ver.di unions, which represent 230,000 railway company employees and 2.5 million service employees respectively, is extremely rare.
propitious soil
This “Mega-Streik” (mega-strike) – as the German media have already dubbed it – affects a country where prices have skyrocketed for more than a year, with inflation reaching 8.7% in February.
The unions ask for more than 10% salary increase.
Entrepreneurs (states, municipalities, public companies) offer a 5% increase with two single payments of 1000 and 1500 euros.
EVG and Ver.di expect “broad mobilization”. Deutsche Bahn decided to completely suspend main traffic on Monday and warned that the disruptions would also be very significant in the region.
The Federation of German Airports (DAV) denounced a strategy of “escalating strikes on the model of France”, where days of mobilization against the pension reform take place.
Request for a 10% salary increase
“A social conflict that has no repercussions is a harmless social conflict,” replied Frank Werneke, president of the Ver.di union.
The ground is increasingly propitious for the social movement in Germany, which is moving away from the consensus culture for which it is famous.
“There have been more strikes in the last ten years in Germany than in previous decades,” observes Karl Brenke, an expert at the DIW economic institute interviewed by AFP.
With particularly low unemployment since the late 2000s, the country suffers from a labor shortage that puts unions “in a position of strength” in negotiations, according to Karl Brenke.
Since the mid-2010s they have managed to impose increases, after a decade marked by the wage moderation policy of the Gerhard Schröder era, in the name of competitiveness.
In 2015 a record was recorded, with more than 2 million days of strike in the year. Real wages increased systematically from 2014 to 2021, except in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The momentum was broken by inflation in 2022, with a fall of 3.1%.
Employees “are tired of being led by the nose in collective bargaining,” according to Mr. Werneke.
“Kept Alive”
The mobilization for wages in services has been accompanied since the beginning of the year by demonstrations.
“The price of gasoline and food has risen, my wallet has felt it,” summarizes Timo Stau, 21, to AFP, crossed in a demonstration on Friedrichstrasse, an emblematic avenue in Berlin.
“We kept public service alive during the pandemic. Now we want more money,” adds Petra, 60, a customs officer.
After the threat of an “indefinite strike”, the 160,000 employees of Deutsche Post, who negotiate separately, have already obtained an average wage increase of 11.5% at the beginning of March.
At the end of 2022, almost 4 million German industrial workers got a pay increase of 8.5% for two years, after several weeks marked by work stoppages.
But the dispute is broader. “It’s not just a question of salary but of means,” Jan Exner Konrad, 34, who took part in a teachers’ protest in Berlin on Thursday, told AFP.
Source: BFM TV
