Strike in the Cottbus University Hospital: Verdi demands 12% more salary!

Strike in the Cottbus University Hospital: Verdi demands 12% more salary!

Cottbus, Deutschland - over 500 non-medical staff at the Medical University of Lausitz-Carl Thiem (Mul-CT) in Cottbus on Thursday morning in bright yellow warning vests for better working conditions. This warning strike was proclaimed by the Verdi union, which urgently demands better payment. The drivers in the health and nursing professions make you take notice.

Background of the strike are the previous collective bargaining, which have proven to be unsuccessful. Verdi demands 12 percent more salary or at least 500 euros for the employees concerned. Union spokesman Ralf Franke illustrates that these claims are in accordance with the collective agreement in the public service - a point that has long been taken into account in other cities such as Berlin and Dresden. The last offer of the university clinic is currently considered inadequate because it remains behind the demands. A comparison account has shown that nursing staff would earn around 4,200 euros less with this offer in the next two years than according to the collective agreement. Despite an emergency service agreement, however, many planned operations had to be postponed, which illustrates the effects of the strike.

collective bargaining in the public service

The strike in Cottbus is part of a larger movement in the public service. Over 2.6 million employees demand more money and better working conditions. In Potsdam, further collective bargaining begins that extend over three days and represent the third round of negotiations in this series. The unions Verdi and DBB are committed to a tariff increase of 8 percent or at least 350 euros more per month, as well as for additional days off. The employers, on the other hand, consider the claims to be too high and expect annual additional costs of almost 15 billion euros. An official offer is not yet on the table, and an agreement on the weekend appears more than questionable. The pressure is great, since warning strikes take place in several cities, including Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Saxony, which affect various areas of the public service.

The ongoing collective bargaining that has been taking place in Cottbus since the end of May show the challenges that result from the difference between the demands of the employees and the possibilities of employers. The next round of negotiations in Cottbus is already scheduled for July 10th. Here the question remains: will the negotiating parties succeed in finding a sustainable compromise, or does the pressure of the strikers continue to be high? In order to pursue these topics, it is worth taking a look at the public service tariff history, which is characterized by constant struggles for better working conditions.

In the past tariff groups, there were always demands for increasing salaries, as last 2021, when a collective bargaining for the public service secured an increase of 2.8 % from December 01, 2022. If you now compare the previous results, it quickly becomes clear that the current demands of employees not only go back to the good old tradition of strikes, but are also an answer to the constantly changing living and working conditions. Currently there are also tariff groups for the public service (TVöD) and other areas on the agenda that could cause a stir in the coming months.

It remains exciting in Cottbus and other regions of Germany, while the requirements of the employees in the public service only gather, but a solution is still long in coming. The question that is now moving is: How far are employers ready to go to satisfy their employees and put an end to the strikers?

Further information about the current collective bargaining and their course can be found at the rbb , ZDF and in the overview on oeffhalt-dienst.de .