In Germany, more than 2,000 flights were canceled due to a strike at seven airports
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Around 300,000 passengers in Germany will be forced to cancel their flights on Friday due to a warning strike at seven airports called for by the ver.di union and the civil servants association.
Tagesschau reports about this, as “European Truth” writes.
A planned day-long warning strike at Hanover Airport began last night. It is the only one of the seven striking airports that does not have a ban on night flights. Operations in Hanover are very limited, a ver.di spokesperson said late Thursday. Airports in Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Stuttgart, Bremen, Hamburg and Dortmund are also on strike.
According to ADV airport association, almost 300,000 passengers were affected by the cancellation of 2,340 flights. The association talks about “unprecedented escalation”.
Lufthansa alone was forced to cancel about 1,300 flights.
With their strike not only at the airports, the workers want to emphasize their demands in the collective bargaining process between the federal and local governments.
Joint rallies are also planned. Ver.di and the civil servants association DBB are demanding a wage increase of 10.5%, but at least 500 euros, for the approximately 2.5 million federal and local employees involved in the civil service wage dispute.
The employers have rejected the demands, but have not yet submitted their own offer. The second round of negotiations is scheduled for February 22 and 23 in Potsdam. Ver.di has already called for a warning strike at Berlin airport at the end of January.
Sharp criticism of the trade union’s actions comes from medium-sized companies. “It is unacceptable that Ver.di is meeting its tariff demands at the expense of the entire German economy,” said Markus Yerger, head of the Federal Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, while Gitta Konnemann, federal head of the CDU-Mittelstandsgesellschaft MIT union, told Bild newspaper: ” A union should not hold the whole country hostage for its own interests. It is about critical infrastructure, namely freight and air transport in Germany and with the rest of the world. (…) The right to strike yes, but not for any price”.
The warning strike coincided with the start of the Munich Security Conference, which is considered one of the most important security policy meetings in the world. The airport operator emphasized that flights to the conference are exempt from the suspension of normal passenger traffic in Munich. The conference is working to be able to guarantee the arrival of participants.
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