As of: February 2, 2024, 8:50 a.m
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Strikers stand near a burning barrel.
© Jörn Hüneke/dpa
Local transport is at a standstill: In Lower Saxony and Bremen, buses and trains from many transport companies are not running.
The warning strike affects thousands of employees in both federal states - and even more passengers.
Hanover/Bremen - With warning strikes, the Verdi union has also paralyzed local transport in Lower Saxony and Bremen since early Friday morning.
“Everything is fine in the companies on strike,” said Verdi negotiator Marian Drews in the morning.
The employees slowly gathered; he expected up to 1,500 participants at a rally in Hanover.
In Bremen too, all depots are on strike, as Franz Hartmann from Verdi said.
According to him, around 1,000 employees are expected at a rally there.
Nationwide, the warning strike is likely to largely bring bus, subway and tram traffic to a standstill in more than 80 cities and around 40 districts.
15 federal states are affected, only in Bavaria there are currently no collective negotiations.
The strike is planned for the whole day in most municipalities.
The background is parallel collective bargaining in public transport in almost all federal states.
As a rule, it is about the working conditions for employees.
Verdi is demanding, among other things, shorter working hours without financial losses, longer rest periods between individual shifts, more vacation days or more vacation pay.
This is intended to relieve the burden on employees and make the job more attractive.
In Lower Saxony, according to Verdi, buses and trains at all participating transport companies were at a standstill at around 3 a.m. on Friday morning.
The Braunschweiger Verkehrsgesellschaft, the Göttingen Verkehrsbetriebe, the Osnabrück public utility subsidiaries Osnabus and SWO Mobil, Stadtbus Goslar, the Üstra transport company in Hanover, the Wolfsburger Verkehrsgesellschaft and the Lüchow Schmarsauer Eisenbahn GmbH are involved.
According to the information, there are severe restrictions for all lines of these transport companies.
According to a spokesman, the union called on a total of 4,500 workers in Lower Saxony to go on warning strike, and around 2,400 in Bremen.
The employees of Bremer Straßenbahn AG (BSAG) also stopped work on Friday morning.
The company will suspend operations for 24 hours, BSAG said.
In concrete terms, this means: From Friday morning until the start of operations on Saturday, there will be no buses or trams on the BSAG lines, and the night buses will also be affected.
Only the BSAG call line taxis and cooperation partners - lines 29/52, 57/58, 63S, 80/81 - are still in service.
If you don't defend yourself, there will only ever be a deterioration for the employees, emphasized Drews.
“Something urgently needs to be done” so that employees can be relieved and new staff can be recruited.
dpa