Shortly before the next round of negotiations in the public service wage conflict, the head of the civil servants’ association dbb, Ulrich Silberbach, threatened to expand the warning strikes. “If the employers continue to stonewall, the warning strikes will inevitably have to be extended,” said Silberbach of the “Bild am Sonntag”.
He emphasized that the tight financial situation in the local authorities is the fault of the politicians at federal level and above all in the states, not the employees of the public sector. The President of the Association of Municipal Employers’ Associations (VKA), Karin Welge, told the newspaper that she had the “unrestricted will” to come to a conclusion in three rounds of negotiations as planned.
She again turned against the demands of dbb and Verdi and criticized them as unworkable. “If the demands were met, this would exceed the capacity of the municipalities,” said Welge.
A strike by the Verdi union on Friday brought air traffic to a large-scale standstill in Germany. According to operators and trade unions, practically all passenger and cargo flights were canceled at the Frankfurt/Main and Munich hubs and at five other major airports. According to the airport association, more than 2,400 flights with almost 300,000 passengers were affected.
In the current bargaining round, the Verdi services union and the civil servants’ association are calling for an increase in income of 10.5 percent, but at least 500 euros more. Municipal employers reject this as economically unmanageable. The new collective agreement for the approximately 2.5 million employees in the public sector is to have a term of twelve months. The second round of negotiations in the wage conflict is planned for February 22nd and 23rd in Potsdam.
