By Mathilde Richter, AFP
German train drivers found themselves under fire from industry and the government on Monday after announcing their longest walkout in the history of rail operator Deutsche Bahn.
“From outside, the labour dispute at Deutsche Bahn is becoming increasingly difficult to understand,” said Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, complaining that the week-long stoppage would “badly hurt commuters and passengers, as well as Deutsche Bahn and the German economy as a whole,” Europe’s largest.
Federal transport minister Norbert Barthle slammed the situation created by the industrial action as “intolerable.”
The drivers’ union GDL has been locked in a bitter dispute with Deutsche Bahn management primarily focused on the employees it wants to represent, but also on wages and working hours.
GDL has already staged seven previous strikes since July, which Deutsche Bahn said cost the company $222-million.
Deutsche Bahn, which employs a workforce of 300 000, including 196 000 in Germany, and transports around 5.5-million passengers and 607 000 tonnes of cargo in Germany every day, denounced the strike as “completely excessive and disproportionate”.
Both sides are digging their heels in, and GDL refused management’s proposal last week to send the dispute to arbitration.
Germany has faced a series of industrial disputes in recent months, notably repeated strikes by pilots of its flag carrier, Lufthansa, who have locked horns with management over early retirement provisions.
But the pilots have put their dispute on ice since the devastating crash of a jet belonging to Lufthansa’s low-cost subsidiary Germanwings at the end of March.
Wage negotiations at the postal and logistics giant Deutsche Post have also produced walkouts and stoppages. And the services sector union Verdi is currently balloting its members over a possible unlimited strike by workers at kindergartens and creches.
