The next tariff conflict on the railways is coming up – and everything on the railways could soon come to a standstill again. Human resources manager Seiler has now made a suggestion to prevent a rapid escalation.
Are they on strike, aren’t they on strike? For passengers, the uncertainty on the rails will begin again in a few days. With the expiry of the collective agreements between the German Locomotive Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn at the end of October, the peace obligation also ends. Warning strikes and strikes are then possible. GDL boss Claus Weselsky recently announced that he would once again rely on a quick strike vote in order to be able to carry out indefinite strikes. Railway personnel manager Martin Seiler considers the union’s demands to be “unfulfillable”. However, he made a proposal on Friday to avert a rapid escalation of the conflict.
“Get out of the conflict spiral” – mediated conversations
“We want to get out of the conflict spiral, we want to get into a solution mode,” said Seiler in Berlin. He therefore suggested to the GDL that “the conversation should be moderated from the outset with the help of conflict advisors in the style of a kind of arbitration.” The discussions should begin immediately “in a protected room, ultimately behind closed doors.” Possibilities and compromises could be explored in the form of an exploratory exercise. Experienced conflict mediators should be on board right from the start and look for a solution.
Mediated discussions usually take the form of arbitration when regular collective bargaining has failed. In the railway’s most recent collective bargaining round with the larger railway and transport union (EVG), such a procedure ultimately brought about an agreement. Seiler has now suggested a format based on this to the GDL right from the start.
For the duration of the talks in this context, a peace obligation is needed, i.e. the GDL’s promise not to go on strike during this phase, emphasized Seiler. “We believe we can achieve results by after the Christmas period.” As a sign of the seriousness of this proposal, even before negotiations began, Seiler promised an “advance” in the form of a tax- and duty-free inflation compensation bonus of 1,500 euros “for Christmas, i.e. in December”. He asked the GDL to respond to this proposal by the end of next week.
GDL demands for the railway “unfulfillable”
One thing is clear: the path to agreement is difficult in any discussion format. The union’s collective bargaining demands are “unfulfillable,” said Seiler on Friday. “If we were to meet the GDL’s demands, our personnel costs would increase by over 50 percent and that cannot be justified by anything.” Among other things, the union is calling for a reduction in working hours from 38 to 35 hours for shift workers with full wage compensation. From Seiler’s point of view, this is “not feasible”. “If we were to fully implement this, we would have to hire around 10,000 additional employees in shift work,” he said.
GDL boss Claus Weselsky had already identified this demand as a sticking point in the upcoming negotiations. “I notice in the other collective bargaining negotiations with the competitive railways that the employers are finding it very difficult to go along with the reduction in working hours or even tackle the issue,” he told the German Press Agency a few weeks ago.
In addition to the reduction in working hours, the GDL also wants at least 555 euros more per month as well as an inflation compensation bonus for a term of twelve months. She also wants to expand her influence at the railway and also negotiate on behalf of employees in the infrastructure division in this round. The GDL does not yet have any collective agreements there.
It competes with the larger railway and transport union EVG for members. The collective bargaining negotiations with EVG ended at the end of August. In the previous months, the EVG had paralyzed rail traffic nationwide twice with warning strikes. Now it’s the GDL’s turn.
But another “Christmas peace”?
The union expressed skepticism about the railway’s proposal on Friday. The GDL has always been open to arbitration proceedings in the past. However, such a format has never existed from the start. “If an arbitrator is brought in from the start, the negotiator takes himself out of the race,” Weselsky told the “Südwest Presse”. “The railway provokes labor disputes”. A few weeks ago he said that the company had suggested a “Christmas truce” to him. “We rejected that because we don’t know the development and because we don’t know how many negotiations we will have until then,” Weselsky told the dpa at the time. These are not reassuring words for the passengers.
Source: Stern
