BERLIN, March 11 (Xinhua) — German rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) on Monday filed an application with the Frankfurt am Main Labor Court for a temporary injunction in a bid to halt the newly announced strike.
The train drivers’ union GDL announced a new strike Sunday evening. According to the announcement, the 24-hour walkout will cause suspension of rail freight traffic as of 6 p.m. Monday and the passenger rail services as of 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Instead of a previous 48-hour notice, the announcement was made only 22 hours in advance.
Dismissing the brief notice period as “a sheer impertinence,” Martin Seiler, the personnel director of DB, said “this unpredictability of train services is unacceptable.”
The DB also criticized the union for unlawfully defying collective bargaining uniformity rules and blocking the negotiations.
“If you demand a reduction in working hours from 38 to 35 hours and could get 36 hours in an overall package, you can’t paralyze the whole country,” Seiler noted. “In the interest of our customers, we are doing everything we can to prevent this strike.”
The new strike is the sixth in the months-long dispute over wages and working hours. GDL’s core demand is for shift workers to have weekly working hours reduced from 38 to 35, with no change in their pay.
Passenger and freight transport have undergone repeated disruptions. And public support for such strikes is on the decline. Only one in three citizens still expressed any sympathy for the strike actions, according to a survey published by public broadcaster ZDF on Friday.
Meanwhile, Minister of Transport Volker Wissing on Sunday also demanded that the GDL “must talk and explore compromises,” saying “striking instead of negotiating is irresponsible.”
In addition to the rail, air traffic in Germany is also facing renewed disruptions this week as flight attendants at flag carrier Lufthansa will go on a strike on Tuesday and wednesday, grounding some 1,000 flights from Munich and Frankfurt.
Employees are demanding a 15-percent pay rise, but Lufthansa, which had doubled its profit to 1.7 billion euros (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023, has so far offered smaller hikes in several steps. In fact, ground and security staff at Lufthansa are striking.
“The cabin must now also be given a share in this success and the concessions made during the COVID-19 crisis must be adequately compensated,” said Joachim Vazquez Buerger, chairman of the board of the Independent Flight Attendants’ Union.
Source Agencies
