Tuesday 23, January
Another strike: Six days of no S-Bahn from Wednesday
For the second time this month, Berlin’s S-Bahn network will not be running due to the ongoing dispute between Deutsche Bahn and the GDL train driver’s union. The strike is set to begin at 02:00 on Wednesday morning and run for almost six days, disrupting travel through the weekend. The strike is expected to stop at 18:00 on Monday evening.
The strike will also affect long-distance and regional trains across Germany. In Berlin, the BVG (the agency that runs the buses, trams and U-Bahn) will run as normal, although with potential disruptions due to overspill from the disrupted networks.
Apparently, Deutsche Bahn offered the GDL union a new deal in an attempt to bring them back to the negotiating table, but their leadership has sharply criticised this new action. This is the fourth such strike during this dispute, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s near the end. In 2015, a similar collective bargaining effort took eight rounds of strikes before a deal was reached.
