Bonn (dpa / lnw) - Hundreds of employees at the six university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia have struck again for better working conditions because of the high burden in the health care system. According to union information, more than 550 participants demonstrated in Bonn on Tuesday. They marched from the entrance to the clinic to Poppelsdorfer Platz, where the final rally took place at noon. The demonstrators wanted to continue to put pressure on employers to obtain a "collective agreement relief". In Bonn, not only nursing staff demonstrated, but also, for example, employees in patient transport or logistics.
In the wage conflict that has been going on for weeks, the Verdi services union had again called on workers to go on strike. After nothing had moved for a long time, a first round of negotiations between Verdi and the management boards of the six university hospitals in Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen and Münster took place on May 20th. But there is still a lot of jitter between the parties. "As far as we're concerned, everything should go faster," said Verdi Secretary Arno Appelhoff of the German Press Agency in Bonn.
Further days of negotiations were planned for (today) Tuesday and Wednesday (May 25) and next Tuesday (May 31). Verdi has invited to a press conference in the strike tent at Essen University Hospital for tomorrow (11:00 a.m.) to provide information on the status of the negotiations.
The employees of the six university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia have been on strike for 21 days for a collective bargaining agreement. They demand binding personnel assessments for all work areas at the clinics and a load equalization for understaffed shifts. There is a lot of understanding for the goal on the employer side. However, there is still a particular lack of nursing staff on the market.
