An increased number of travellers in Germany boarded trains and planes on Sunday, a day before a major one-day strike that aims to bring the country’s transportation system to a standstill.
Munich Airport, the country’s second-busiest, said that the ver.di union was hitting it with two days of strikes and it has no regular passenger or cargo flights on either Sunday or Monday. A total of around 1,500 connections were affected, and takeoffs and landings were only possible for emergency humanitarian flights, German news agency dpa reported.
Ver.di chair Frank Werneke said last week that the service workers’ union is calling for 120,000 workers to walk out. Those will include security and ground workers at all German airports except in Berlin, local transit employees in seven of Germany’s 16 states, harbour employees and workers on highways – the latter a measure that Werneke said is likely to affect some tunnels.
Ver.di is engaged in a series of pay negotiations, notably for employees of Germany’s federal and municipal governments. In that case, it is seeking a 10.5% pay raise. Employers have offered a total of 5% in two stages plus one-time payments of 2,500 euros .