Status: 01/28/2023 12:33 pm
Thousands of Deutsche Post employees also stopped work on Saturday. The ver.di union spoke of high participation. Sometimes the delivery of letters and parcels can be delayed for days.
Around 13,500 Deutsche Post employees across Germany also stopped working on Saturday, the group announced. It is the third consecutive day that employees participate in warning strikes called by the ver.di union.
According to the Deutsche Post, the new strike does not affect all locations in the country. According to ver.di, only selected companies in parcel and letter centers, as well as parcel, letter and group delivery are affected. Among other things, delivery in the Bonn area, in Bochum and in the Münsterland was on strike. Mannheim, Stuttgart and Freiburg were also affected.
As the Deutsche Post further announced, around a third of the workforce in the affected locations would have stopped working. On average across the country, the delivery of about every fifth package and every eleventh letter was delayed – a failure rate of 20.9 percent. In regions affected by strikes, however, the index may be higher. According to a spokesperson for the company, as a result of the warning strikes, the shipments may “only arrive a few days later” to the recipients and thus “depending on the end of the strike activities at the site only next week”.
According to ver.di, high participation in strike locations
On Saturday, Ver.di was satisfied with the direction of the renewed deficits. A spokeswoman for the federal association of trade unions spoke of an extremely high level of participation, without giving specific figures.
According to ver.di, around 24,000 Swiss Post employees across Germany had already stopped working on Thursday and Friday. There was also a three-day warning strike last week, in which, according to the union, around 30,000 employees took part.
15% more than required wages
The next negotiations in the collective labor dispute should take place in about a week and a half. Deutsche Post has already announced that it intends to submit an offer, but at the same time emphasizes that ver.di’s demands cannot be met.
The union insists on a 15 percent wage increase for the approximately 160,000 collective bargaining workers across the country with a collective agreement term of twelve months and justifies its demand with high inflation, which must be compensated. In addition, training subsidies for each year of training will be increased by 200 euros per month.
Post criticizes strike as “excessive”
The vice-president of ver.di and negotiator in the collective bargaining dispute, Andrea Kocsis, referred to the record profit of around 8.4 billion euros, which the post office expects for last year. “The company owes this success to the work of its employees. Also in this context, our wage demands are necessary, fair and viable”, highlighted Kocsis.
The employer, on the other hand, criticized the ongoing warning strike on Friday as “excessive” and also stressed that the wage increase demanded by the union “is not justifiable”. Deutsche Post needs financial headroom for investments in order to remain competitive and thus secure jobs. Furthermore, the company’s profits are “generated for the most part in international business”.
According to dpa news agency, Deutsche Post DHL generated only about one-sixth of its operating profit (EBIT) last year from processing and delivering letters and parcels in Germany. However, around a third of employees are responsible for this area. The express and worldwide freight business is significantly more profitable than the core business.