Verdi is demanding 15 percent more wages for employees at Deutsche Post. Now there have been warning strikes. After work stoppages in the distribution centers, the delivery staff are said to be on strike on Saturday.
If you are waiting for a letter or a DHL package this Saturday, you may have to wait even longer. Warning strikes in the letter and parcel centers had already ensured on Friday that millions of parcels and letters were or are only being processed with a delay. For Saturday, the Verdi union has now called on the delivery staff nationwide to stop work all day. In the ongoing collective bargaining dispute with Deutsche Post, Verdi wants to increase the pressure on employers with the warning strikes.
During the nationwide warning strike in the letter and parcel centers on Friday, the Post had already announced that letters and parcels might only be delivered with a few days’ delay in the first half of next week. According to Post, around 2.3 million parcels nationwide were affected by the warning strikes on Friday. This corresponds to about a third of the average daily amount. Around 13 million letters were also affected, which accounts for around a quarter of the average daily volume.
82 letter and 38 parcel centers
According to Post, around 16,700 employees followed the call for a strike, which was around a third of the Friday team. The Verdi union has given the number of participants in warning strikes as 15,000 since Thursday evening. Deutsche Post operates 82 letter centers, 38 parcel centers and two international post centers in Germany. All parcel centers and almost all letter centers have been on strike all day since Thursday evening, said a Verdi spokesman in Berlin. There have already been warning strikes in letter and parcel delivery.
Verdi had called on its members to go on walkouts after the union saw no progress in the second round of negotiations for around 160,000 employees. The union demands 15 percent more money for a contract period of one year. The Post board rejects the demand as unrealistic. Collective bargaining continues on February 8th and 9th. Swiss Post has announced that it will then submit an offer.
So far no agreement between the parties
“The strikes are a clear signal from our members towards employers,” said Verdi deputy chairwoman and chief negotiator Andrea Kocsis, according to a statement on Friday. In the second round of negotiations, the employers made it clear that they were not prepared to compensate for the real wage losses. This is a provocation to which the employees give a clear answer.
The Post criticized the warning strikes: “Since we have already announced that we will submit an offer in the third round, we believe that warning strikes are unnecessary because they ultimately only affect our customers,” said a spokesman in Bonn.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
