The German trade union Verdi has called on Lufthansa’s ground staff to call for a warning strike for next Tuesday at the airports of Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne-Bonn and Stuttgart. The 35-hour warning strike will affect more than 100,000 passengers, according to the airline. Lufthansa is currently in the process of drawing up a special flight schedule that will be published soon, the company reported to the German dpa on Sunday. The strike will begin at 4:00 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 20 and end at 7:10 a.m. on Wednesday, Verdi reports. With all ground staff, from maintenance to passenger and aircraft handling, being called to the warning strike, significant flight cancellations and delays are expected to occur. Update Lufthansa reports on its website on Monday evening that only 10 to 20 percent of the flight schedule can probably be operated on Tuesday. A week and a half ago, Verdi called on ground staff to call for a 27-hour warning strike, which resulted in the cancellation of 900 flights. This also affected Lufthansa flights from the Netherlands to Germany. Nothing is known about that yet. According to Verdi, this involves company-wide wage negotiations for an estimated 25,000 ground employees, including at Deutsche Lufthansa, Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Cargo, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services, Lufthansa Engineering and Operational Services, as well as other group companies. Lufthansa speaks of about 20,000 employees. Personnel director Michael Niggemann is bitter, as the next round of negotiations is already taking place on Wednesday and Lufthansa has made an extensive offer. “This is not the way to live up to our shared sense of responsibility for our employees, our guests, for a strong and reliable Lufthansa.” According to Verdi, the third round of negotiations also failed to reach an agreement on the wage dispute. The union’s criticism is mainly directed at the significantly lower wage increases for ground staff compared to other professional groups within the group. Also, Lufthansa would so far have been unwilling to return part of the loss of income of employees during the corona pandemic in times of record profits, according to Verdi. The ground staff feels abandoned again, says Verdi. While the company is giving its pilots with annual incomes of up to 270,000 euros significant double-digit pay increases, the ground workers with starting hourly wages of sometimes 13 euros would not even be compensated for the price increases of recent years, according to the union. In addition to the Verdi demand for a 12.5 percent increase in salary, which must be a minimum of 500 euros per month for twelve months of service, an additional inflation compensation of 3,000 euros is also demanded. Lufthansa stressed that it had made a “significantly improved offer, based on the agreement Verdi reached in the public sector.” It provides for at least a 10 percent wage increase in 12 months, as well as a “timely payment” of a tax-free inflation compensation of 3,000 euros in total. Salaries for the approximately 20,000 ground workers have already been increased by an average of 11.5 percent over the past 18 months. (Photo Shutterstock).
