Daycare centers, the post office, garbage disposal and local public transport: Verdi is now announcing that it will extend the warning strikes to another industry. It’s supposed to start next week.
The Verdi trade union has called on health care workers nationwide to go on warning strikes as part of the collective bargaining round in the public sector. According to a statement from Verdi, employees in hospitals, psychiatric clinics, care facilities and the emergency services are to stop working on Tuesday and Wednesday (March 14 and 15).
In view of the high inflation, Verdi and the civil servants’ association dbb are demanding 10.5 percent more wages. At least there should be 500 euros more for the approximately 2.5 million employees of the municipalities and the federal government. Verdi criticized an offer presented by the federal government and local authorities in the second round of collective bargaining at the end of February.
According to the announcement, the employers are also demanding special sacrifices from employees in the clinics and in geriatric care. Under certain conditions, they should forego wages if the company is doing poorly economically.
Why has there been a strike for weeks?
“The employers’ request to allow wage cuts for employees in the healthcare sector via an additional collective agreement is a real provocation and leads to violent protests and resistance, especially in the healthcare sector,” said Verdi chairman Frank Werneke according to the announcement. “There will be no such special sacrifice with us.”
The warning strikes in the wage dispute have been going on for weeks. The highlights so far have included walkouts in local public transport or daycare centers and social facilities in many cities throughout Germany. Work stoppages by municipal employees had also largely paralyzed Düsseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports.
Which sectors are taking part in the warning strikes?
Members of thousands of different professions are affected by the collective bargaining – in addition to educators and bus drivers, employees of pools, firefighters, nurses, administrative employees, geriatric nurses, sewage treatment plant employees, foresters and doctors, among others. Many members of these professional groups had already taken part in the strikes.
At the same time, the Marburger Bund called for the first warning strikes in the collective bargaining round of doctors in municipal hospitals. According to the announcement, he called on his members in the collectively agreed clinics to go on all-day work stoppages on March 21st and 30th. Central warning strike rallies took place on these days, on March 21 in Hamburg and on March 30 in Munich.
Source: Stern
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