For Lufthansa customers, the risk of strikes among a group of employees has been averted. The tariff compromise is now presented. A collective bargaining issue has now been cleared, but there are still other conflicts.
Following the successful arbitration in the collective bargaining dispute involving Lufthansa ground staff, the details of the agreement are to be announced today. The responsible committees of the Verdi union and the company are informed beforehand. In the evening in Frankfurt, both sides announced that they had agreed on the basic principles of a collective agreement for around 25,000 employees. Air travelers do not have to fear strikes by ground staff at Germany’s largest airline over the Easter holidays. However, there are still unresolved tariff conflicts in air transport.
The agreement with Lufthansa ground staff resulted in arbitration behind closed doors. Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke) and the former head of the Federal Employment Agency, Frank-Jürgen Weise, moderated the event. Verdi had threatened an indefinite strike in the event of failure. In the evening, representatives from both sides expressed satisfaction with the agreement reached. The arbitration recommendation was decided unanimously, said Ramelow.
The union had demanded 12.5 percent more money for a term of one year for the approximately 25,000 Lufthansa ground services employees, while the company had offered 10 percent for a term of 28 months. Verdi has already organized five rounds of warning strikes among ground staff, as a result of which hundreds of flights have been canceled.
However, there are several other tariff conflicts in air transport. Arbitration was recently agreed in the collective bargaining dispute for the approximately 25,000 employees of private aviation security service providers at German airports. It is scheduled to begin on Friday, April 5th, under the leadership of the former Bremen Finance State Councilor Hans-Henning Lühr (SPD). Lufthansa’s flight attendants have also already gone on strike for higher salaries, with no solution yet apparent. In addition, pilots and cabin crew from the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover are demanding an initial tariff rating for the young airline.
Source: Stern
