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A collective bargaining solution has been found for Lufthansa ground staff for around 25,000 employees.
© Andreas Arnold/dpa
Lufthansa passengers can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no new strikes by ground staff over the Easter holidays.
But even after the arbitration, not all conflicts in the group have been resolved.
Frankfurt/Main - The collective bargaining dispute for Lufthansa ground staff has been resolved.
After successful arbitration, Lufthansa and the Verdi union have agreed on the basic principles of a collective agreement for around 25,000 employees, as they announced in Frankfurt in the evening.
This means that strikes by this group of employees over the Easter holidays are averted.
In a strike vote, more than 90 percent of employees had already voted for indefinite strikes.
Both sides satisfied
“We are very satisfied with the outcome of the arbitration,” said Verdi negotiator Marvin Reschinsky.
He firmly expects approval from the collective bargaining commission and the employees.
Michael Niggemann, Lufthansa's human resources director, said they were also very satisfied.
“But there are major investments ahead of us.”
The agreed salary increases resulted in additional costs.
Details will only be available on Thursday after the responsible committees of the union and the company have been informed.
However, the term of the new collective agreement has already been set for two years.
Much praise for Schlichter Ramelow and Weise
Both sides had been negotiating behind closed doors since Monday under the moderator of the mediators - Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke) and the former head of the Federal Employment Agency, Frank-Jürgen Weise.
The aim was to avoid indefinite strikes over the Easter holidays.
If the arbitration failed, Verdi had threatened the ground staff with an indefinite strike.
The arbitration recommendation was decided unanimously, said Ramelow.
Weise described the role of the mediators as moderating, even if the talks that began on Monday were on the verge of breaking off.
Conflicts were shown with flashes on a diagram and these were “unflashed” in the course of the discussions.
Weise pointed out the fierce competition that Lufthansa faces internationally.
For example, air traffic in Turkey is disproportionately subsidized.
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“The arbitrators managed to ensure that both sides moved again, that both sides listened carefully to each other again,” said Reschinsky.
That’s what Verdi demanded
The union had demanded 12.5 percent more money for a term of one year for the approximately 25,000 Lufthansa ground services employees, while the company had offered 10 percent for a term of 28 months.
Verdi has already organized five rounds of warning strikes among ground staff, as a result of which hundreds of flights have been canceled.
However, there are several other tariff conflicts in air transport.
Arbitration was recently agreed in the collective bargaining dispute for the approximately 25,000 employees of private aviation security service providers at German airports.
It is scheduled to begin on Friday, April 5th, under the leadership of the former Bremen Finance State Councilor Hans-Henning Lühr (SPD).
Lufthansa's flight attendants have also already gone on strike for higher salaries, with no solution yet apparent.
In addition, pilots and cabin crew from the Lufthansa subsidiary Discover are demanding an initial tariff rating for the young airline.
dpa