The service union Verdi has planned a warning strike at Deutsche Telekom due to a “disappointing” second negotiation round held on Monday, according to an announcement made yesterday evening.
The strikes are set to begin as early as Tuesday, initially targeting locations across Lower Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Berlin, and Brandenburg. Further locations are expected to follow during the week.
Verdi negotiation leader Frank Sauerland criticized the employer’s stance, stating that the company “is obviously misunderstanding the living reality of the employees”. He warned that the union would not accept it if management, relying on record revenues and profits, were to issue record dividends for shareholders at the expense of the employees’ legitimate demands. Sauerland highlighted that the numerous crises of recent years have severely weakened real wage development, presenting continuing major challenges for the workforce.
In this year’s collective bargaining round, Verdi is demanding a 6.6 percent increase for approximately 60,000 unionized employees nationwide at Deutsche Telekom. This increase would be tied to a collective agreement running for twelve months. Furthermore, the union aims to secure the introduction of a €660 annual “member bonus”.
Deutsche Telekom, according to Verdi, operates through 20 separate unionized corporate entities in Germany, each with its own collective agreement. Most of these wage agreements are valid until March 31, 2026. Ahead of this round, Verdi and Deutsche Telekom had agreed to joint negotiations for these various corporate divisions.