Please consider ‘Mega-Strike’ Disrupts Travel in Germany
Mega Strike Train Station
Mega Strike Airport
Mega Strike Commuter Train Station
Mass Walkout
Euronews reports flights, trains and buses cancelled during Mass Walkout Mega Strike on Monday
Germany awoke to widespread travel chaos on Monday, after two of the country’s biggest transport unions called a nationwide strike. It is the biggest strike the country has seen in 30 years.
The Verdi service workers’ union and the EVG union, which represents many rail workers, announced the walkout.
It is rare for unions to join forces like this in Germany. The mass strike follows a series of failed talks with employers in recent weeks.
Officially, Germany’s strike started at midnight in the early hours of Monday 27 March and is set to last all day Monday.
However, some airports cancelled flights scheduled to arrive or depart on Sunday. The effects are likely to last into Tuesday, with some operators already cancelling services on that day too.
Flights have been suspended at Munich and Frankfurt, two of Germany’s largest airports, as well as at Bremen, Hamburg and Stuttgart airports. Rail operator Deutsche Bahn has cancelled its long-distance train services.
Union Demands
- Verdi is seeking a 10.5 percent pay raise. Employers have offered a total of 5 percent in two stages plus one-time payments of €2,500.
- EVG is seeking a raise of 12 percent. Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s main railway operator, has also offered a two-stage raise totaling 5 percent plus one-time payments.
Strikes at 17 Spanish Airports
It’s not just Germany.
Euronews reports on Paris Protests and Where Travel Strikes are Occurring
Spain
Some of Spain’s busiest airports are facing strikes by unionised workers at ground services and cargo handling company Swissport between now and Easter.
From 27 February to 13 April, they have called for a series of 24-hour walkouts every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
France
Unions across France have been in an ongoing battle against plans to increase the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.
Protests have broken out across the country after President Emmanuel Macron decided to push the change without a parliamentary vote. Rubbish has built up in Paris and was set on fire. Protesters have also clashed with police in the French capital.
UK
1,400 security guards at London’s Heathrow Airport are going on strike over the Easter holidays.
The guards who work in Terminal 5, the main portal for British Airways and where many international flights depart and arrive, will be walking out for 10 days from 31 March until 9 April.
They are striking over low pay, after rejecting the airport’s offer of a 10 per cent pay increase. Unite union secretary general Sharon Graham says Heathrow workers are on “poverty wages while the chief executive and senior managers enjoy huge salaries.” A security guard at Heathrow is paid as little as £24,000 (€27,400) a year, according to the union.
Italy
Italy’s ENAV air traffic controllers will strike from 1pm to 5pm on 2 April. This will be nationwide.
Guardian Comments
The Guardian notes Millions of Germans Face Transport Disruption in Cost of Living ‘Mega-Strike’. Here are a few new details.
In anticipation of Monday’s strike, the state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn (DB) suspended all long-distance trains for the day. Regional and local connections in seven out of Germany’s 16 federal states also came to a standstill.
Planes remained grounded at every big German international airport except for Berlin’s Brandenburg airport, where inner-European flights took off with minor delays on Monday morning.
The German airport association said the strike “went beyond any imaginable and justifiable measure”, estimating about 380,000 air travellers would be affected.
Some unions have recently succeeded in winning big pay increases. Postal workers secured average monthly increases of 11.5% earlier in March, and in November IG Metall, Germany’s biggest union, achieved rises totaling 8.5% for almost 4 million employees it represents.
Minimal Floor and Current Offers
Since postal unions got 11.5 percent and Germany’s biggest union got 8.5 percent expect the minimal floor to be at least 8.5 percent.
The current offer is only 5 percent.
Nothing Moves
Eurointelligence comments on the fallout in its reports Nothing Moves.
A lot of people underestimated the enormous social consequences of what would happen when inflation last year started to rise in societies with deregulated labour markets. During the 1970s, most wages and pensions rose in lockstep. That posed a problem for the central banks, but it did not distort relative incomes.
What we are seeing today are huge relative income shifts between those who are in a position to bid up their wages and profits, and those who are not. Inflation is therefore not only an economic phenomenon, but a political shock, too.
Today, various public sector trade unions are conducting what they euphemistically call a warning strike. Nothing moves in Germany today. They are striking in support of a demand for a double-digit percentage-point wage increase to compensate for the real loss of income of their members. Acute labour shortages put them in a strong position.
We have a lot of sympathy with a comment by Jasper von Altenbockum im FAZ, who argues that no matter how this ends, it will cause a political crisis.
The problem is that governments have not planned for this. They still work on the old assumption that you meet your fiscal targets under the constitutional debt brake, increase defence spending, increase spending on the energy transition, avoid raising taxes, and fund this by squeezing labour. This is a coalition of three parties, each with different spending and taxation priorities. What they didn’t see is that unions will want to be compensated for real income shocks, and that this would blow their entire budget planning. The crisis is especially acute at the local and state level.
Altenbockum notes correctly that the €49 rail ticket, a one-way ticket between any two destinations on the German rail network, is typical of the contradictions. The government wants to make public transport more attractive, but does not accept that this would require more staff, or productivity-enhancing technologies. This inconsistency is evident in all aspects of German politics right now, like the energy transition, which has led to an increased use in coal.
Political Crisis
The political crisis in Europe over wages has already started.
The political crisis in the US is simmering. Union pension are based on untenable stock market assumptions.
Fanning Inflation US Style
Meanwhile, President Biden is fanning flames of inflation on four fronts: energy policy including decarbonization, a push for more unions, more regulations, and de-globalization.
Add in demographics and its a big mess in the US too, just not as bad demographically as Europe, Japan, or China.
Demographically Sobering Thoughts on US Employment in the Next Five Years
For a look at US demographics, please consider Demographically Sobering Thoughts on US Employment in the Next Five Years
Undeliverable Mandates
For a look at the US energy mess, please consider Largest US Grid Supplier Warns of an Energy Shortage Due to Undeliverable Mandates
Question of the Day – How Fast Will the Shift to EVs happen?
In case you missed it, please consider Question of the Day – How Fast Will the Shift to EVs happen?
The faster the shift, the higher and faster the inflation.
This post originated on MishTalk.Com.
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Mish
Rubbish! “Push for more unions”?!!!! Yo, Biden and the Donorcrat Party literally destroyed the railroad workers’ strike and settled it 100% in favor of the railroad barons!!
The crooked right-wing Donorcrat Party has done many such despicable things in the last 3+ decades. You really don’t have to make up stuff about them! Do you??!!
There is no such thing as the “wage-price
spiral”; the “price-wage spiral”; or the “cost-push spiral”; in the sense that
increases in wages, prices, or costs are causes of inflation.
Unless effective demands (money times
transactions’ velocity) are adequate to prevent a cutback in sales, or a
diversion of purchasing power to the price raisers, any administered increase
in prices will result in less sales, smaller outputs, less employment, lower
payrolls and less demand for products—in other words, depression and deflation
in due course.
The Bank of England governor recently appealed to businesses to not raise their prices. Businesses are doing this because of rising costs including wages. You are correct this will probably eventually result in a contraction and a lower inflation/deflation scenario but wages or prices will not go down to previous levels. It may well result in less employment and lower payrolls but those in work will be paying higher prices and earning higher nominal wages.