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Passenger train drivers will strike from Wednesday morning to Friday evening, while freight train drivers will stop work on Tuesday evening.
Deutsche Bahn asked passengers to postpone their journeys during the strike and announced plans to develop an emergency timetable that would allow “a very limited number of S-Bahn connections in long-distance, regional and urban transport”.
The railway criticized the strike and announced that it would challenge it before the Frankfurt Labor Court.
The strike ends the GDL’s “Christmas truce”, when the union promised not to strike over the Christmas and New Year period until January 7th.
The union is now planning its third and longest strike since collective bargaining began in November. During this time, the GDL has already paralyzed German passenger train traffic twice with 20- and 24-hour strikes.
One of the stumbling blocks in the negotiations is that the union is demanding shorter working hours for machinists.
GDL boss Klauss Veselskis called for the working hours of shift workers to be reduced from the current 38 hours per week to 35 hours while maintaining full-time wages. Deutsche Bahn already has different working time models.
Deutsche Bahn clearly rejected the demand for a reduction in the workload and referred to the labor shortage.
The company has offered a wage increase of 11% and the conclusion of a collective agreement for 32 months, but the GDL rejects the offer and demands a wage increase of 555 euros per month and a one-off bonus of 3,000 euros to compensate for inflation. Deutsche Bahn offered compensation of 100.00 euros.
Last week, the GDL boss announced that three to five strike days were planned this year.
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