Warning strike in Germany slows down thousands of trains

“Our whole priority is to get traffic moving again tomorrow, on this important Friday,” said railway spokesman Achim Stauß on Thursday at Berlin Central Station.

The warning strike has led to thousands of train cancellations since Wednesday evening. In long-distance transport, the DB was running an emergency timetable that only contained around 20 percent of the actually planned connections. ÖBB trains were also affected.

In advance, Deutsche Bahn advised passengers to postpone non-essential trips and referred to goodwill rules for the use of booked tickets on its website. For ÖBB, daytime traffic within Austria between Salzburg and Tyrol via the Deutsche Eck is not affected. However, due to construction work, there are diversions and trains that run as rail replacement services. The Westbahn trains between Munich and Vienna are also not affected by the strike.

According to oebb.at, nine night trains were canceled during the night. A further nine night trains and several long-distance trains to and from Germany were shortened.

Almost no train in some regions

The effects of the warning strike varied in regional transport; in some regions there were virtually no trains running on Thursday morning. At around 10.45 a.m., the railway announced that, with very few regional exceptions, “at least a limited train service everywhere” had been ensured. “In some cases there is an emergency bus service,” it said.

With the early industrial action in the still young collective bargaining dispute, the GDL says it wants to ensure that DB Human Resources Director Martin Seiler also negotiates the issue of reducing working hours. This is a core demand of the union: The GDL wants to negotiate a 35-hour week with full pay for shift workers. The weekly working time is currently 38 hours.

Seiler rejects negotiations on this issue because he believes the demand cannot be implemented given the shortage of skilled workers. According to the manager, the railway then needed significantly more employees, who were hard to find.

“I won’t allow myself to be blamed for escalating things.”

Weselsky sharply criticized this attitude because no compromise could be achieved. “I won’t let myself be accused of escalating if the other side says: ‘I’m not negotiating with you about weekly working hours and I’m not negotiating with you about collective agreements for dispatchers,'” Weselsky told radio station WDR5.

It is unclear when negotiations will continue. The railway has canceled the second round of negotiations that was actually planned for this Thursday and Friday. “Either you strike or you negotiate. You can’t do both at the same time,” said Seiler on Wednesday, explaining the reasons. The next agreed dates are November 23rd and 24th. It initially remained unclear whether negotiations would actually take place on these days.

Railway spokesman Stauß appealed to the GDL to negotiate without strikes: “Today’s strike is irresponsible, it is an unreasonable expectation for our passengers. We have to find solutions at the negotiating table, not through strikes,” said Stauß.

Demand: 555 euros more per month

In addition to a reduction in working hours, the GDL is demanding 555 euros more per month for employees if the collective agreement runs for 12 months, as well as a tax- and duty-free inflation compensation bonus. During the first round of negotiations last week, the railway proposed an eleven percent wage increase for a period of 32 months. The group is also prepared to pay the inflation compensation premium.

According to the company, the collective agreements negotiated with the GDL are applied to 10,000 employees at Deutsche Bahn. The train drivers’ union is the smaller of two unions at DB. The railway and transport union EVG has already negotiated new collective agreements for around 180,000 employees in the spring and summer. Among other things, EVG achieved a salary increase of 410 euros in two stages over a period of 25 months. The payment of an inflation compensation premium of 2,850 euros was also agreed.

The GDL warning strike was supposed to end on Thursday evening at 6 p.m. DB spokesman Stauß emphasized that the emergency timetable would still apply afterwards. The railway tries to drive the trains to those places or stop them where they are needed on Friday morning. Friday is always a day with high demand, as many people travel home for the weekend.

Some of the passengers who were unable to start their journey on Thursday will also be on the trains on Friday – so after the warning strike there is a risk of overcrowded trains at the end of the week.

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