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Strikes halt German train stations

27 October 2010 03:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Tens of thousands of passengers have been stranded in Germany as the country’s railway workers stage a series of crippling strikes over pay discrimination, APA reports quoting Press TV.

The German Railway Civil Servants’ and Trainees’ Union (GDBA) and TRANSNET -- both the key affiliations of Germany’s Confederation of Trade Unions -- have called on some 1,700 railway workers to walk off their jobs starting on Tuesday in protest against pay inequality between six private rail operators and the national operator Deutsch Bahn, Xinhua reported.

Meanwhile, railway services mainly in the states of Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia have come to a standstill, leaving thousands of passengers in major stations in Frankfurt and Munich agitated and stranded due to several train delays and cancellations, according to the unions.

Striking workers have urged the unions to scrap the existing pay system, under which the employers of six private rail operators receive 20 percent less salaries than those who work for the national operator Deutsche Bank.

"We are striking for a wage agreement for the whole sector, so that rail workers will have the same level of income, so that this type of competition, which affects the lives of our colleagues, will be brought to an end. We want fair competition," said Reiner Bieck of the rail union TRANSNET.

However, Deutsch Bahan directors urged the workers to cancel their walkouts, denouncing the strikes as "unjustified and counterproductive."

The move comes as negotiations are under way between the unions and employers to reach a compromise over the wage system across the railway industry.

Some local news outlets said the strikes have largely been put on hold, but the workers have threatened to stage further demonstrations across the country if their demands are not met by the unions.

A series of similar strikes in 2009 had forced the German government to increase salaries up by 4.5 percent.