GDL boss Claus Weselsky divides the workforce
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Dhe ink on the new collective agreement with Deutsche Bahn was not yet dry when GDL boss Claus Weselsky was already working on completely different things. In several short videos made by a professional film production company, he praised the train drivers’ union as a decades-long success story. However, the 65-year-old combined this advertising show with a strong attack – and not, as usual, on the employer. His target was the employees, primarily those railway employees who he identified as “free riders” because they save the union fee and still benefit from the GDL tariff. “You should be ashamed,” Weselsky rumbles in the little film with the beautiful title “Solidarity.”
Solidarity is a big word that can be interpreted in many ways. For Weselsky it means above all: solidarity with himself. Anyone who is not with him is against him and his organization. “You know exactly which of the two railway unions is the right one,” he threatens into the camera. Of course: what we mean is our own little GDL and not EVG, the big and hated competitor. There is a lot of talk these days about a division in society. Weselsky is dividing the workforce. This ultimately harms the interests of all employees.
A dearly bought result
After the long and painful tariff dispute with Deutsche Bahn, Weselsky, at least on the surface, has victory on his side. He sees the new collective agreement with the GDL published on Tuesday as a “success, almost across the board”. Not wrongly: The compromise is primarily to the detriment of the railway – that is, its customers and, as a state-owned company, all taxpayers. Not long ago, management considered the 35-hour week without a pay cut to be “absolutely impossible”. Now it is coming, albeit in several steps in 2029.
But Weselsky may have bought the result dearly. He is isolated in the union camp. The relationship with the EVG is shattered, both objectively and personally. There it is not only maliciously pointed out that the employees in the DB companies with an EVG agreement last year had 3,000 euros more in their pockets over the contract term and had more plannable free time. There is also talk of a lack of respect and personal hostility, but little of solidarity.
Not to mention public opinion. There should initially have been a trace of sympathy and understanding for the concerns of the train drivers represented by the GDL: after five months of riotous rhetoric and six strikes, it has disappeared. Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP), as a representative of the railway owner, the federal government, is of course biased, and yet he said what those more sympathetic to the GDL might also see: Weselsky has overstepped the mark this time.
Call for more strike rules
What that means will become apparent in the near future. Germany is still one of the few countries where there is no strike law. The unions decide for themselves how to structure their industrial disputes. However, there are already calls from politics and science for more rules. The justification given is not only the considerable economic damage, after all, each GDL strike day is said to have resulted in costs of 100 million euros. Climate protection is also used as an argument. The federal government sees the railway as an important element of the transport transition. The work strikes of the past week have done anything but increase the attractiveness of the railway, not to mention the other numerous problems that exist.
There are also discussions about automation and digitalization. Autonomous trains are no longer a vision of the future, but are already partly a reality. The DB is careful not to threaten this. But it takes little imagination to imagine that train drivers on regional trains or ICE trains will no longer be needed at some point.
Claus Weselsky will no longer experience that during his playing days. He’s retiring soon. At least he has to get used to the idea that he helped accelerate these developments to the detriment of employees. It is doubtful whether his designated successor Mario Reiß will still be able to sell the GDL story as a great success in future advertising videos.
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