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There is no metro, just a few tram lines and significantly fewer buses than normal: Due to a major warning strike, public transport in Munich is severely affected this Tuesday morning. Since 3.30 am, all Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG) drivers have been asked not to report to work. The strike lasts until 6 pm and by then not a single meter will work. Traffic is significantly restricted on buses and trams. The Munich S-Bahn, operated by Deutsche Bahn, is not affected. There were delays in the morning due to a signal interruption on the main line to Ostbahnhof.
Underground
The fear of the MVG is: if they send individual subways onto the track, many people might be tempted to go to one of the subway stations, hoping to catch a train there. And then there would be a dangerous crowd on the platforms. Therefore, they remain closed until 6 pm
Bus
Those who want to take a bus have the best chance this Tuesday. Around eight o’clock in the morning, the MVG reported: There is now at least a 20 minute cycle on all lines. A spokesperson said that about half of all buses are in use. Because the private bus companies also pass through Munich on behalf of MVG, and their drivers are not called for a warning strike.
Trolley car
In the case of trams, however, the supply will be much smaller throughout Tuesday: here, “probably only individual vehicles could be deployed,” the MVG said. And on which lines you decide based on how many trains are ready for use. Not a single one ran early in the morning, then line 19 between Pasing and Berg am Laim came into operation. This was followed by lines 16 and 17, which run between Nymphenburg and Bogenhausen, and line 27 from the north (Petuelring) to Sendlinger Tor until 8 am All of these tram lines only have service every 20 minutes.
In general, “massive restrictions, bottlenecks and overloads” have to be taken into account in the subway, bus and tram, the MVG warned the Munich company. This time the warning strike is likely to be more violent than comparable work stoppages in the past. Because Munich drivers have so far been paid according to two different collective agreements. The previous arguments referred to a single person, so that only a part of the staff could go on strike at any given time. The rest pushed so that the MVG could always keep a large part of the offer. This time it is different.
The background to the strike
There is a company collective agreement for MVG drivers. Some of the Munich drivers are still employees of Stadtwerke, MVG’s parent company; for them the (generally better) Bavarian collective agreement for local public transport applies. Both contracts expired at the end of June and are currently being renegotiated. Unions, especially Verdi, are demanding more money than employers, including MVG, are willing to pay. Due to the high loss of revenue as a result of the Corona crisis, there is hardly any room for maneuver, MVG argues.
Furthermore, the strike implies a third collective agreement that does not yet exist: the unions are trying to conclude a framework collective agreement at the national level for local transport. With this request that has so far failed, the warning strikes across Germany this Tuesday should be a means of pressure. At MVG, on the other hand, this is seen as disproportionate, as everything Verdi is demanding for a nationwide contract has long been agreed in Bavaria and Munich.
A lot is happening on Tuesday morning on the streets of Munich, especially on the Mittlerer Ring.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Additional Information
The current operational situation can also be found on the MVG website, in the MVG Fahrinfo app Twitter or on the MVG Facebook page.
Where there is still strike
In Bavaria, Verdi wants to attack local transport in a total of eleven cities today. In addition to Munich, there are Nuremberg, Augsburg, Regensburg, Landshut, Fürth, Coburg, Bamberg, Aschaffenburg, Würzburg and Schweinfurt. “In Augsburg there is almost nothing,” a spokesman for the local utility company said in the morning. In Regensburg, bus traffic is completely paralyzed, according to Stadtwerke. In Nuremberg, instead of trams and subways, buses run on the network of night lines.
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