Lufthansa ground staff strike begins, passenger services unaffected
In the ground staff wage dispute at Germany's flagship carrier Lufthansa, technical staff began a three-day strike on Wednesday, but so far passenger flights have not been affected.
The strike began as planned at 6 am (0500 GMT), said Marvin Reschinsky, chief negotiator for the Verdi union.
According to Verdi, 90% of employees and trainees from Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Aviation Training and Lufthansa Technical Training are taking part in the nationwide action.
No flights were cancelled on Wednesday due to the strike, said a Lufthansa spokesman. The airline also expects no cancellations for Thursday and Friday.
Passengers should nevertheless always check the status of their flight on lufthansa.com or in the Lufthansa app, the company said.
Lufthansa called for quick negotiations in the ongoing wage dispute.
"This short-term call in the technical operations with just 12 hours' notice for a third so-called strike lasting three days is an incomprehensible and completely inappropriate escalation," the company said on Wednesday.
Verdi had been offered the opportunity to continue negotiations at any time, and this still applies, Lufthansa said.
"Specifically, we would like to continue negotiations on March 4, the first working day after the end of the strike." The aim remains to reach an agreement quickly, the company said.
The next round of negotiations was previously scheduled for March 13 and March 14.
Verdi is demanding a 12.5% pay rise for the more than 20,000 employees as well as a one-year inflation compensation bonus of €3,000 ($3,240). Lufthansa recently offered the bonus and around 10% more pay for a term of 25 months.
Lufthansa also faces a potential flight attendants' strike at its subsidiary CityLine.
The trade union Ufo on Wednesday called on employees to vote before March 6 on potential industrial action. The union had declared the wage negotiations to have failed on the grounds that Lufthansa had not submitted a sufficient offer.
Lufthansa is currently having to deal with a whole series of conflict areas: In addition to the wage dispute with Ufo, there are also disputes with pilots from its subsidiary Discover, ground staff and aviation security staff at airports.
So far, Verdi has led two strikes lasting more than a full day in the conflict, each of which cancelled hundreds of flights.
The employee representatives recently rejected a new offer from Lufthansa as insufficient after two days of collective bargaining.
Lufthansa had submitted this after the latest wave of strikes by ground staff.
