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TEACHERS

Union agreement halts looming school strike

Sweden’s teacher unions on Wednesday came to an agreement with employers about a rise in pay, narrowly avoiding a strike many believed was imminent.

Union agreement halts looming school strike

“It was close, it was very close,” said Metta Fjelkner, chairperson for the National Union of Teachers (Lärarnas Riksförbund) to news agency TT on Wednesday evening.

After fierce negotiations, the unions and employers the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) managed to reach an agreement of a pay rise for teachers of 4.2 percent this year.

This will mean some 1,100 kronor ($167) more per month for the country’s educators, according to the unions.

“We now have an agreement in place which means that we can start re-appraising the profession – and this is crucial if we are to change the negative spiral in our schools,” said Fjelkner in a statement on Wednesday.

The chairwoman for the Swedish Teachers’ Union (Lärarförbundet), Eva-Lis Sirén, told news agency TT that the agreement will boost teachers’ salaries – a first step toward raising the status of the teaching profession in Sweden:

“But it is far from the levels we will need to turn around the national teacher shortage,” she said.

The pay rise for this year will be paid out retroactively from April 1st, which will give teachers a lump sum of 9,000 kronor on average as well as the monthly increase.

However, the National Union of Teachers nearly scuppered the deal, in which case a strike would have been hard to avoid.

Six out of the fifteen members of the union board had registered their reservations against accepting the bid on Tuesday.

The unions were driving a hard bargain, demanding 10,000 kronor more a month for teachers in the long term.

Fjelkner firmly believes they will reach that goal eventually:

“I have great hopes that a large number of Sweden’s teachers will have much higher salaries by 2016-2017 than today,” she said to TT.

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of 420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of 2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some 200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of 2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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