Sometime this afternoon (Monday).....our Bahn union (the GDL folks) will announce the next strike. So far...nine strikes have occurred since September of last year, and if you were a betting guy....you'd assume that we will probably go beyond a dozen strikes.
From roughly a week ago.....we had the longest strike in German railway history....going roughly 127 hours.
The issue in this negotiation? Well.....both parties have come fairly close on pay and hours (the GDL folks want an hour or two cut off the current standard week. The problem area between the two appears to be the idea of the support personnel being included as part of GDL in the future episodes of negotiation. This apparently is an area that the Bahn won't agree upon.
How long for the next strike? I'm guessing it'll be a minimum of 127 hours and might connect to some German holiday period to ensure the public has travel plan issues.
Thirty years ago....the political establishment would have massive pressure upon the Bahn to agree and prevent the general chaos of getting people to college, school, or work each day. The general shock that one sees is that the Bahn doesn't appear to be under any pressure. There's also some speculation that the GDL revenue bucket to cover down-time....might be getting close to empty and covering the cost of individual employees will be difficult.
One of the curious things that I've noticed over the past couple of months are data sheets to explain typical pay for Bahn-type employees in France, Spain, Italy, Austria, etc. In general.....German railway employees make ten to twenty percent less than several countries within the EU. Personally, if I were among the GDL employees.....I'd be looking more for higher pay raises for employees over the age of forty, and drop this inclusion of support personnel into the GDL structure.
No comments:
Post a Comment