Transportation Strike in Germany

Will Train Drivers Steal Christmas?

The current strike hasn't come to an end yet, but German train drivers warn that the next work stoppage may be just over the horizon. Should no new offer be made, Tuesday might see rail traffic stop once again. That strike may be indefinite.

Call it a philosophical debate: On the one side sit the managers for Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national railway. They would like to have a single wage agreement governing relations with all 134,000 of their employees. In fact, this summer Deutsche Bahn signed a new contract with most of them -- an agreement which included a tidy 4.5 percent raise.

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It's hard to make train connections in Germany these days.

On the other side are the train drivers. The mini-union they belong to, called the GDL, claims that train drivers in Germany make far less than their colleagues in the rest of Europe and have demanded a 31 percent raise. While they have grudgingly indicated that they may be convinced to accept less than that, the separate agreement has become something of a holy grail.

The result has become the biggest train strike in Germany's history with millions of Germans affected on Thursday and Friday. On Friday, commuters across the country struggled to get to work for the second straight day as regional and local trains came to a virtual standstill in many cities. Eastern Germany was once again especially hard hit, with 80 percent of regional trains cancelled. In western Germany, about half of regional trains were still limping along. Most large cities in Germany, including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Stuttgart, suffered major cutbacks in the number of commuter trains operating.

Goods transport was also largely at a standstill again on Friday, though officials in Germany remained optimistic that it would not seriously harm the country's ongoing recovery. While the Audi factory in Brussels has been forced to cut production way back at least through Monday, other automakers in Germany said on Friday that they have experienced few inconveniences because of the strike.

But should the work stoppages continue, the effects could be immense. On Friday, the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce warned that Christmas shoppers could face empty shelves if freight trains were not available to transport wares to retail outlets.

A poll conducted on behalf of the tabloid Bild shows on Friday that the train drivers union may be losing the support of the German public. Just over half of those surveyed said they didn't back the strike. But that doesn't seem to have cut into GDL's resolve, even though union leader Manfred Schell said in a television interview on Thursday that he would, hypothetically, accept a 31 percent pay increase without a separate wage agreement for his union.

His deputy, however, was quick to put that statement in context. "A separate wage agreement is a prerequisite," GDL man Günther Kinscher told the AP. "Our members wouldn't agree to anything else."

The union has recently indicated that a pay raise of 15 percent might be acceptable. According to the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Friday, German train drivers earn an average net salary of €1,290 ($1,880) per month, as compared with €2,660 in Switzerland, €2,370 in France and €1,750 in Spain.

Deutsche Bahn remains confidently uncompromising as the labor disagreement intensifies. With the current round of strikes set to end on Friday night at 2 a.m., rail company head Hartmut Mehdorn continues to rule out the possibility of negotiating a separate wage agreement with the train drivers. The company's management board on Thursday went public with its support of his strategy and German rail likewise filed a €5 million lawsuit against the GDL for allegedly illegal warning strikes last month.

The union is unimpressed. Should German rail not come up with an offer to their liking, more strikes are likely, union leaders say. GDL officials said that if a new, satisfactory offer isn't on the table by Monday, an unlimited strike could start as early as Tuesday of next week.

cgh/dpa/Reuters