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STRIKES

Frankfurt and Hesse to be hit by three-day local transport strike

Services union Verdi has announced a three-day strike on local transport that will affect commuters in Frankfurt and Hesse from Wednesday.

Published: 12 March 2024 11:46 CET
U-Bahn Verdi strike in Frankfurt
A sign in the U-Bahn informs passengers of the Verdi strike action in Frankfurt on March 2nd, 2024. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Helmut Fricke

With a national Deutsche Bahn strike affecting rail services around the country and Lufthansa staff walking off the job this week, it’s set to be a tough couple of days for commuters and holidaymakers alike.

For residents of the central state of Hesse, the situation is about to get even tougher, with a three-day strike on local public transport running from Wednesday March 13th to the end of the night shift on Saturday morning (March 16th).

The warning strike was called by services union Verdi as part of an ongoing battle over pay and conditions for local transport workers.

In Frankfurt, local operator VGF announced that no U-Bahn trains or trams would be running for the duration of the strikes, but buses within the city and serving the surrounding regions are expected to run on schedule.

According to Verdi, other major cities in Hesse will also be hit by the strike.

In addition to Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Kassel and parts of Gießen will all be affected.

In Wiesbaden and Gießen, distruption is expected on local bus services, while the action in Kassel will affect both buses and trams.

READ ALSO: Germany braces for new week of strikes in rail and air travel

‘Inadequate offer’ 

The latest round of industrial action is the second this month to affect U-Bahns and trams in the Hessian capital. 

The previous transport strike in the city ran for two days from March 1st to March 3rd. 

Though the municipal transport operators have presented Verdi with a new offer in their current dispute, the union quickly rejected the proposals, saying they lacked “important key points” and were “inadequate in terms of (inflation) relief and pay groups”. 

Alongside better pay to compensate for inflation, the union is demanding a 35-hour week for workers.

This is also a demand of the GDL train drivers’ union, which is engaged in a months-long struggle with German rail operator Deutsche Bahn over pay and working hours.

The latest GDL strike kicked off on Tuesday at 2am and is set to run until Wednesday at 2am, causing major disruption on long-distance, regional and S-Bahn rail services. 

READ ALSO: How likely are strikes in Germany over Easter weekend?

Meanwhile, ground staff at Lufthansa will go on strike on both Tuesday and Wednesday in an ongoing battle for higher wages.

The strike will affect Germany’s two busiest airports – Frankfurt and Munich – and will cause as many as 1,000 flight cancellations over the two days. 

Member comments

  1. Include the dates would be helpful. Is it Wednesday March 13 or Wednesday March 20? Or is this an old story.

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TRAVEL NEWS

EES: Why is the UK-France border such a problem for the EU’s new biometric passport checks?

The EU's proposed new system of passport checks known as the Entry & Exit System will apply to all of the Bloc's external borders - so why are most of the warning lights coming from the France-UK border? And is it really Brexit related?

Published: 8 May 2024 12:03 CEST
EES: Why is the UK-France border such a problem for the EU's new biometric passport checks?

The EU’s new Entry & Exit System of enhanced passport checks – including biometric checks like facial scans and fingerprints – is due to come into effect later this year.

You can read a full explanation of how it works HERE and see our frequently-asked-questions section HERE, including information for non-EU citizens who are resident in an EU country and the system for dual nationals.

EES will apply to the whole of the EU and Schengen zone and will apply at external borders, but not for travel within the Schengen zone itself (eg between France and Germany or Italy and Switzerland).

You can hear the team at The Local discuss the latest developments on EES on the Talking France podcast – listen here or on the link below

The EU has plenty of external borders from land borders such as the Greece-Albania border to the airport frontiers that occur when, for example, an American flies into Italy.

But while several nations have expressed concern that their infrastructure is not ready, the loudest and most dire warnings are coming about the border between France and the UK.

READ ALSO Travellers between France and UK could face ’14-hour queues’ due to new passport system

So why is this border such a problem?

The problems with the UK France border are threefold; volume of traffic, space and juxtaposed borders.

Volume of traffic – This is simply a very busy border crossing, about 60 million passengers a year cross it by ferry, plane, Channel Tunnel or Eurostar. For people travelling from the UK, especially those crossing by car on the ferry or Channel Tunnel, France is simply a stopping point as they head into Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands or to Spain or Italy.

Around 70 percent of those passengers are British, which means they will have to do the EES checks.

READ ALSO Could the launch of EES be delayed again?

Space – The second problem is to do with the space that is required to process all those passengers as several crossing points – especially the Port of Dover and the embarkation area at London St Pancras – are quite crowded and for various reasons don’t have room to expand.

Extra infrastructure is required to complete EES pre-registration checks and this will be difficult to physically fit into some crossing points – for context the EES pre-registration area for the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles covers 7,000 square metres.

Juxtaposed border controls – the UK-France border is also unique within the EU because of its juxtaposed border controls, which are the result of a bilateral agreement between France and the UK known as the Le Touquet agreement.

Juxtaposed border controls exist at Paris Gare du Nord and London St Pancras for those using the Eurostar, the ports of Dover and Calais and the Channel Tunnel terminals at Folkestone and Coquelles – these mean that when you leave the UK you get your passport checked by both British and French authorities, and then there are no passport checks when you arrive in France – and vice versa.

This means that if there is a hold-up at one border control it has a knock-on effect on the other and means that very long queues can quickly build up – as has been seen several times at the Port of Dover since Brexit.

The Brexit effect

Part of the problem with the UK-France border is that discussions about EES began while the UK was still a member of the EU, and then the conversation changed once it had left.

However, even when it was in the EU, the UK never joined the Schengen zone so there were always passport checks for travellers between France and the UK.

The difference is that EU citizens are exempt from EES – so those 70 percent of passengers crossing that border who are British would have been exempt from the changes had it not been for Brexit.

French and other EU citizens remain exempt and will not have to complete EES pre-registration once the system is up and running. 

Therefore EES would have only applied to a tiny minority of travellers entering the UK – for example American tourists arriving into London – which logistically would be a much easier challenge, especially for the Port of Dover whose customers are overwhelmingly either British or EU nationals.

What about Ireland?

Had it not been for Brexit, the UK would have been in a similar situation as Ireland is now – since Ireland is a member of the EU but not the Schengen zone.

Under the new system Ireland will not use the EES system at its own borders and will carry on manually stamping passports.

However, anyone who has an Irish passport will be exempt from EES when they are travelling within Europe – for dual nationals this only applies of they are travelling on their Irish passport.

READ ALSO Your questions answered about the EU’s new EES system

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