Friday, February 2, 2024
Strikes at Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf in Germany ground flights, strand thousands. Pay disputes deadlock, talks to resume.
Thursday witnessed a significant disruption in Germany’s air travel as security workers at most of the country’s major airports staged a one-day strike. The strike, called by the ver.di union, aimed to escalate pressure in ongoing pay negotiations, leading to widespread flight cancellations and delays, affecting around 200,000 passengers.
The strike targeted 11 airports including Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Hannover, Dresden, Bremen, and Erfurt. Notably, airports in Bavaria, such as Munich—the country’s second-busiest—were not affected. The action resulted in the cancellation of all departures from Berlin, Hamburg, and Stuttgart before the day even began, with substantial cancellations also reported in Cologne and Duesseldorf. Frankfurt, Germany’s busiest airport, saw its security checkpoints outside the transit area closed, with the airport advising passengers not to come unless they were transferring between flights.
This widespread industrial action comes after three rounds of labor negotiations failed to yield a new pay agreement for some 25,000 security workers across the country. The union is demanding a raise of 2.80 euros per hour ($3.03) for all employees and is calling for overtime bonuses to be paid from the first extra hour worked. In contrast, employers have offered a 4% raise this year and 3% next year, alongside concessions on overtime bonuses. Negotiations are set to resume on February 6.
Short “warning strikes” like this are a common tactic in German labor disputes, serving as a strategic measure to increase bargaining power without committing to prolonged industrial action. In a related development, ver.di has also called for strikes on local public transportation systems across much of the country on Friday, indicating a broader wave of labor unrest.
Last month, a bitter dispute over working hours and pay led to full-scale strikes that heavily impacted Germany’s passenger trains. The GDL union, representing many of the country’s train drivers, concluded a five-day strike earlier than planned after agreeing to resume talks with Deutsche Bahn, the state-owned main railway operator.
The ongoing strikes highlight the challenges in reaching agreements that satisfy both workers’ demands for fair compensation and employers’ operational constraints. As Germany grapples with these widespread disruptions, all eyes are on the upcoming negotiations, with the hope for resolutions that can prevent further impact on the country’s transportation systems and the daily lives of its citizens.
Saturday, April 27, 2024
