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STRIKES

Lufthansa offers pilots new wage deal to end strike

Germany's flagship carrier Lufthansa on Friday offered pilots a new wage deal to end a crippling three-day strike that has led to mass flight cancellations affecting over 300,000 passengers.

Published: 26 November 2016 07:20 CET
Lufthansa offers pilots new wage deal to end strike
Lufthansa is losing €10m a day due to cancelled flights. Photo: Stefan Puchner/dpa
However the pilots' union Cockpit swiftly rejected the new offer. The airline said it had been forced to cancel more than 2,700 flights since the start of the walkout, which was called by the pilots' union and is set to last through Saturday. It is the pilots' 14th strike since April 2014. 
 
To resolve the long-running dispute, Lufthansa said it could offer a 2.4-percent pay rise in 2016, going up by another two percent to reach 4.4 percent in 2017.
   
Pilots would also receive a one-off payment equivalent to nearly two months' wages. As part of the deal, Lufthansa also offered to hire up to 1,000 new junior pilots. The airline had previously proposed a 2.5-percent wage hike.
   
The improved deal was made possible through “savings in other areas” such as retirement provisions, said Bettina Volkens, Lufthansa's human resources chief.
   
Late Friday Cockpit rejected the new offer, dismissing it as an attempt to “sell old wine under a new label”, Joerg Handwerg, a member of the union management, told AFP. He added that the strike would not continue after Saturday but that new action could be taken later.
   
The union has been demanding a pay rise of an average of 3.66 percent per year, retroactive for the past five years. Top-selling daily Bild says the strike is costing Lufthansa around 10 million euros ($10.5 million) each day.
   
Lufthansa had to cancel 830 domestic and European flights on Friday alone, with another 137 long-haul flights to be scrapped on Saturday. Affected passengers can rebook their flights without charge or request rail travel vouchers, the airline said.
   
Austrian Airlines and Swiss — part of the Lufthansa group — have tried to pick up some of the slack by expanding their services to Germany. The group's other airlines — including Germanwings, Air Dolomiti and
Brussels Airlines — have not been affected by the strike.
 
Lufthansa's hub management board member Harry Hohmeister said on Thursday it was “not possible” to meet the pilots' demands in full and noted that they were already better paid than their competitors.
   
A Lufthansa pilot in the top seniority category can earn more than 22,000 euros ($23,000) per month.
   
The German carrier has been battling a series of walkouts by both the pilots and cabin crew over the past two years, as it seeks to bring down costs to survive competition from budget rivals such as EasyJet and Ryanair.
   
In July, it ended a long-running dispute with cabin crew through a deal on pay and working conditions, including a no-strike agreement and job guarantees until 2021.
   
The breakthrough came after cabin staff staged the longest walkout in Lufthansa's history last November, with a seven-day stoppage that led to 4,700 flight cancellations and grounded over half a million passengers.
   
The airline said last month that it expects its annual earnings before interest and tax will reach “approximately the previous year's level” of 1.8 billion euros.

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.

Published: 26 March 2024 09:55 CET
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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