As of: February 13, 2024, 9:21 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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First rail traffic, then air traffic: unions are currently increasingly backing up their demands with strikes.
Politicians and experts are now calling for a change to the right to strike.
Berlin - Germany will be hit by a wave of strikes in the still young year of 2024: first a strike by railway workers paralyzes rail traffic, then a labor dispute by airport employees paralyzes air traffic.
Politicians are now thinking loudly about whether changes to the law and restrictions on strike rights would be possible.
Germany occupies one of the lower places in the European ranking of strikes.
An overview.
Why are there so many strikes now?
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Germany has experienced inflation not seen since the 1970s.
The costs for consumers shot up, energy became more expensive and food prices also rose significantly.
At the same time, many industries received significant salary increases of up to ten percent last year, but real wages fell by four percent compared to 2022.
Unions are now demanding even higher wages to compensate for the loss of purchasing power.
The unions also want to improve their working conditions, for example calling for shorter working hours or a four-day week.
An important factor here is the shortage of skilled workers: The unions argue that shorter working hours make the job more attractive and counteract the shortage of personnel.
Companies counter this by saying that staffing levels are already thin and that a reduction in working hours will further exacerbate the shortage.
In the still young year of 2024, Germany will be hit by a wave of strikes: first a strike by railway workers paralyzes rail traffic, then a labor dispute by airport employees paralyzes air traffic.
(Symbolic image) © Marcus Brandt/dpa
The health insurance companies and economic experts, in turn, argue that employees are being burdened more and more due to the shortage of skilled workers - if this leads to absences due to illness, a vicious circle is formed.
In the negotiations, the unions also benefit from an improved negotiating position due to the shortage of skilled workers.
And the state can't simply regulate this with the right to strike?
Not really.
In Germany, trade unions and employers' associations can negotiate their collective agreements largely autonomously and without government influence.
The so-called collective bargaining autonomy applies, in which the state does not interfere.
Only in 2015 did the then federal government intervene in collective bargaining autonomy by introducing a generally applicable minimum wage.
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In the past, however, negotiations often worked without strikes.
However, this model is currently experiencing “its moment of truth,” said Hagen Lesch from the employer-related Cologne Institute of German Economy to the
AFP
news agency , adding: “During the pandemic, the unions’ willingness to make concessions was very high, but that is now over.”
What do critics say and what do they want to change?
Voices from politics are already questioning the proportionality of some strikes: The industrial action by the train drivers' union GDL shows "that our system of social partnership with collective bargaining autonomy only works if everyone involved moderates themselves," said CDU boss Friedrich Merz.
Otherwise, “the system is at risk.”
The right to strike should not exist “at any price,” says the head of the SME Union, CDU politician Gitta Connemann.
There were similar voices from the FDP.
Among other things, they advocate for an obligation to arbitrate before a planned strike.
However, the SPD rejected it: “The right to strike is an important fundamental right and a decisive factor for fair wages and good working conditions,” said the labor market policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Sebastian Roloff, to the
Tagesspiegel.
“Accordingly, a restriction is prohibited.”
Can the right to strike actually be changed?
An adjustment of the right to strike would be entirely possible in Germany, explains legal scholar Frank Bayreuther from the University of Passau to the
Editorial Network Germany
.
“For decades, the legislature has been called upon to legally regulate industrial dispute law, which has so far only been shaped by case law.
“That is his constitutional mandate, and he definitely has some leeway,” said Bayreuther.
And what could then be changed about the right to strike?
But so far there is not even an agreement on basic key data.
According to the expert, if a change were made, an arbitration requirement would be conceivable - i.e. that the collective bargaining partners must come together for an arbitration discussion led by a neutral third party before a strike can occur.
According to Bayreuth, this makes sense, but it would by no means completely minimize strikes.
“If the collective bargaining partners are forced into arbitration at a very early stage, then the unions in particular could go through this as a rather annoying formality and then go on strike as quickly as possible in order to really emphasize their demands,” says the expert to the
RND.
Right to strike: Do other countries do it better?
Other countries cannot fully serve as role models when it comes to a possible reform of the right to strike: France, Italy and Great Britain already have relatively strict legal and sometimes well-tested requirements for strikes - but strikes there are more common than in Germany.
Figures from the European Trade Union (Etui) show that between 2000 and 2022, employees in Germany stopped work significantly less often and for shorter periods of time than their colleagues in France, Belgium, Spain or the United Kingdom.
In France, around 79 working days per 1,000 employees were lost between 2020 and 2022, while in Germany it was almost 18 days.
With material from AFP