Ver.di once again appealed to Lufthansa ground staff to carry out a warning attack. The strike will begin on Tuesday at 4am and end on Wednesday at 7:10am. Affected airports include Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf and Berlin.
Service union Ver.di has again called on Lufthansa ground staff to go on strike in the collective bargaining dispute. According to the union, employees must stop work from Tuesday at 4 am until Wednesday at 7:10 am. Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart airports will be affected.
The collective bargaining partners were also unable to reach an agreement in the third round of negotiations on February 12. The union explained that the employer's offer was widely discussed among workers in recent days. 96 percent of employees rejected it. Among other things, the significantly lower raises for ground workers compared to other professional groups in the group were criticized. The group is also not yet prepared to return part of the income lost due to the corona pandemic to employees in times of record profits.
Ver.di: “Offended”
“Ground workers feel offended once again,” explained Ver.di negotiator Marvin Reschinsky regarding Lufthansa's current offer. Although the group provides its pilots with basic annual incomes of up to 270,000 euros with high double-digit salary increases, ground workers with starting hourly wages of sometimes 13 euros should not even be compensated for the price increases of recent years . This is “blatantly anti-social”.
Reschinsky lamented the new escalation of the conflict: “We don’t want this escalation. We want a quick result for employees and passengers.” The management should have come to their senses at the latest after the last strike. The Ver.di negotiator accused Lufthansa management of not being prepared to “negotiate more than its only offer” on the last negotiation date.
Lufthansa has improved its offer
Lufthansa improved its offer last week. Expect 10% more money in the next twelve months. The union demands – referring to Lufthansa's record profits and increased work – 12.5 percent more pay for the 25,000 workers on the ground, but at least 500 euros per month. For a period of twelve months, an inflation compensation bonus for the entire group of 3,000 euros is also required.
The next round of negotiations is scheduled for Wednesday. In addition to Lufthansa's passenger transport, the Lufthansa Technik and Lufthansa Cargo divisions are also affected by the dispute. For these, different warning times would apply, explained Ver.di.
A 27-hour strike in early February largely paralyzed flight operations at Lufthansa's hubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Around 900 of 1,000 planned flights were cancelled, affecting around 100,000 passengers, according to Lufthansa.
Wolfram Dietrich, NDR, tagesschau, February 18, 2024 2:04 pm