In the opinion of Deutsche Bahn (DB), the strike has no legal basis; the company wants to stop the strike by means of an interim injunction. In the event of a strike, connections between Germany and Austria are likely to be affected; ÖBB advises travelers to postpone unnecessary train journeys. The Westbahn trains run as scheduled.
Detailed information about the strike and the affected connections to and from Austria will be continuously updated online, as the ÖBB announced on Monday. “Passengers are asked to postpone unnecessary train journeys to and from Germany,” it said. The train connection for ÖBB-Sparschiene and standard tickets to and from Germany will be lifted; night train tickets can also be used during the day. Tickets purchased by January 8th are valid longer, namely until January 19th.
Westbahn is running as scheduled
The Westbahn is now running as scheduled to and from Rosenheim and Munich, as the company announced on Monday. In addition, a solution is being worked on with the ÖBB to allow affected passengers to travel between Salzburg and Munich on Westbahn trains, it said in a release.
Deutsche Bahn wants to prevent the GDL train drivers’ union from going on strike for several days starting Wednesday and has submitted an application for an interim injunction to the Frankfurt Labor Court. The court wants to discuss the upcoming strike on Monday. In addition to the Deutsche Bahn employers’ association, AGV Move, the railway company Transdev has also applied for an injunction against the strike planned for Wednesday. According to the court, the Transdev application is expected to be heard at 4 p.m. and the Deutsche Bahn application from 6 p.m. An appeal in the second instance at the Hessian State Labor Court in Frankfurt is then also possible.
Pressure in the collective bargaining dispute should be increased
The train drivers’ union GDL wants to strike in passenger transport from Wednesday 2 a.m. to Friday 6 p.m. – in a week in which severe disruptions are expected in German road traffic due to the farmers’ protests. Experience has shown that even before the strike, some trains do not run according to plan. In addition, it usually takes some time until traffic returns to normal.
With the strike, the German union led by its chairman Claus Weselsky wants to increase the pressure in the collective bargaining dispute, which is about money, but also about shorter working hours for shift workers at full pay. Deutsche Bahn rejects this.
Deutsche Bahn announced on Sunday evening that it would draw up an emergency timetable for long-distance, regional and S-Bahn traffic, but that it would only contain a “very limited range of trains”. “Please refrain from unnecessary travel during the GDL strike and postpone your trip to another time,” said an online information.
Emergency timetable: Longer trains with more seats
According to a statement, as part of the emergency timetable, DB wants to use longer trains with more seats in long-distance transport in order to be able to bring as many people as possible to their destination. “However, a ride cannot be guaranteed,” the company said.
“This strike is not only absolutely unnecessary, but we also consider it not legally permissible,” said DB Human Resources Director Martin Seiler. “Because the train drivers’ union lost its ability to bargain by founding its temporary workers’ cooperative.”
The GDL founded this cooperative called Fair Train in the summer. According to Weselsky, the company’s aim is to poach train drivers from the railway and to hire them out to railway companies under their own tariff conditions. It is unclear whether this will work and especially whether there will be enough train drivers who quit the railway and work at Fair Train.
Deutsche Bahn sees a conflict of interest
Deutsche Bahn sees a conflict of interest in the cooperative: From the group’s perspective, the GDL acts as both an employer and a union. That is why the railway recently filed a lawsuit against the GDL before the state labor court in Hesse.
Weselsky criticized the lawsuit on Sunday as a “smoke gun” and rejected the accusation. It shows “the desperation of a socially alienated employer who is not afraid of any means, no matter how absurd, to eliminate the strong GDL”.
