Rail chaos threat
October 17, 2014
Germany's main railway, Deutsche Bahn (DB), has vociferously criticized train drivers' plans to stage a 50-hour strike on a school holiday weekend.
The train drivers' union GDL union had "run amok," DB said in a statement Friday. "GDL Chairman Claus Weselsky has lost all sense of proportion."
The railway pointed out that school holidays begin or end this weekend in about half of Germany's 16 states. It said the holiday would needlessly be spoiled for millions of people because of "a functionary's fantasies of absolute power."
The GDL announced Friday it planned to go ahead with the strike, beginning at 3:00 p.m. local time (1300 GMT) for freight and 2:00 a.m. the following morning (0000 GMT) for passenger trains. The strike is set to continue until 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT) Monday.
The union is demanding a 5 percent pay rise for drivers and a cut in their working week to 37 hours from 39 hours. It also wants to expand its mandate to include other train staff.
But DB wants to suspend talks with the GDL untill the government passes a law that would make settlements with a company's main union binding on all employees. While GDL represents a majority of drivers, it is not DB's largest union.
Passenger train drivers already staged a 14-hour strike on Wednesday and Thursday.
sgb/uhe (DB, GDL, Reuters, AFP)