A strike movement on a scale extremely rare in Germany began on Monday to paralyze the entire national transport sector as unions demand wage increases amid inflation.
Airport, rail, sea freight, highway companies, mass transit workers began a 24-hour walkout at midnight (22:00 GMT).
This mobilization is part of a context of growing social tensions in Germany, where wage strikes have multiplied since the beginning of the year, from schools to hospitals, including the post office.
In contrast to countries like France, such a unitary movement between the EVG and Ver.di unions, each representing 230,000 railway workers and 2.5 million white-collar workers, is extremely rare.
Favorable soil
This “mega strike” – as the German media is already calling it – affects a country where prices have been skyrocketing for more than a year and inflation hit 8.7% in February.
EVG and Ver.di are demanding a salary increase of more than 10%.
Employers (states, municipalities, public companies) offer a 5% increase with two one-off payments of 1000 and 1500 euros.
The unions expected a “broad mobilization”. According to the EVG, almost “30,000 employees” in the railway sector have already stopped working this morning.
According to Deutsche Bahn, “long-distance traffic has been discontinued nationwide, as has regional traffic”. Flights are canceled at most airports, including the major airports in Frankfurt and Munich.
In many large cities, local public transport is extremely disrupted. In Berlin, the S-Bahn network, a combination of trams and subways, is closed.
The Association of German Airports (ADV) has denounced a strategy of “escalating French-style strikes” in which days of mobilization against pension reform follow one another.
“A social conflict without consequences is a harmless social conflict,” countered Frank Werneke, chairman of the Ver.di trade union.
The ground is increasingly favorable for the social movement in Germany, which is moving away from the notorious culture of consensus.
“In the last ten years there have been more strikes in Germany than in previous decades,” observes Karl Brenke, an expert at the DIW Economic Institute, in an interview with AFP.
With unemployment particularly low since the late 2000s, the country is suffering from a labor shortage that is putting unions “in a position of strength” in negotiations, Brenke said.
Since the mid-2010s, after a decade marked by the wage restraint policy of the Gerhard Schröder era, they have been able to push through wage increases in the name of competitiveness.
A record was set in 2015 with more than 2 million strike days per year. Real wages have increased systematically from 2014 to 2021, except in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The momentum was broken in 2022 by inflation with a fall of 3.1%.
“To keep alive”
The mobilization for wages in services is accompanied by demonstrations.
“The prices for petrol and groceries have risen, my wallet felt it,” summarizes AFP Timo Stau, 21, who was crossed at a demonstration on Friedrichstrasse, Berlin’s landmark.
“We have kept public service alive during the pandemic. Now we want more money,” adds Petra, 60, customs officer.
After the threat of an “indefinite strike”, the 160,000 Deutsche Post employees who are negotiating separately, already achieved an average salary increase of 11.5 percent at the beginning of March.
At the end of 2022, almost 4 million German industrial workers won an 8.5% wage increase over two years after being marred by several weeks of work stoppages.
But the dispute is broader. “It’s not just a question of salary, but of means,” said Jan Exner Konrad, 34, of AFP as he took part in a teachers’ demonstration in Berlin on Thursday.