FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's test over rail strike

FT.com / Home UK / UK - Germany's test over rail strike

Germany's test over rail strike
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin

Published: November 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 17 2007 02:00

Millions of weary German commuters struggled to get home last night at the end of the worst phase in a rail strike that is becoming a big test of Germany's trusted industry-wide labour relations system.

This week's action by 6,000 members of the GDL train drivers' trade union has shut a car factory, disrupted ports, left thousands of passengers stranded and raised worries among shopkeepers that Christmas deliveries could be affected if - as seems likely - the strike continues later this month.

The protest - the largest in the country's railway history - is unusual as Germany is relatively strike-free.

Every year Germany loses only about two working days to strikes per thousand employees, compared with about seven in the US and 13 in Britain, according to a Swiss research group.

The consensus view for decades in Germany - shared by business, trade union leaders and politicians - is that it is best for wage stability and the economy if labour contracts are negotiated for entire industries or, in the case of Deutsche Bahn, for the entire state-owned rail company.

The alternative, where specialised groups of em-ployees sign separate labour contracts, could spark wage inflation and stir workplace tensions, critics argue.

Yet such a contract is exactly what the GDL wants. Its leaders complain that train drivers' interests have not been fully represented by the larger rail workers' unions in negotiations over the past 10 years, during which DB has more than halved the total number of employees to 195,000.

Rail drivers have lost their civil servant status and suffered significant pay cuts.

Other specialist unions, of pilots, doctors and air-traffic controllers, already have separate contracts - and have often won generous pay deals - but it has been the GDL's protests that have made the biggest impact, and not all negatively.

Polls show that at least 40 per cent of Germans support the GDL, which is seen as plucky in standing up for low-paid workers against the mighty DB.

The GDL has threatened that indefinite strikes are possible if DB does not table a new offer by Monday. DB indicated this was unlikely. The two sides are due to meet tomorrow, not at the negotiating table but on a television talkshow.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007