Germany has been shaken Monday by a wave of strikes in public services. Consequence of the good health of the German economy, despite the crisis in the euro area: trade unions Ver.di and DBB are demanding wage increases of 6.5% after ten years of effort. The failure of negotiations started last week caused a series of movements that need to occur across the states throughout the country until the end of the week.
Monday, nurseries and kindergartens in Kiel, the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, were closed while the garbage was not picked up in Hamburg. "Several thousand" civil servants took part in the movement in Hesse, according to the services union ver.di Approximately 3,000 others were on strike in the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The city of Frankfurt, the financial capital of the country, was particularly affected traffic in metro and tram stops completely. Cruises on the Elbe are canceled and administrative services will run at idle in the north on Tuesday.
Wednesday, all municipal utilities will be affected in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populated of Germany, and in Baden-Wuerttemberg, one of the richest. And a touching move 10,000 civil servants in Bavaria was announced Thursday. Only the city-state of Berlin is spared for the moment.
Claims up sharply
With this "warning strike", the unions agreed to lobby in wage negotiations began last week, but did not give any result yet. They cover employees of the federal government and municipalities, but not those of the Länder, which depend on another collective agreement.
Ver.di and DBB (union officials) demanding an increase of 6.5%, with a minimum of 200 euros per month on the paychecks of two million civil servants concerned.
Besides the public, other major sectors of the German economy lead or are about to open negotiations, for which the unions, who agreed to wage demands put on mute during the crisis to safeguard employment, have reviewed their claims up sharply.
Negotiating the most anticipated, for the 3.4 million employees in the metal, due to open March 6. Led by IG Metall, which claims 6.5% increase, it affects steel, machine tools, machinery, automobiles, appliances or semiconductors.
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