At Germany's airports, this Thursday and Friday is again particularly tense. Due to a strike by the flight attendant union UFO, around 1,300 flights will be canceled at Lufthansa, which will affect around 180,000 passengers.
In the population, the sympathy for this match is not particularly great. According to a representative survey conducted by opinion polling institute Civey for SPIEGEL, a good 43 percent of respondents said they had no sympathy for the strikes. A little fewer people, 38 percent, showed understanding, just under 19 percent had no opinion.
The cause of the strike is comparatively complicated. On the one hand, the union demands higher fees and allowances for the approximately 21,000 Lufthansa flight attendants and better access for seasonal workers to regular employment. On the other hand, the whole tariff dispute concerns the question of whether UFO can still enforce collective bargaining agreements for cabin crew. Lufthansa doubts that.
Against this backdrop, a public strike is likely to be more difficult to negotiate than a classic conflict over better pay for certain professions.
The high proportion of undecided shows, however, that the current flight of the flight attendants is not as polarized as, for example, a railway strike or an air traffic strike during the holiday season.
If the respondents are classified according to occupational groups, it becomes clear that senior executives in particular are annoyed by the strike, that is, the group that has to fly more often. Here, around 52 percent said they did not understand the strike. Only a good 12 percent showed understanding.
