German train drivers Union GDLs is going to start another nationwide strike on Thursday, November 6th from 2:00 am. to Monday 10 November 04:00 am. For freight trains the strike began already Wednesday night. It looks to become the biggest strike in the history of Deutsche Bahn.

Drivers say that the strike will last more than four days. It will affect both freight and passenger traffic. The dispute is about the pay and bargaining rights. The strike threatens to disrupt this weekend's celebration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Thousands of people across Germany are not be able to participate in the celebrations.

The train drivers Union GDL announced a day after negotiations between the two sides, which stalled last Monday, that the strike will be the longest in the history of Deutsche Bahn.

The planned closure and working standstill is timing is highly antagonistic in a country that is heavily dependent on its high-speed rail. GDLs President Claus Weselsky has been criticized heavily by the media. Opinion polls show that he is currently Germany's most hated person. He himself refers to the right to strike and to his right as a trade union leader, to defend the interests of the members of the GDL.

GDL, which represents only 20,000 of the 196 000 employees, said on Tuesday November 4 that the strike also applies to regional and commuter trains, the so-called S-Bahn, in a number of German cities, including Berlin.

The EU argues that State-owned Deutsche Bahn has provoked the crisis by denying the DB right to negotiate with 17,000 conductors. They have also demanded a 5 percent wage increase, as well for train drivers and a shorter working week of 37 hours, a decrease with three hours.

Deutsche Bahn announced that the company will try to keep one-third of all the trains in service. Train company is carrying 5.5 million passengers and more than 620 000 tonnes of freight each day.

- This strike leaves me speechless and is about nothing more than negotiating technical quibbles, said Ulrich Weber, a member of the DB's Board of Directors.

-  Right now when people in Germany are ready to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, the GDL will put the whole public life out of action. We call on the GDL to end the strike and return to the negotiating table, "said Weber.

 The planned, longer strike is the latest in a series of shorter strikes. In mid-October, the GDL staged a 60-hour strike over a weekend, a strike that stopped the two-thirds of all long-distance trains and left millions of passengers stranded just in the beginning of the schools' fall break.

The Cologne Institute for economic research estimates that a train strike which last more than three days will cost society up to 100 million euros ($ 126 million) per day if the company is forced to halt assembly lines for lack of material or personnel. Nearly a fifth of the country's rail freight are transported in Europe's largest economy on the railway.

Strikes are actually rare in Germany. Employers and trade unions are usually able to resolve their differences at the negotiating table.

Source: GDL & Deutsche Bahn