Recently, the prices for almost everything have risen, now, according to the EVG, there should also be a wage increase at the railways. From the point of view of an expert, there are other reasons why the collective bargaining conflict is being waged so harshly.
The political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder expects further warning strikes in the wage conflict at the railways. “It doesn’t look like it can be solved without a warning strike,” Schroeder told the German Press Agency shortly before the next round of negotiations starting Monday. The expert from the University of Kassel referred above all to the high level of inflation and the high expectations that employees had of the outcome of the negotiations, which were also caused by the shortage of labour. In addition, the EVG’s competition with the Union of German Locomotive Drivers (GDL) must always be taken into account.
The EVG has gotten on the defensive in recent years, “because with the GDL, an aggressively acting, dynamic union has bought the guts from it and the public has developed the image that the EVG is an overly cooperative union.” , said Schroeder. The EVG now wants to make it clear with tougher negotiations: “We are the strong ones here, we are the dynamic ones and we make such good politics that there is no need at all for a second union within this group”.
Bahn and EVG have been negotiating since February
At the same time, Deutsche Bahn has not been particularly cooperative so far. “Of course, the railway company is in a difficult position. But it doesn’t get any better by trying to do it on the backs of the employees,” said Schroeder.
Deutsche Bahn and EVG have been negotiating tariff increases since the end of February. The talks were very slow, especially at the beginning, and even now both sides are still very far apart on many important points.
The union demands at least 650 euros more per month for a good 180,000 employees, or twelve percent for the upper wage brackets. The railways recently offered a step-by-step increase of twelve percent in the lower wage brackets. The middle groups should get a total of ten percent more and the upper groups eight percent. The first increase is expected later this year. In addition, there is also a gradual payment of a total of 2850 euros inflation compensation premium. The term should be 24 months. The union only wants a term of 12 months, and it is also important to her to increase the wages by a fixed amount instead of a percentage, in order to particularly strengthen the lower income groups.
A long contract term is meanwhile important for DB in order to “have planning security and prevent further strikes from hindering the way the railways work,” said Schroeder. In addition, the DB management is pursuing the strategy of not being able to use the collective bargaining policy to correct what is not in their area of responsibility, such as price increases due to high inflation.
GDL demands have “set the bar high”
From Schroeder’s point of view, the GDL demands announced last Monday for their collective bargaining talks in the fall have made it more difficult to reach an agreement between the EVG and DB, “because this demand makes it clear that the bar has been set very high. And if the EVG is now early on the course of the railway management, the impression could arise once again that the EVG is the yielding trade union and the GDL the demanding trade union”. That would go against the impression that the EVG wanted to create in the last few weeks and months, “namely to make it clear that we are the masters of the process and the strong union within the group”.
DB and EVG will start their next round of negotiations on Monday from 2 p.m. in Berlin, five days of negotiations are scheduled. The GDL still has a peace obligation with DB until the end of October, after which their negotiations for a good 8,000 employees at the group will begin.
Source: Stern
