»Now it claps back!« (WWN)

It’s six in the morning. Most people in Berlin are still asleep. But there is already a lot of activity in front of the Jewish Hospital in the Wedding district of Berlin. You greet each other, tell each other what you have with you to get through the day – especially warm tea. It’s minus five degrees. And for the around 70 colleagues who have gathered in front of the hospital, this Thursday is not a work day, but a strike day.

“If there is no result in the next round of negotiations, we know how to keep up the pressure,” says Verdi’s Dana Lützkendorf. The service union has called on workers to go on warning strike. It is currently negotiating with the federal and local governments about a new collective agreement for their around 2.5 million employees. Verdi demands 10.5 percent, or 500 euros more salary per month for them. In a first round of negotiations, the employers rejected the demand but made no counter-offer.

“Now it clap back!” reads the cardboard signs held up by the hospital staff. It is an allusion to the fact that there was a lot of applause for nurses at the beginning of the corona pandemic, but no substantial improvements in working conditions and salaries. In addition to the Jewish hospital, there are also strikes at the Charité, the Vivantes hospitals, the water companies, the University of Applied Sciences and the Berlin student union. At the BSR city cleaning, the strike will continue on Friday.

A small delegation from the Left Party comes by with a red cargo bike. Among other things, she brought warm drinks to strengthen her. “I’m here because I’ve been supporting the workers’ struggle for better working conditions for a long time,” says Tobias Schulze, deputy parliamentary group leader and health policy spokesman for the left in the Berlin House of Representatives. In the current inflationary crisis, they needed a “big swig” when it came to getting paid. “They have done so much in the last few years of the pandemic and even before that in the thoroughly economized hospitals.” It was “simply fair if they are now asking for and getting 10.5 percent to compensate for inflation,” says Schulze.

Not only in Berlin was the strike on Thursday. In numerous cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, employees of transport companies, city administrations, clinics, swimming pools, day-care centers and other facilities also stopped working. According to Verdi, larger protest rallies were scheduled in Cologne, Aachen, Dortmund and Düsseldorf. But in Berlin, the warning strike is particularly explosive because the House of Representatives will be re-elected on Sunday. »In the Berlin hospitals, a renovation backlog has accumulated over decades. That’s why we’re asking for 500 million euros a year to fund the hospitals,” says left-wing politician Schulze.

Because the elections will be held on Sunday, the strikers will later move from the Jewish hospital in the direction of the House of Representatives after a short whistle. During the day, the service union speaks of 3,000 employees who are emphasizing their demand for a substantial increase in wages and then walking to Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg.

One of them is Alexander. He has been a nurse for 14 years. “I slept very restlessly today. This is my first strike,” says the 38-year-old, who wears an olive-green bomber jacket and has piercings in his nose. »I’m on strike because life has become more expensive and I need inflation compensation. We’re not talking about a wage increase here.« For years, this has been lagging behind the inflation rate.

Inflation is also causing problems for 42-year-old Ronny. He has been working at BSR for two years and has two children to look after. “Especially in Berlin, the cost of living is very high,” he says. The required 10.5 percent is just a start.

In general, inflation is the topic of the current collective bargaining disputes. No wonder after all the inflation rate last year was 7.9 percent and was thus higher than ever before in the history of the Federal Republic. The result is that workers are getting poorer. In 2022, real wages fell by an average of 4.1 percent and thus for the third year in a row. That’s why the unions are not only demanding double-digit wage increases in the public sector. At Deutsche Post, where there are also warning strikes, Verdi is demanding 15 percent for the employees. The railway union EVG made its demand for employees at Deutsche Bahn & Co. this week: twelve percent.

That is why the fact that the federal and local governments have not yet submitted an offer does not go down well with employees in the public sector. The first round of negotiations was “disappointing,” according to the rally in front of the House of Representatives. The fact that the demand for at least 500 euros more wages, with which the Verdi union wants to improve the position of the lower wage groups in particular, was rejected, particularly heated up. “Employers have probably not yet noticed the shortage of workers,” they say.

With a view to the second round of negotiations at the end of February, the parties are open to conflict: they are ready to go on warning strikes and, after a ballot, to go on an indefinite strike. Not only here in Berlin and Brandenburg, but also throughout Germany.