Image: (Reuters)
The employees of the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) started the warning strike on Wednesday evening as planned, said a spokeswoman for the Verdi union on Thursday morning.
The HPA had already blocked the Elbe for ships requiring pilotage on Wednesday morning, making the port of Hamburg inaccessible. The reason is that ships need up to eight hours from the mouth of the Elbe to the port and if they entered the federal waterway later, they would not have been able to reach the port in time before the official start of the strike. The German trade union Verdi strikes the so-called pilot transfer boats, so that the pilots can no longer get to the ships.
With the warning strike, the workers want to emphasize their demands before the third round of negotiations from March 27th to 29th in Potsdam. The union is demanding 10.5 percent more wages, but at least 500 euros more per month, for around 2.5 million employees in the federal and local public services throughout Germany. The employer side has so far offered five percent more money in two steps and one-off payments totaling 2,500 euros.
The action in the port should last until Friday 6 a.m.
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