Rail Wage Deal
July 9, 2007
Deutsche Bahn and the Transnet and GDBA unions, which represent 134,000 workers, reached a deal on Monday which will see rail workers getting a 4.5 percent raise next year that will apply for a period of 19 months.
"We now have a deal that will ensure peace for the next two years," Deutsche Bahn CEO Hartmut Mehdorn told a press conference.
The offer was more than double the 2 percent Europe's largest rail network offered the unions before they staged industrial action that brought many services to a standstill for three days last week.
Transnet and GDBA had been seeking a 7percent pay increase.
But travelers faced further delays on Tuesday when the GDL drivers' union called a three-hour stoppage to press demands for a separate contract and a 31 percent pay hike for Deutsche Bahn's 20,000 train drivers.
GDL chairman Manfred Schell, who met Thursday with Mehdorn, said his union would not sign a pay deal agreed between Deutsche Bahn and the other two unions.