German trade union Verdi calls for strikes on Monday at Berlin, Hamburg airports

Berlin: Germany’s Verdi trade union has called for strikes on 13 March at the country’s northern airports, including capital Berlin, which it warned would be likely to cause longer queues for passengers and lead to flight cancellations.

The strikes will affect Berlin’s international airport, as well as the smaller airports of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen, the trade union said on Saturday in separate statements.

Verdi said it was calling for security staff to strike at Berlin airport due to disputes over pay for working nights, weekends and bank holidays that had been going on for years.

The strike at the airport servicing airlines including Lufthansa, EasyJet and Air France-KLM will start in the early hours and finish late at night.

It will be the latest in a series of strikes and agitation that have hit major European countries, including France, Britain and Spain, as higher food and energy prices knock incomes and living standards after the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine.

“Verdi calls for appropriate pay for flight security personnel who are working at unfavourable times,” it said in a statement. “Supplements have not been improved since 2006, and we have been on and off negotiating a raise ever since 2013”.

The Hamburg branch of Verdi said it was also striking over the regular pay rise offered to public sector employees of 2% for the next 27 months and one-off payments of 1,500 and 1,000 euros, which it said was not enough given annual inflation running at around 9%.

“Many families have lost a lot of money in the past years due to inflation and coronavirus,” said Lars Stubbe, the representative for Verdi in Hamburg.

In February, the majority of flights at Germany’s Duesseldorf and Cologne Bonn regional airports were grounded by a 24-hour strike by Verdi.

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