BERLIN: Public-service workers in Germany launched a campaign of short strikes on Tuesday to press their demand for a significant pay rise, with hospital and child care center employees and drainage workers among those set to walk off the job in parts of the country.
The ver.di union’s main demand is a 4.8% increase, or a minimum of 150 euros ($177) per month, for some 2.3 million federal and local employees over the next year. Warning strikes are a common tactic in German labor negotiations and typically last from several hours to a day or two.
Negotiators for employers, who haven’t yet made an offer, are seeking a longer-term deal and have said the wage demands are too high with the German economy struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, which also is reducing the government’s tax revenues. The walkouts were…