On strike

German train drivers were on strike last week, making for the longest rail strike in German history. This is not an old record. The previous longest strike happened last November.

So who was striking and why? There are multiple unions of rail workers in Germany. This strike was led by GDL, the smaller of two train drivers' unions. They want a 5% pay raise, a 37 hour work week (now they work 39) and the right to represent other kinds of rail workers.

The result is that most trains weren't running. Those that were still chugging away were run by non-union drivers, probably sweating out their 38th work hour by Friday afternoon. The strike cost the German economy 100 million euros per day, but the GDL still hasn't gotten what they want. This is the 8th walkout in 10 months of negotiations.

Strangely empty, the Berlin train station during last week's strike

Strikes are common here. We had two train strikes last year.  There was also a Lufthansa pilots' strike a few months ago and two Hannover transit strikes last spring. Public kindergartens have been closed recently because of strikes too. Why do Germans strike so much?
Actually they don't, compared to the French, the Greeks and ... the Canadians?

Americans usually think of a European on strike as Jacques the public employee sipping espresso, smoking cigarettes and collecting a paycheck as he casually holds a picket sign.

"If they just appreciated their five weeks of paid vacation," Joe American might say, while adjusting his baseball cap and sipping a mega-size cola, "they'd know how good they've got it."

But, according to these stats from The Economist (a few years old, but like a French wine, probably still good), our North American neighbors strike most of all. On average, Canadians lose 2.2 work days per year due to walkouts.

I am no expert on labor relations, or socialism, or espresso. I do know, however, that Canada seems to do everything right that America does wrong. They have universal health care, low crime rates and they are really, really nice. So maybe the Canadians, the French and the German train drivers have it figured out.

Maybe we should all go on strike. I think 7 hours of work per day is plenty. Jacques does too.