German postal wage talks head for crucial round amid strike threat
Germany Postal workers represented by the ver.di union and Deutsche Post headed into a final round of wage negotiations Tuesday with the union threatening strike action if no accord is reached.
The talks in the northwestern German city of Muenster were set to take place Tuesday and Wednesday, with ver.di demanding a four per cent pay hike for 240,000 postal employees in a 12-month contract.
Last week, around 2,000 postal workers staged warning walkouts in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, resulting in the delayed delivery of hundreds of thousands of letters and parcels.
Ver.di, the union representing services industry workers in Germany, warned that this was a taste of things to come if the wage talks failed.
“The members are angry. We have prepared everything organisationally speaking,” a ver.di spokesman said about the prospects of full-fledged strike action. “It could happen very quickly.”
Other union officials said that a vote on strike action could start on June 8. It would be the first strikes at Europe’s largest postal company in ten years.
