Claus Weselsky initially presents a compromise proposal after the collective bargaining negotiations as less favorable than it actually is. He is now defending himself against criticism of this.
The head of the train drivers’ union GDL has rejected criticism of his false representation of collective bargaining with Deutsche Bahn. Weselsky said on Deutschlandfunk that he never lied. When announcing the ongoing strike, the union boss portrayed a compromise proposal as being less favorable for the GDL than it actually was. Weselsky later spoke of a “mistake in thinking,” then of a “slip of the tongue.”
The background for the criticism is Weselsky’s descriptions of a compromise proposal in collective bargaining. This envisaged a reduction in weekly working hours in two steps to 36 hours by 2028 with full wage compensation. The railway accepted the proposal. However, the GDL refused. The talks therefore failed last week and the union called for a strike that is now underway.
Weselsky presented the mediators’ proposal differently at a press conference on Monday: They had suggested a reduction to just 37 hours with full wage compensation. A further half hour reduction would have been purely optional and associated with financial losses for the employees.
On Thursday, Weselsky said: “When we rejected the paper as a whole, we did not make any errors in our reasoning.” You have to read the compromise proposal as a whole. It contains a whole series of points that are unacceptable to the GDL. The union boss mentioned a term of the collective agreement of 30 months, the elimination of collective bargaining models and more flexibility for train drivers in freight transport. In addition, Deutsche Bahn’s human resources director Martin Seiler did not offer the two-hour reduction in working hours again in further negotiations.
Source: Stern
