Airports in Berlin and Hamburg reported flight cancellations on April 24 as a result of staff members staging walkouts after a protracted dispute over wage raises. While Hamburg airport reported that 31 of 160 departures had been cancelled, Berlin airport reported that all departures and 70 out of 240 inbound aircraft had been cancelled. An immediate strike by the Ver.di union was declared, to last until midnight and start at 3:30 a.m.
The union wants to exert more pressure on the firms with whom it is negotiating overtime pay guidelines and bonuses for extra work hours, such as those on the weekend.
Employees in the areas of passenger control, personnel and goods control, and aviation security went on strike on Monday at Berlin's BER airport. The airport was forced to cancel all passenger flight departures because, without these workers, passengers could not be examined before being admitted into the security section.
Local transport, hospitals, and other public services have been affected by the union's regular walkouts over the past few months, three of which have been held at Berlin's airport so far this year to emphasise its demands.
Over the weekend, the German government, labour unions, and more than 2.5 million public sector employees were able to come to a pay agreement, putting an end to a protracted disagreement and preventing potentially disruptive all-out strikes. However, airport staff were not covered by that arrangement.
On Wednesday, the ver.di union announced further walkouts for local public transportation companies in the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, and Baden-Wuerttemberg, where no agreements have been reached yet.
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