The Bahn Strike Again?

Early on Friday, the union in negotiations with the German railway folks (the Bahn) gave notice that they've reached a breaking point, and gave a deadline of last Friday to come offer some substantial effort to break the stalled talks.  Nothing happened.

So, on Monday.....the GDL folks (the union) will meet and discuss the next strike.  Around two months ago.....things had simmered down a bit when the union talked of an extended strike (maybe four days or more).

There are three things on the table.  The pay-raise?  No issue.  The Bahn folks kinda agreed with the numbers and other than the timing of the pay-raise, they both appear to be on the same table.  The time-off or work-hours part to the deal?  Both parties indicated that they'd reached some agreement back six months ago on this topic.  So, we come to the third issue....where the union (GDL) wants to take a secondary group under their wing and incorporate them into the union (the support staff is the mentioned unit).  The Bahn say no, period, no exceptions to agreement on this part of the deal.

My belief is that the GDL folks will meet on Monday and put the anticipated strike date up, with a vote by membership on Tuesday.  Since they have to give at least twenty-four hours notice....I suspect it'll be a week or two in the future when it occurs.

Public perception in Germany over the union and this re-occurring strike theme?  Fairly negative.  I'd say that six out of ten working Germans are against the union in a strong way.  If you use the Bahn daily for your transportation to the office or industry......you don't want disruption.  The autobahn network.....as brilliant as it is designed....isn't prepared in any major urban area of Germany to suddenly get twenty-five percent more traffic overnight.  I'd also take a guess that more than half-a-million Germans exist without a car.....so mass transit got around to being fairly important in their lives.

The general impression that one might get from average Germans is that something is wrong here, but neither side will ever get to an end-point without some judge ordering them to accept a compromise.