First strike
October 9, 2011
Airline passengers in Germany can expect a chaotic travel week with German air traffic controllers scheduled to vote on a possible strike and much of the nation's airports' ground-handling personnel expected to attend employee meetings organized by the union Verdi on Monday.
Ten airports are likely to be affected by delays due to the Verdi meetings, including the two largest, in Frankfurt and Munich. In Frankfurt alone, around 1,200 members, or 80 percent, of ground-handling staff may participate in that airport's employee meeting.
On Friday, trade union representatives in Frankfurt said that the last round of contract talks with German air traffic control operator DFS, aimed at establishing a new collective-bargaining agreement on wages and work conditions, had failed.
After a three-day grace period, which expires Monday, the air traffic controllers can walk off the job in what would be the first such industrial action in modern Germany.
Strikes as early as Wednesday
Strikes could begin as early as Wednesday, according to the GdF trade union, negotiating on behalf of DFS' approximately 5,000 employees, including 1,900 air traffic controllers.
The dispute between the two sides had been less about wages than about the issue of the extended shifts that some employees are required to work.
"There were many issues that we couldn't agree on, but payment wasn't necessarily one of those," a spokesman for GdF said.
Extra pay
The DFS union said pay rises were the central issue of dispute, citing "union demands for comprehensive advancement opportunities," in addition to the 5.2 percent raise already agreed to, as the major obstacle to the talks.
"After we explained that these demands were not open for negotiation, the talks were essentially ended," the DFS said in a statement.
In addition to that, Verdi is poised to fight plans by the EU to allow more competition in ground-handling , which the union says will encourage airports to pay even lower wages and increase the already high number of temporary workers on the ground.
Trade unionists had already announced they were prepared to strike as early as June, when 96 percent of all GdF members voted for the stoppage, saying the negotiations had collapsed.
The Friday meeting was the fourth attempt at mediating the dispute.
Author: Gabriel Borrud, Spencer Kimball (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Nicole Goebel