Derailed

The figure is much larger than the 4,000 to 7,000 job cuts mentioned previously by the company and unions, said Alexander Kirchner who heads the Transnet rail workers union.

He added that the company was developing a new five-year strategic plan and was seeking to rationalize parts of its operations. The company's management board will approve the plan in December.

A Deutsche Bahn spokesman responded to questions about possible job cuts saying, "No rail worker will be unemployed."

Rail traffic dramatically down

At the end of 2008, Deutsche Bahn employed about 240,000 workers, of which nearly 180,000 work in the company's freight operations. Due to the collapse of freight traffic, nearly 10,000 employees in the cargo business have had their working hours cut back.

According to Kirchner, the company's planners estimate that freight traffic in 2011 will still be 11 percent below 2008 levels, though he added that the plans for major job cuts were an "overreaction to the crisis" and "totally wrong."

Drastic changes are unlikely to happen quickly: Deutsche Bahn and Transnet have an agreement that the company cannot make layoffs until the end of 2010 at the earliest.

Newly-appointed Bahn CEO Rudiger Grube said recently that the company was developing its own internal labor market that would ensure that at least three out of every four Bahn workers whose jobs are restructured should be able to find a new position within the company.

bn/AP/dpa
Editor: Sam Edmonds