For a number of months, there's been talks between the Bahn (railway folks) and GDL (the union). It's safe to say that they just aren't getting too far in the talks. Based on comments by GDL from Thursday.....we are going to see some long-term strike hit on the German railway system. No dates are discussed. And when I say long-term.....it's looking more and more like seven full days of a strike.
Points at this time? Railway worker wages are talked about to rise on 1 July with two steps. Somewhere in this mix.....it'd all add up to roughly 4.7 percent. A 'gift' of 1,000 Euro would be in the mix somewhere (same time period). What the Bahn folks are saying is that it is comparable to those in civil service jobs. From what the GDL union folks were originally suggesting.....it's fairly close to the amount they wanted.
The time business? GDL had put on the table some talk of reducing overtime, and the general work hours. Neither side now says much over agreements here.
I also noticed that GDL has asked for profit-sharing to occur.....which no one in the Bahn says anything much over that. I suspect it's a 'no-go'.
What's really left here is this talk of GDL being the sole negotiation player over ECG (the support worker's union).....to incorporate them into GDL. The Bahn folks definitely don't want this to occur. Of all the points.....this is the sticking point which I doubt will ever be agreed upon.
The impact of a seven day strike? It's an enormous number of people who now rely daily upon the Bahn to deliver them to school and work. Just through the Wiesbaden morning trains.....I'd take a guess that 15,000 people are either picked up or delivered via the Wiesbaden station. When you start to talk about Berlin, Stuttgart, or Munich.....it probably gets into 100,000 people moving just in one morning alone.
Then you start talking about vacation travelers using the Bahn.....going from one side of Germany to the other, or using it to get up to Amsterdam or Copenhagen. Thousands have plans in movement each day and the Bahn is part of their travel strategy.
So this potential seven-day strike....would trigger a fair amount of chaos. Enough to force the Bahn back to the table and give into GDL? No.
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