Verdi strikes in the retail sector before Christmas
If you want to buy presents quickly before Christmas Eve, you could encounter long queues at the checkouts. Verdi is relying on strikes in the retail sector shortly before Christmas to increase the pressure. Employers accuse the union of stubbornly sticking to its maximum demands.
The trade union Verdi is sticking to its plans to strike during the Christmas season. Several tens of thousands of retail workers across Germany will strike between Thursday and Saturday, Corinna Groß, head of Verdi's national retail group, told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). "On these three days, there may be longer waiting times at the checkouts, delivery bottlenecks for individual items or waiting times for consultations," she said. Decentralized actions are therefore planned. The Verdi branches in the individual collective bargaining regions are leading the way, and in some cases specific strikes have already been announced at individual retailers.
At the same time, trade unionist Groß expressed regret that customers are now feeling the effects of the industrial action. "Verdi would have liked to prevent the strikes in the run-up to Christmas and has been trying to reach a wage agreement for over seven months," she said. "The employers are refusing to talk and want to make the lowest possible wage agreement, which the employees won't accept." They already have low wages and can barely make ends meet with the many price increases. Verdi is demanding an hourly wage increase of around 2.50 euros, but the trade associations in the collective bargaining regions have rejected this in the wage negotiations that have been ongoing for months.
Employers: Better a strike than too high a wage agreement
The wage dispute that has been ongoing in the individual regions since spring is currently at a standstill. The employers already emphasized in mid-December that they had significantly improved their offer several times over the past eight months with more than 60 rounds of negotiations. Verdi is simply stubbornly sticking to its own maximum demands, criticized Stefan Genth, Managing Director of the employers' association HDE.
The employers' offer provides for a wage increase of 10.24 percent over a period of 24 months, plus an inflation compensation premium totaling 750 euros. There will only be further negotiation dates if Verdi signals that it will "in principle and within the limits of this offer, negotiate to the end with us employers", said the HDE boss. The long-term damage of too high a wage agreement would be fatal for the sector. "Unfortunately, companies will therefore have to deal with strikes during the Christmas period if necessary."
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Verdi's maximum wage demands in the collective bargaining negotiations with the main association of the German retail trade have led to employers preferring strikes during the holiday season instead of a potentially excessive wage agreement. Despite initiating strikes over several days before Christmas, Verdi regrets the impact on customers, as they have been pushing for a 2.50 euros per hour wage increase for retail workers for over seven months.
Source: www.ntv.de
