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Lufthansa employee in Münster (archive photo): "You urgently need more money and you need relief"
Photo: Guido Kirchner / dpa
The Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) has sharply criticized the warning strike announced by the Ver.di union at Lufthansa.
Chief Executive Steffen Kampeter said: »Burning Lufthansa and especially its passengers with wage demands in the middle of summer is absolutely disproportionate.
Here, people's understandable desire to take vacations is shamelessly exploited to gain an advantage.«
Employers' President Rainer Dulger had recently criticized warning strikes by the Verdi union in seaports and discussed breaking the right to strike.
In the ongoing wage negotiations for around 20,000 ground staff, Ver.di had previously called for a one-day warning strike on Wednesday.
Ground staff include technicians and logisticians, without whose services the aircraft cannot take off.
Employees in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Bremen, Hanover, Stuttgart and Cologne are invited.
The warning strikes are scheduled to begin at 3.45am on Wednesday and last until 6am on Thursday 28 July.
Lufthansa itself described the planned walkout as "unreasonable" for customers and employees.
A work stoppage of this duration across all locations can hardly be described as a warning strike, said HR Director Michael Niggemann, according to a statement.
"This is all the more incomprehensible as the employers have already offered high and socially balanced pay increases - despite the continued tense economic situation for Lufthansa after the Corona crisis, high debt burdens and uncertain prospects for the global economy."
The union stated that the employer's offer presented in the second round of negotiations was insufficient from the point of view of the Ver.di members.
Ver.di demands a wage increase of 9.5 percent or at least 350 euros more per month.
The union argued that the workers' heavy workload during the crisis warranted a hefty wage increase.
"They urgently need more money and they need relief - for themselves and for the passengers.
The employer's offer is not enough for this," said the deputy Ver.di chairwoman Christine Behle.
She asked the passengers for their understanding.
Chaotic restart of the industry
The first strike at Lufthansa after the Corona shock comes against the background of a partially chaotic restart in the industry.
Personnel bottlenecks and a strong demand for vacations have already led to considerable handling problems this summer without any strikes.
Verdi blames mismanagement at airports and airlines for this.
Lufthansa said it was not yet clear how many additional flight cancellations the strike would cause.
Since there is a lack of staff everywhere in air traffic, the airline has had to cancel around 6,000 flights in the summer so far.
But other airlines will also be affected, as will the general bottleneck during the post-pandemic travel boom.
At Düsseldorf Airport, the Lufthansa company LEOS handles around three quarters of all "push-backs", i.e. pushing the aircraft out of the parking position in the direction of the runway.
With 430 flights planned for Wednesday with around 57,000 passengers, serious impairments are to be expected, announced Düsseldorf Airport.
In Frankfurt, the situation is less critical: In addition to LEOS, the ground handling services of the operator Fraport and the service provider Wisag tow the planes there, said a spokesman.
Lufthansa is currently crossed with two of its three unions.
The "Vereinigung Cockpit" (VC) is already voting on unlimited pilot strikes at the airlines Lufthansa and Lufthansa Cargo, which will be counted on July 31st.
If the regular pilots agree, which is estimated to be certain, VC would be fully capable of going on strike from August.
This does not automatically have to lead to a quick labor dispute, but should initially increase the pressure on the company in the deadlocked collective bargaining.
The flight attendant organization Ufo also reports a heated mood among its members because Lufthansa went too far when it restarted.
With the recently concluded »summer collective agreement«, the UFO collective bargaining commission has accepted a strike waiver until the end of October.
The cabin union wants to tackle the fundamental issues in the fall.
dab/dpa/Reuters
