Rail Strikes Widen

Commuter rail services were badly affected in the cities of Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin and Stuttgart, while many regional and long-distance trains were cancelled when thousands of locomotive drivers failed to report for work at 5 a.m.

The locomotive drivers' union GDL called a four-hour nationwide stoppage, following a series of pinpoint strikes by members of two other unions that disrupted services on Monday.

All three unions are demanding that the state-owned national railways company Deutsche Bahn meet their demands for higher pay.

The GDL union is also seeking a separate contract as well as pay increases of up to 31 percent for Deutsche Bahn's 20,000 train drivers and 12,000 related staff.

The Transnet and GDBA unions launched strike action Monday after employers rejected their demands to raise pay for 134,000 unionized workers by 7 percent.

Deutsche Bahn offered a one-off payment of 300 euros ($402) for this year and a 2-percent increase from January 2008 and another 2 percent in 2009.

More strikes ahead

GDL said the train drivers would end their stoppage at 9 a.m., but warned it would ballot its members for all-out strike action if management failed to meet their demands.

"We'll wait and see if the railway's board makes us a new offer," said GDL chairman Manfred Schell. "If that's not the case then further strike action can't be ruled out."

The Transnet and GDBA unions said their members would continue their industrial action until evening.

The two sides met Saturday evening in a last-ditch effort to avert a strike, but the negotiations broke up after eight hours on Sunday without an agreement being reached.

The unions plan to hold selective strikes all week long to press their pay claims against Europe's biggest railway company, which has a work force of 229,000 and is due to be privatized by 2009.