The service union Verdi has announced a short-notice warning strike targeting Deutsche Telekom. The decision was issued after Verdi reported that the second round of negotiations held on Monday had been “disappointing”.
The planned strikes are set to begin on Tuesday, hitting several locations including Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Berlin, and Brandenburg. Verdi indicated that additional strike locations are expected later in the week.
Verdi negotiator Frank Sauerland criticized the employer’s position, stating that the management “clearly fails to grasp the daily reality of the employees”. He stressed that the union would object if the management, capitalizing on record revenues and profits, used them solely to issue record dividends for shareholders, thereby overlooking the legitimate demands of the workforce. He also recalled that the multiple crises of recent years had significantly weakened real wage growth, continuing to pose major challenges for workers.
In this current collective bargaining round, Verdi is demanding a 6.6% increase over a 12-month contract period for approximately 60,000 union members across the entire Deutsche Telekom network. Furthermore, the union aims to secure the introduction of an annual “member bonus” set at 660 Euros.
According to Verdi, the Deutsche Telekom conglomerate in Germany comprises twenty separate union-affiliated corporations, each operating with its own distinct agreement. Most of these current wage agreements are valid until March 31, 2026. While Verdi and Deutsche Telekom had previously agreed to negotiate these terms jointly, the current impasse has led to the planned industrial action.
