The Verdi union had increased the pressure on employers with warning strikes lasting several hours.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In the negotiations with the Central Association of German Seaport Companies (ZDS) on a collective wage agreement for the approximately 12,000 employees at the German seaports, a further round of negotiations is to be agreed. According to its own statements, the responsible Verdi collective bargaining committee decided on Saturday in Hamburg after several hours of deliberations. On Friday evening, the negotiations were interrupted after ten hours of deliberations without a result.
Amidst the traffic jams and delays in container traffic, the German seaports are threatened with an intensification of the tariff conflict. Verdi had already called several thousand employees in various ports to go on warning strikes lasting several hours on Thursday. With their actions, the union wants to increase the pressure on employers in the ongoing wage negotiations.
Verdi is demanding an increase in wages of EUR 1.20 per hour for the approximately 12,000 port workers in the 58 collectively bargained companies in Lower Saxony, Bremen and Hamburg, as well as an “actual compensation for inflation”. She also wants to push through an increase in the annual allowance for container operations by 1,200 euros. The ZDS submitted an offer that provided for an increase in hourly wages of EUR 0.90 and various lump sum payments, which in total resulted in a permanent increase in income of 4.95 percent in container operations and 3.75 percent in conventional operations, in some cases even more including, would have made out.
A new negotiation date with the ZDS should be agreed in the next few days. According to experts, a labor dispute could lead to longer traffic jams in front of the ports. In the German Bight alone, around a dozen large container ships are waiting to call at Hamburg and Bremerhaven.
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