Tens of thousands of air passengers must prepare for cancellations and delays in Germany on Friday. The Verdi union announced on Wednesday evening that it would then paralyze the airports of Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dortmund, Hanover and Bremen for the entire day – thus expanding the wage dispute in the public sector at airports. The employees of the operating companies are often paid in accordance with the collective labor agreements of the municipalities.
The warning strike begins early Friday and ends Saturday evening. Aid deliveries to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria would be exempt from the strike.
It is still unclear whether the connections with Austria will be affected
Whether this will have consequences for connections to and from Vienna is not yet clear and depends on the specific design of the strike measures, according to Vienna Airport. “We advise travelers to inquire with the airlines about the status of their booked flights. There is also an overview of the current flight schedule on the Vienna Airport website.”
With the ongoing warning strikes in Germany, workers want to emphasize their demands in the ongoing collective bargaining dispute between the federal and local governments. Further warning strikes have been announced in Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia, among others, ahead of the second round of negotiations on 22 and 23 February.
Asked for 10 percent more income
In the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations, Verdi and the civil service association dbb are demanding 10.5 percent more income, but at least 500 euros more for the approximately 2.5 million employees in the federal and local public sector. The term of the new collective labor agreement will be twelve months. The employers have so far denied the claims.
Christine Behle, Verdi’s deputy chairman, said there is still a catastrophic labor shortage among ground handlers. To change this, they must receive an attractive wage increase. Aviation security employees are entitled to an increase in the allowances in the collective labor agreements. In the “Handelsblatt” (Wednesday) she warned: “We urgently need better working conditions for aviation workers, otherwise chaos threatens next summer.”
Airport association criticizes warning strike
The general manager of the airport association ADV, Ralph Beisel, sharply criticized the announced warning strike. A few days before the second round of negotiations, Verdi is exposing German air traffic to an unprecedented escalation, he said. If a day strike were to take place at seven of the ten largest German airports on Friday, it would no longer be a warning strike. “An entire country must be unreasonably cut off from international air traffic.” Victims are hundreds of thousands of passengers, both private and business travelers, but also parts of air cargo and freight logistics.
In January, Verdi had already struck at the airports of Berlin and Düsseldorf in two other collective bargaining conflicts. In the capital of NRW it was about a new contract with the handling agent Aviapartner, in Berlin the employees of the operating company, the ground handling services and the air traffic controllers went on strike. After the warning strike, an agreement was reached in Berlin. Air traffic is extremely prone to strikes due to fragmented service providers, as many small, security-relevant groups are powerful enough to strike to paralyze operations. In principle, the strike of the airport fire brigade is sufficient to halt the entire operation.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
