Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The Union of German Locomotive Drivers (GDL) wants to negotiate a collective agreement for all around 1800 employees of the Südwestdeutsche Landesverkehrs-GmbH (SWEG). GDL boss Claus Weselsky said on Thursday that, contrary to SWEG's claims, the union's demand for a group framework wage agreement was legitimate and logical because more than one railway company operates under the SWEG umbrella.
The background to the union leader's statement is the collective bargaining round between GDL and a SWEG subsidiary with around 350 employees. These initially constructive talks about a collective agreement for SWEG Bahn Stuttgart GmbH (SBS) have now reached a dead end, since the GDL has rejected an extremely negotiable offer for the SBS, the employer said. The union wants to assert its influence in the group and demand a corresponding conclusion for the entire company.
The chairman of the SWEG management, Tobias Harms, had already said on Wednesday that the national company was very satisfied among the employees. There is no reason to deal with another collective agreement. The SWEG supervisory board chief Uwe Lahl called on the GDL to make concessions and to return to the negotiating table. Weselsky rated this statement as an "inappropriate intervention" in collective bargaining autonomy.
The service union Verdi, which is itself a collective bargaining party at SWEG, criticized the behavior of the GDL. The principle of trade union solidarity is not recognizable.
