"People are exhausted": Baggage handlers get more money

2022-06-27T08:32:30.105Z

"People are exhausted": Baggage handlers get more money Created: 06/27/2022, 10:14 am By: Jutta Rippegather It's finally here, the suitcase. © dpa Fraport subsidiary Fraground agrees with Verdi on more money for ground handling services. Because at the baggage carousel, the displeasure of the travelers is growing. Frankfurt – It is a wage agreement that most people can only dream of: Verdi ha

"People are exhausted": Baggage handlers get more money

Created: 06/27/2022, 10:14 am

By: Jutta Rippegather

It's finally here, the suitcase.

Fraport subsidiary Fraground agrees with Verdi on more money for ground handling services.

Because at the baggage carousel, the displeasure of the travelers is growing.

Frankfurt – It is a wage agreement that most people can only dream of: Verdi has achieved 14 percent more money and a one-time payment of 700 euros for the around 3,500 employees of the ground handling services of the Fraport subsidiary Fraground.

A satisfactory result, but one that is to be expected in view of the acute shortage of staff, which has long had an impact on the quality of baggage handling.

So again last weekend.

"Here at the baggage carousel at Frankfurt Airport, water is handed out to those waiting," wrote a Twitter user early on Saturday evening (June 25).

“Orphaned suitcases stand and drive around everywhere.

Baggage tracing line is long.”

Frankfurt Airport: "The frustrating thing was that no one was available"

It had been crunching all week.

"We also stood at the luggage collection belt for an hour and a quarter," reports Wolf von Wolzogen, who came from Toulouse, whose onward flight to Berlin was canceled and who finally reached the capital by train with many, many other holidaymakers, as reported by fnp.de.

With Britta Thamm it was more than two hours.

"In the meantime, four machines had been announced on the baggage carousel and more and more people were gathering on and around the belt," reports the Hanoverian.

"The frustrating thing was that no one was available."

delayed landings

In the night of Saturday

, June 25, the Hessian air traffic control at Frankfurt Airport approved 33 special permits for delayed take-offs after 11 p.m.

Reason: Due to heavy thunderstorms, no clearance was allowed at times.

The night flight ban applies between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.

According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the last start

took place at 11:59 p.m.

There were twelve delayed landings.

The last at 11:38 p.m.

legal

Complaints like this are aimed at management.

And yet some employees take it personally.

"Do you know what we've been doing at the airport for weeks?

How many hours we work every day (unpaid) to keep the shop running,” asks an employee who works in passenger handling.

"We all walk on our gums after Easter and Pentecost, but don't give up so that people can go on vacation." If that is still not possible without a hitch, then the worst will be scolded.

An airline employee reports that the mood is tense, and the workforce has shrunk so much during the pandemic that those who remain have been working through the lunch break.

A workload that is not sustainable in the long run.

"People are exhausted." There are new hires,

Frankfurt Airport: Salary up to 425 euros more per month

Even with ground handling services, the pre-pandemic status will not be reached for a long time.

The backlog demand is huge.

Fraport subsidiary Fraground had not extended around 1,200 fixed-term employment contracts.

Now there are new hires, but the necessary security check takes at least six weeks, says Mathias Veneman, department head at Verdi Hessen.

There are almost no returnees.

Most of the alumni would have long since looked for a more crisis-proof and physically less strenuous job - for example as a bus driver or in landscaping.

The employer's calculation did not work out.

"They thought they'd come back with a kiss." Instead, the job market offers a lot of good alternatives to a job where you have to balance 1,500 suitcases a day - in shift work, which is not feasible without your own car - with enormously increased fuel prices.

The employer's image has also suffered: "The airport no longer has that flair," says Veneman.

"The wonderful world has gotten scratches." The working conditions urgently need to become more attractive again.

The agreement reached after just two rounds of negotiations can help, says Veneman.

"Fraground urgently needs to get enough staff so that air traffic can be processed without complications and without a lot of waiting." So far, hourly wages have been between 12 and 16 euros,

the salary increases amounted to between EUR 1.64 and EUR 2.74.

"That's between 250 and 425 euros more per month."

For trade union secretary Christoph Miemietz, the overdue wage increase is evidence of a learning process at corporate headquarters: "You can see from the situation that the employees are not a cost factor, but rather the decisive factor so that the passengers can go on their well-deserved vacation calmly and stress-free." (Jutta Rippegather)