EVG is currently negotiating higher tariffs with around 50 railway companies for a total of around 230,000 employees. © Annette Riedl/dpa
New standstill on the railways: The railway and transport union wants to announce the next warning strike dates on Thursday. An agreement in the ongoing wage dispute is a long way off.
Berlin - Passengers will soon have to prepare for far-reaching warning strikes in rail traffic. The railway and transport union (EVG) wants to inform this Thursday in the ongoing wage dispute at Deutsche Bahn and 50 other railway companies about the next round of warning strikes. She did not give any details at first. In the previous rounds of industrial action, the announcements had been made only a few days before the actual start of the warning strike.
"Unfortunately, there is little movement at the negotiating table," the EDC said. A possible collective bargaining agreement is still "a long way off". "Against this background, another warning strike is inevitable." The union has not yet named the exact period. The railway did not initially comment on the announcement of the union.
EVG is currently negotiating higher tariffs with around 50 railway companies for a total of around 230,000 employees. The focus is on Deutsche Bahn. Three rounds of talks with the state-owned company have so far been fruitless.
"We could paralyze the railway for weeks"
As a result, there have already been two warning strikes on the railways in recent weeks and months, with which the EVG has largely brought regional and long-distance transport to a standstill. Most recently, the EDC had limited itself to a few hours in the morning and in the morning. EVG board member Cosima Ingenschay had recently indicated that further warning strike actions could be longer: "We could paralyze the railway for weeks," she told the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" at the end of April.
In talks with the industry, the union demands, among other things, at least 650 euros more per month or 12 percent for the upper incomes with a twelve-month term.
The railway, on the other hand, initially proposed a tax-free and duty-free inflation compensation of a total of 2850 euros, which was to be paid out over several months. From March of next year, there would gradually be a total of 10 percent for the lower and middle wage groups and 8 percent for the upper wage groups. The term would have been 27 months. At the end of April, the EDC rejected this offer as non-negotiable.
Other railway companies had also submitted offers in the collective bargaining talks. In it, monthly fixed amounts instead of percentages have recently been increasingly promised, it was said by the EVG. But in terms of height, the offers are still far from their own ideas. Dpa