Germans turn to dark humour as strike rhetoric goes off rails

Never say the Germans lack a sense of humour. A record-breaking run of rail strikes has given passengers waiting for non-existent trains plenty of time to work on their jokes.

Spoof film titles are a favourite – Trainstopping, for example, Lost in Trainstation and The Good, the Bad and the GDL (the train drivers’ union).


While the country is hardly immune to industrial disputes, this one has made many Germans angry. Obviously, nobody likes a transport strike because it affects millions in a way a factory stoppage does not. Unless, perhaps, it’s a brewery.

But there is more to it than that – there is a sense the train drivers’ union is breaking all the rules and ignoring custom and practice in, well, a very un-German way.

Claus Weselsky, the GDL leader, had the temerity to call the latest of six temporary stoppages last weekend – just when the eyes of the world were on Germany and the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Hundreds of thousands of visitors were converging on the German capital.

Under great pressure, Mr Weselsky ended the four-day strike a day early, on Saturday night, so that services could run on Sunday, the main commemoration day. But it was too late, says Deutsche Bahn, the state-run operator. Too many trains were in the wrong places to put on a full service. Visitors hoping for German efficiency were instead treated to cancellations and crowded carriages. And bad jokes on the internet.

The rhetoric has become toxic, unusually so for Germany where political debate is often subdued. And with good reason – serious public figures avoid language that might carry the slightest echo of the bloated rhetoric of Nazi times.

But Bild, the tabloid, ran an attack on Mr Weselsky, quoting associates who criticised his “dictatorial” style. Mr Weselsky hit back complaining of an anti-union “pogrom atmosphere”.

Mr Weselsky insists the right to strike is enshrined in the constitution. However, Germans like their constitution to be interpreted in a reasonable way. Which, in the opinion of the GDL’s critics, it has not been.

The stoppage was part of the biggest rail dispute in decades. The GDL, the drivers’ union, is demanding a 5 per cent pay rise and shorter hours.

DB has said this was negotiable. But what is not negotiable, in DB’s view, is a separate GDL claim to expand its representation rights from the 20,000 drivers to 17,000 on-board staff.

DB does not want the GDL to increase its influence at the expense of the moderate EVG, which represents about half its 200,000 German staff.

So this strike is basically an inter-union turf battle. For older readers in Britain and other countries with, shall we say, combative union traditions, it may all be depressingly familiar. But for Germans it is annoyingly different.

This is not the way Germany normally runs its labour relations. Employers and unions generally reach multiyear pay deals across broad economic sectors. Arguments are settled through negotiations between two sides that have often known each other for years. New unions are not encouraged. Efficient, say the system’s supporters. Too cosy, say critics.

This approach has kept strikes under control. Despite low unemployment and labour shortages, Germany has an enviable low-strike record. Only 16 days were lost annually through strikes per 1,000 workers in 2005-12, according to WSI, a research group – far fewer than in France or Britain.

If the German economy continues to grow, even at the current modest rate, more workers could start flexing their muscles. After all, one reason why Germany has done well in global economic competition in the past decade are limited wage increases.

But few Germans see Mr Weselsky as the vanguard of a recovery of labour power. The GDL is shunned by other unions, the union federation DGB and the Social Democrats, the traditional trade union-linked party.

Nobody loves them – and they don’t seem to care.

The question of the moment is not the possible readjustment of labour’s share of economic output. It is whether a strike, which disrupted the country’s biggest party since the 2006 football World Cup, won’t now wreck the Christmas holidays as well. If it does, expect the rhetoric to turn even nastier. And the rail jokes.




Stefan Wagstyl




Fonte: FT