Clinic employees are on strike in several federal states

With warning strikes, health care workers put pressure on the collective bargaining dispute between the federal and local governments. According to the Verdi services union, there were strikes in Berlin on Tuesday at the start of the morning shift at the Charité University Clinic, the Vivantes Clinics and the Jewish Hospital. According to the union, a total of more than a thousand employees took part.

There were also temporary work stoppages in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. According to a Verdi spokesman, around 200 participants came to a demonstration at the Landshut Clinic, and more than 2,000 employees from several clinics took part in a strike demonstration in Nuremberg. There were other rallies in Schweinfurt, Rosenheim and Regensburg, among others.

Verdi had called on employees in numerous hospitals, psychiatric clinics, care facilities and emergency services to temporarily stop working. Tuesday and Wednesday should be the focus. In Bavaria, for example, more than 30 municipal hospitals and district clinics and several elderly care facilities are involved.

Verdi is thus protesting against the offer made by the federal and local governments at the end of February. The employers recently offered a linear increase in wages by three percent this year and a further two percent in the coming year, as well as tax and duty-free one-off payments totaling 2,500 euros spread over two years. Verdi and the German Association of Civil Servants, on the other hand, are demanding 10.5 percent more monthly salaries, but at least an increase of 500 euros. The third bargaining round will take place in Potsdam from March 27th to 29th.

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