BERLIN (Reuters) – Employers of airport security staff in Germany and the Verdi union have agreed in principle to a wage deal after bringing in independent mediators to break their long-running dispute, both parties said on Monday.
The responsible committees at the BDLS employers’ association and the union have until noon on Tuesday to accept or reject the arbitration recommendation, with Verdi to refrain from calling for strikes until then.
According to a statement from BDLS, the recommendation stipulates wage increases of between 13.1% and 15.1% within 15 months for some 25,000 airport security workers.
Europe’s biggest economy has been hit by a series of disruptive and costly stoppages affecting air and rail travel as workers demand higher wages to cope with the impact of inflation.
Strikes brought 11 airports across Germany to a standstill in February and also massively affected air traffic in early and mid-March.
(Reporting by Klaus Lauer and Ilona Wissenbach; Writing by Friederike Heine; Editing by Rachel More)
