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Strike announcement in Düsseldorf (archive photo from 2014)
Photo: Martin Gerten / dpa
Many transport companies canceled parts of their offer on Tuesday - and are preparing their customers for it: warning strikes have taken place in the collective bargaining dispute over the working conditions of employees in local public transport.
The trains and buses in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Dortmund, Munich, Stuttgart, Freiburg and numerous other cities are affected.
Local trains operated by Deutsche Bahn and other railway companies are spared.
In addition, the employees of the Rhein-Erft-Verkehrsgesellschaft, the railways of the city of Monheim and the Stadtwerke Gütersloh do not take part.
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Labor dispute: Ver.di calls for nationwide warning strikes in local public transport
The Cologne transport company has announced that from 3 a.m. onwards, there will be no trams and that the bus routes will only be served by subcontractors.
"Significant capacity bottlenecks" and delays must be expected.
Local transport is to be completely canceled in Bochum.
Transport company Bogestra announced that there will be no trips by external companies.
Employers unwilling to negotiate
In the collective bargaining dispute, Ver.di calls for regulations for the promotion of young talent and relief for employees for 87,000 nationwide employees.
"Public transport is in a difficult situation nationwide. After 20 years of austerity on the back of the employees, the limits of resilience have been reached," said Ver.di Vice President Christine Behle.
"The fact that employers are not even ready to negotiate mocks the workers and torpedoes any effort to turn traffic around. We only have a warning strike to send a clear signal how serious the situation is," said Behle.
Despite increasing passenger numbers, 15,000 jobs have been cut in the last 20 years.
The consequences are high disease rates in the companies and a lack of young people.
Due to the warning strike, massive disruptions in local traffic are to be expected nationwide.
I really regret the restrictions for passengers.
The employers had criticized the union's call to strike as an "attack on the general public".
It was "unacceptable that citizens should now suffer from the union's warning strikes in local transport. Ver.di countered that the employers had" provoked the strike "by refusing to negotiate a nationwide framework collective agreement.
Ver.di demands nationwide uniform regulations for the compensation of overtime and allowances for shift work.
According to Verdi, improvements in the area of working time regulations and classification are being negotiated at the state level.
In NRW it is about the working conditions of 30,000 employees.
The local employers accused the union of wanting to "negotiate some of the same issues" at the federal and state levels.
That was rejected.
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