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Scoreboard at BER: warning strike with serious consequences
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
The announcement alone paralyzed air traffic: the Ver.di trade union started an almost 24-hour industrial dispute at Berlin Airport on Wednesday morning.
The airport operator FBB has already canceled all of the approximately 300 take-offs and landings originally planned at BER.
Around 35,000 passengers are affected.
Some flights have been postponed to Thursday.
Depending on the airline, customers were given the option of rebooking their trips or alternatively switching to the train.
A few flights divert to Dresden and Leipzig/Halle.
Ver.di expects a very large participation in the industrial action in the ground handling services, the airport company and aviation security.
The union justifies the strike by saying that there is not enough progress in collective bargaining for the approximately 6,000 employees in the three areas.
The aim of the industrial action is to achieve better working conditions, said Ver.di expert Enrico Rümker.
"The workload is unbelievable, there's a lot of staff missing."
Cut off from the outside world by air traffic
Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr criticized the actions of the union.
"To call a one-day strike a warning strike is unusual," he said.
The capital is cut off from the outside world in terms of air traffic.
"The duration, scope and intensity of the warning strike are completely exaggerated," said General Manager Ralph Beisel from the Association of German Airports.
The union has called on airport, aviation security and ground handling workers to stop work between 3:30 a.m. and 11:59 p.m.
This affects central work areas for regular flight operations, such as the airport fire brigade, check-in, baggage handling or aircraft fueling.
Ver.di has called the strikers to a rally on Wednesday morning.
A sticking point is the term of the collective agreement
The union wants the employees of the airport company and the ground handling services to pay 500 euros more per month with a term of the collective agreement of twelve months.
In both negotiations, the employer side is demanding significantly longer contract periods, and tax-free one-off payments of up to 2,000 euros have been offered to the employees of the airport company.
"An additional one-time inflation compensation premium is good, but cannot replace a sustainable increase in the table," Ver.di said.
The next rounds of negotiations will follow on January 30 (ground services) and February 8 (airport company).
Ver.di speaks of a cautious approach
Ver.di expert Rümker said the timing of the current warning strike was chosen carefully.
"We can already say that there will be no further strikes during the winter holidays in Berlin and Brandenburg (January 30 to February 3)," he announced.
Wednesday is also not the busiest day of the week.
According to Rümker, the three collective bargaining negotiations were deliberately combined into one walkout so as not to hang one warning strike on the next.
The last major warning strike with similar consequences was several years ago: In April 2018, hundreds of flights across Germany had to be canceled because collective bargaining for municipal and federal employees was not progressing.
In eight federal states, tens of thousands of employees went down their work during a warning strike.
In addition to airports, urban transport, daycare centers, clinics, administrations and indoor swimming pools were also affected in many places.
mmq/Reuters/dpa