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Members of the Verdi union at a rally: Strikes have been very present in Germany recently.
© Ardavan Safari / dpa
First the train drivers, then the bus drivers and now the Lufthansa ground staff: There is a strike everywhere in Germany at the moment, at least it feels like it.
But could these feelings be misleading?
Berlin - You could almost think that the strikers in Germany separated with a handshake.
“The number of strikes has tended to increase in recent years, although at a low level,” says Enzo Weber from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB).
Hagen Lesch, a collective bargaining expert at the employer-related German Economic Institute (IW), sees the labor disputes as a continuation of a trend from the previous year.
“In 2023, there were arguments in collective bargaining like never before.” Experts see the reasons for this in the real wage losses and the shortage of skilled workers, which strengthen the bargaining position of employees.
As soon as the train drivers announced a strike break at Deutsche Bahn until the beginning of March on January 27th after several days of industrial action, employees nationwide brought local public transport operations to a standstill for a day.
They were followed on Wednesday by ground staff at Lufthansa to put pressure on higher wages with a one-day warning strike.
Are there more strikes in Germany?
There was an increase in the number of working days lost as a result.
In its labor dispute balance for 2022, the WSI Institute of the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation comes to 674,000 working days that were lost due to strikes.
That was the highest level since 2018, when labor disputes in the metal and electrical industries contributed to over a million working days being lost.
The institute is not expected to publish data for 2023 until April.
Are the Germans keen to strike?
In international comparison, not so much.
When the number of days lost due to labor disputes per 1,000 employees is compared, Germany is in the middle, according to the WSI analysis.
On average between 2012 and 2021, 18 working days per 1,000 employees were lost due to strikes in Germany each year.
In Belgium there were 96 and in France 92. In Germany only unions are allowed to organize strikes, and only for demands that can be regulated in collective agreements.
Political strikes like those in France against pension reform are banned in Germany.
Are collective bargaining disputes becoming more severe?
IW expert Lesch says yes.
His yardstick for this is an escalation scale.
The negotiations between 20 selected sectors have escalated in 2023 like never before, says Lesch.
His seven-point scale from 0 for table negotiations to 7 for strikes and lockouts comes to 3.0 for 2023.
“That’s 0.8 points more than the long-term average,” said Lesch.
“The previous high was 2.8 in 2015.”
Is social partnership losing importance?
“I don’t see that the model itself is collapsing, but the general conditions have changed,” says IAB expert Weber.
Labor shortages, for example, strengthen unions in their negotiating position with employers.
They wanted to make up for real wage losses in recent years: “That’s why we’re seeing unusually high wage demands at the moment.”
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What do the unions get from strikes?
Strikes also help unions gain membership.
The labor disputes at the post office and in the public service in 2023 have brought the Verdi union a significant increase in membership, as union leader Frank Werneke said at the beginning of the year.
The bottom line is that Verdi gained 40,106 members.
The German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) with its eight member unions increased slightly for the first time in many years to a good 5.66 million members.
In 2003, however, there were still 7.36 million.
Does the outlook suggest fewer strikes?
The experts are skeptical.
According to WSI, there will be collective bargaining for around twelve million employees in 2024.
These include large sectors such as the construction industry, the chemical industry and the metal and electrical industry.
The unions are under high pressure of expectations after years of falling or stagnating real wages, writes Lesch in his analysis.
In addition, unions tried to gain members through industrial action: “Overall, this situation gives rise to fears that the level of conflict will remain high in 2024.”
Thorsten Schulten from the union-affiliated WSI expects further strikes.
“In 2024 there will be more strikes than usual,” Schulten told the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
.
Employees in many industries have some catching up to do: “After deducting inflation, collective bargaining wages have fallen to the level of 2016.” According to the Federal Statistical Office, real wages lost 5.2 percent of their value between 2020 and 2022.
By 2023, wages may have kept pace with inflation.
“According to initial official information, real wage developments are in the black,” says Lesch.
The WSI is more cautious and assumed a slight real minus in December.
However, things could look better individually due to the one-off effect of tax-free inflation bonuses.
(Reuters, lf)