complain

From the beginning of next week it could be that time again: full platforms, empty tracks. The reason: the labor disputes of the German Locomotive Drivers’ Union (GDL). However, Deutsche Bahn (DB) wants to stop this using legal means. This is nothing new for the DB: in 2021 it had already tried to have the goals of the GDL’s seven-day strike declared unlawful due to an invalid clause.

Now the railway is trying legal action again, but this time with a different approach. As the DB confirmed at the request of AZ, it filed a lawsuit against the GDL at the Hessian State Labor Court on Tuesday. The railway wants to have it clarified in court whether the GDL has lost its collective bargaining rights through its temporary worker cooperative Fair Train. The railway’s accusation: There are personal connections and serious conflicts of interest between GDL and Fair Train. Seen in this way, the union has concluded a collective agreement with itself.

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“The GDL acts as an employer and as a union at the same time. What is it now?” asks DB Human Resources Director Martin Seiler. He sees the DB as being forced to take this step because it needs to know with legal certainty whether it is dealing with a “capable collective bargaining partner”. The railway relies on a report it commissioned from Cologne professor Clemens Höpfner and statements in the labor law literature.

GDL district chairman Bavaria: “That looks like a DB lifeline”

In the summer, however, GDL boss Claus Weselsky said that Fair Train acts as a “personnel service provider in the cooperative model” independent of the GDL. In October, the temporary worker cooperative concluded a collective agreement with the union. Uwe Böhm, GDL district chairman for Bavaria, sees the lawsuit calmly. “This doesn’t surprise us,” he tells AZ. And further: “This step will not stop the strikes.” According to Böhm, when the Fair Train cooperative was founded, care was taken to ensure that “there would be no collision.” For him, the lawsuit is above all one thing: “It looks a bit like a DB lifeline.” Because: There is no interim injunction.

That means: A decision in court will take longer, says Michael Fuhlrott, professor of labor law at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. The lawsuit could go all the way to the Federal Constitutional Court, he tells AZ. According to Bahn, the process could even take several years. However, the labor law expert cannot estimate how successful the lawsuit will be because its contents are not publicly known.

The lawsuit has no impact on the upcoming strikes

But what does this mean for the imminent strikes? The train drivers ultimately want to stop working for up to five days at a time from January 8th. The lawsuit has no immediate consequences. But: “If a strike is announced, the DB could say that you are not allowed to strike legally, because that presupposes that you are a union,” says Fuhlrott. To do this, the specific strike would have to be examined in an expedited procedure. The problem: Gross illegality is the standard here and a court will most likely not be able to determine this in interim legal protection proceedings.

When asked by AZ, the railway remained tight-lipped about whether it would take legal action against individual strikes. “This is always decided on a case-by-case basis, it is not automatic,” says a DB spokesman. Train travelers must therefore continue to anxiously keep an eye on the timetable apps.

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2024-01-05 09:08:44
#Strikes #week #Munich #GDL #reacts #lawsuit #Deutsche #Bahn