karlmarxstrasse

The GDL announced yesterday afternoon that industrial action is suspended until the end of September – the reason being that the Deutsche Bahn has agreed to recognise that the union represents most train drivers and will therefore hold talks on pay and conditions for this group of workers primarily with them, and not with Transnet or the GdBA. Even a few days ago, DB chair Helmut Mehdorn was strongly against this. At the same time, new talks will start between the GDL, Transnet and the GdBA, and Deutsche Bahn, on agreeing a new pay and conditions structure for all workers on the railways. Transnet leader Hansen has not ruled out this leading to a new pay rise for all rail workers – i.e. that the 4.5% pay deal his union signed, for all rail workers (the deal he claimed, as an attack on the GDL, was the „best offer“ achieved since DB was founded in its current form in 1994) – could be bettered.

The GDL’s demand for a 31% pay rise for all train staff seems to have quietly gone out of the window – instead GDL leader Schell is calling for „an improvement which is higher than 4.5%“ and a cut in the working week to 40 hours. At the same time, the demand for a pay agreement for all train crew has gone – „a bitter pill“, said Schell, and instead the GDL will only represent drivers – whose starting pay is currently 1970 Euro per month (before tax). Any GDL-DB agreement can also be signed by Transnet and the GdBA if they want it to apply to their members, but they don‘t have to. Assuming the deal is better, they will – or instead risk losing members who swap unions to profit from it. At the same time DB, the GDL and the other unions have agreed to transfer „100%“ of the „most important elements“ (less than 100% then…) of any deal for train drivers to all train crew. DB is currently offering the GDL nothing more but the opportunity to sign the Transnet/GdBA agreement (i.e. 4.5%).

„Well informed circles“ claim DB’s deal with the GDL was achieved thanks to Transnet leader Hansen, who wasn‘t involved in the talks as such, who was put under pressure by DB to withdraw his opposition to any deal with the rival union – as this would cause industrial action, threatening the government’s and DB’s privatisaton timetable (vehemently supported by Transnet and inparticular its leader).

All sides seem pretty pleased with themselves – DB representative Margret Suckale is pleased that „all unions are together at the same table“ and the company „reached all its goals“ in the talks, SPD transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, responsible for privatisation, says the deal is „good news for customers and for the company“. Conservative (CSU) finance minister Michael Glos said that „industrial action would have split railway workers and their unions and caused a great deal of damage to our country“, German TUC leader Michael Sommer is pleased that there will be a single pay and conditions agreement at Deutsche Bahn. The GDL leader claimed the „compromise“ contains „light and dark“.

The GDL leadership claimed this dispute was ‚make or break‘ for the union – and in that sense, the GDL has won. It achieved recognition by Deutsche Bahn for many of its members – but not for all of them. In 2003 the GDL opened its doors for all rail train crew, attracting many dissatisfied Transnet members – previously being a much narrower sectional union for drivers only – yet it is still not able to represent all its members in talks with the employer. The GDL’s future can only be guaranteed if a) it achieves a much better deal for train drivers and b) this deal is then applied to all train crew.

Tagesspiegel: Lokführer setzen eigenen Tarif durch
junge Welt: Kein Streik bei der Bahn; Teilerfolg für GDL
GDL, Transnet

Note: DB went back on this agreement, hence the strikes that followed.

Train drivers‘ union, GDL, which represents around 80% of train drivers and other on-board staff working for Deutsche Bahn, will announce on Tuesday whether arbitration has led to any acceptable results, or whether further strikes will be called.

DB will presumably again attempt to get any industrial action by the GDL banned by taking court action across the country. Meanwhile, leader of the DGB rail union Transnet, Norbert Hansen, who is a personal friend of „Bahnchef“ (rail boss) Helmut Mehdorn and (unlike the GDL) supports privatisation has suggested that Transnet will rip up the DB-wide pay agreement they signed if the GDL acheives anything better than the 4.5% they (along with the union GDBA) achieved. The GDL claims that this ’suggestion‘ is an attempt to scupper the GDL’s negotiations and put the DB board under pressure not to give on-board staff a better deal.

The GDL ballot, calling for a separate pay agreement for on-board rail workers at DB, with a pay increase of 31%, resulted in 95.8% voting for action.

The GDL have been criticised by Transnet, the DGB, and a fair few MPs from the Left Party for ‚misusing‘ their strong position, and for ’splitting‘ railway workers, similarly to the way in which aeroplane cabin crew who resigned from Ver.di and its forerunner Ötv to form Cockpit are regularly attacked by the DGB for ’social darwinism‘. While a majority of the population – according to polls – support these well organised workers, the major unions do nothing but attack those who actually seem to understand what trade unionism is about. If certain sectors of an industry (often the white collar workers) are badly organised, there’s a clear answer: organise them! It’s not an adequate excuse to force those workers who are trade unionists and do go on strike to accept much worse deals than they would get based on their own strength alone. It’s not as if the inadequacy of the major unions is something that can be hid – will this mark the beginning of ‚new unionism‘ in Germany and the end of the ‚German model‘? Some sections of the press seem to think so. I‘m doubtful, but I can only hope…

…might not seem the most interesting thing to decide to blog about – but that’s not the reason why it’s been so quiet here. Notwithstanding technical difficulties, the main problem has been deciding what to write about. For a while, it seemed almost ‚everything‘ was related to the ‚RAF‘, i.e. the ‚Red Army Faction‘, also known (abroad at least) as ‚Baader-Meinhof‘. Then the dominant theme was either the minimum wage, privatisation, the state of the dominant unions and ‚breakaway‘ trade unionism, or the so-called ‚Linkspartei‘, the result of a merger between the ‚electoral alternative‘ WASG and the PDS. Or benefit rules, the health service, pensions, the care of the elderly, the influence of ‚anglo-american‘ investors on housing and other parts of the economy, the occasional factory occupation, the state of the SPD, the army, terrorism laws, the Stasi, the GDR, the RAF, the Stasi, the government spying on ordinary citizens (‚Stasi 2.0′) or the state of public transport, culture, public services, education, the media. And the current dominant theme: fascism and the state’s ‚response‘. And terrorism again. And the unions. Did I mention Scientology? Thankfully not. Occasionally there’s a even strike to mention (a rarity). Where to start? Would it be unfair to mention one of these and leave the rest out? No. But I‘m not a newspaper – unless someone wants to provide me with the funding to produce something in that much detail (bank account details available on request, though used notes are also most welcome).

I‘ll do my best to start on Monday. I hope it‘ll be a good – and reasonably understandable – read. I‘d better start quickly, or I‘ll keep getting comments from people who miss ‚actually existing socialism‘ as if nothing better than that is possible, written while they listen to their Dean Reed albums…