Verdi chief Frank Werneke stresses the importance of learning from the failed trajectory of the Galeria department store chain, which has gone into bankruptcy for the fourth time in six years. According to his comments to Funke-Mediengruppe, the once healthy company has repeatedly fallen into the hands of unreliable owners. Over many years, the workforce has endured sacrifices via reduced wages to keep the stores afloat, while the respective owners have enriched themselves and given worthless promises.
Despite this downturn, the union leader firmly believes that department stores still have a future. He maintains that the department store concept is not dead, pointing to successful models like Galeries Lafayette in France, El Corte Inglés in Spain, or Breuninger in Germany. However, he insists that this survival is conditional on the stores being properly invested in-both materially and conceptually-rather than being neglected.
Werneke stated that this requires offering appealing products and good sales conditions, along with maintaining a positive ambiance. He lamented that Galeria failed to meet these standards in recent years. With numerous more stores now facing collapse, he noted that the situation is highly critical for employees and detrimental to the attractiveness of city centers.
In the ongoing debate regarding potential protective tariffs for German retail, Werneke is calling for a fundamental change in trade policy. The union boss stated that Europe must better protect its markets against subsidized, cheap imports to safeguard domestic industry and much of the retail sector. He specifically cited the massive volume of cheap packages from Eastern Asia supplied by online retailers, calling them the “killers” of German high streets.
When questioned about the necessity of higher EU tariffs on imports from China, Werneke pointed out that until now, millions of these untaxed packages could be imported into Germany daily-often without standards for workplace safety or product quality. He mentioned examples like Temu and Shein. He noted that EU tariffs are now being implemented, a measure that Verdi has also campaigned for, achieving a dramatic effect: sales for cheap traders from China have reportedly dropped by 40%.
