The Verdi union is continuing to press ahead of the postal collective bargaining talks this week. Warning strikes also took place in Berlin and Brandenburg on Monday. The walkout will continue on Tuesday. Postal voting documents are also affected.
Postal strike continues and widens on Tuesday
Warning strike slows down a million letters and several hundred thousand packages
Up to 2,000 strikers on Monday in Berlin and Brandenburg
Post reacts to the protests with incomprehension
Send postal voting documents in good time or hand them in personally
On Tuesday too, numerous Post employees in Berlin and Brandenburg stopped work for a day-long warning strike. The warning strikes had begun, said Verdi department head Benita Unger on Tuesday morning. She initially gave no information about the participation. According to Verdi, parcel, letter and group delivery is affected. But a warning strike was also called in the letter and parcel centers, emphasizes Unger.
“In addition, the employees of the regional mail distribution centers in Berlin-Tempelhof, Schönefeld, Hennigsdorf and Stahnsdorf, as well as the parcel centers in Ludwigsfelde, Rüdersdorf and Börnicke are called into action,” the union had previously announced.
Less impact on Monday
Already on Monday, the delivery of around one million letters and several hundred thousand parcels was slowed down due to the postal workers’ warning strike. Overall, however, the effects were less than with the warning strikes lasting several days in January, reported a Post spokesman in Bonn.
Due to the typically low volume of shipments at the beginning of the week, “only around 6 percent of the average daily volume of parcels and only around 2 percent of the average daily volume of letters were affected nationwide on Monday,” said the post spokesman.
About 2,000 strikers in the region
According to the company, 5,300 employees nationwide took part in the strike on Monday. The Verdi union spoke of 8,000 strikers. Around 2,000 of them took part in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, a union spokeswoman told rbb.
With the work stoppages in the current bargaining round, the union wants to emphasize its demand for 15 percent more wages. The further warning strikes on Tuesday are not only planned in Berlin and Rostock, as on Monday, but also in Dortmund, Hamburg, Saarbrücken, Polch (Rhineland-Palatinate), Nuremberg, Frankfurt/Main and Stuttgart. Most recently, postal employees stopped working in Berlin and Brandenburg at the end of January.
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1,500 strikers in front of Verdi headquarters
A good 1,500 letter and parcel deliverers from Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Brandenburg came together for a rally on Monday morning in front of the Verdi federal headquarters in Berlin. Union leader Frank Werneke defended the demand for 15 percent more wages. In view of the high inflation, real wages would have to be secured.
The Verdi chief negotiator, Andrea Kocsis, pointed out that the Post is currently generating record results. “We’ll get your share of that now,” she called out to the strikers. “Now it’s your turn before we talk about dividends.”
However, the union’s actions met with incomprehension at the post office. A company spokesman said the group had already announced an offer for the next round of collective bargaining on Wednesday and Thursday. The recent warning strikes are therefore exaggerated. The behavior of the union is at the expense of the customers of the group.
Post refers to declining business
At the same time, the company tried to dampen the expectations of the strikers. In order to secure jobs in the letter and parcel business, increases in income of the magnitude demanded by Verdi are “not justifiable”, the group affirmed.
Earnings in the mail and parcel business are clearly declining and are already no longer sufficient for the necessary investments. The majority of the group profits cited by Verdi are generated in internationalbusiness.
Possible influence on election events in Berlin
In Berlin, the postal strike could also affect the timely delivery of postal voting documents. State returning officer Stephan Bröchler advised postal voters on Monday to post the completed documents for the repeat election by Tuesday at the latest, he said on Monday on the rbb|24 info radio.
The Post is confident that postal voting will not suffer from the strike. “Postal voting is an absolute priority for Deutsche Post, and we have taken all the necessary precautions – i.e. special emptying of mailboxes and Sunday delivery to the electoral offices – so that the documents sent arrive on time for the count,” said the company when asked by rbb.
The repeat election for the House of Representatives and the district assemblies will take place next Sunday, the polling stations close at 6 p.m. Until then, polling cards can also be handed in personally at the district election office or at the town hall, said Bröchler. That is the “safest method”.
Broadcast: Antenna Brandenburg, February 7th, 2023, 8:50 a.m
Note: The next round of negotiations will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, not Thursday and Friday as stated in a previous version of this post.
