The Public Sector Strike and Business Unionism in Germany

Thomas Klikauer, Znet || By mid-February 2026, and after nationwide strikes, Germany’s public service trade union, Ver.di, announced the end of the strikes. Germany’s public sector workers will receive more money. After three rounds of collective bargaining negotiations between Ver.di and public sector employers – covering bus, tram and train drivers, among others – a pact was concluded.

Ver.di’s new collective agreement covers 925,000 employees in Germany’s states, the Länder. There will be a total wage increase of 5.8%. Meanwhile, Germany’s office of economic statistics puts “official” inflation at 2.2%. Economists know that inflation hits workers on the lower end of the income scale harder. Bus drivers are not rich. In other words, Germany’s bus and tram drivers might take home a bit above a 3% real wage increase – if inflation does not pick up again. Not great, but perhaps acceptable.

Yet Ver.di achieved only a kind of “okay” 5.8% increase—and worse, the increase will come in three stages. In the third round of collective bargaining, a minimum monthly increase of €100 ($120) was also agreed—roughly $30 per week.

Worse still, the agreement excludes the West German state of Hessen, which conducts its own collective bargaining. The deal provides for a gradual wage increase after an initial five so-called “zero months” without any raise – a clear win for employers. In the first step, incomes will increase by 2.8% on April 1, 2026 – likely to be eaten up by inflation. This is wage stagnation. In other words, what Ver.di secured ensures that workers do not go backwards – though not much more than that.

The second step follows with a 2% increase as of March 1, 2027, and another 1% as of January 1, 2028. In short, over the coming years, German public service workers will more or less stand still – keeping up with inflation, if all goes well and inflation does not rise again.

Wages for junior staff are to increase gradually by at least €150 ($178). Allowances for shift work are also to be increased. A Ver.di leader spoke of “a real wage increase for workers” – well, microscopically above inflation, and only if inflation does not pick up in 2027.

He also referred to “tough negotiations,” while remaining rather silent about the strikes – limited to a bit of strike here and there by the union itself. These tamed strikes never significantly impacted Germany’s employers. Workers get a small handout while union and state officials celebrate their achievement.

Amid a torrent of bad news, there is at least one piece of good news. Thirty-six years after Germany’s reunification in 1990, the last differences in collective agreements between East and West Germany have finally been abolished. It took an entire generation – 36 years.

This will change the previously weaker protection against dismissal in eastern Germany, as well as the notoriously long working hours in teaching hospitals affiliated with universities in the East – where neoliberalism has held sway ever since a conservative politician promised “blooming industrial landscapes” that never materialized. It was an electorally successful lie.

It remains important that the incomes of state workers keep pace with collective bargaining agreements for workers employed by Germany’s federal government and local municipalities. In other words, Ver.di’s recent agreement applies to Germany’s middle tier: at the top are federal government employees, at the bottom municipal workers.

Despite the measly outcome, Ver.di claims the negotiations were very difficult and very tough. Oh my God, collective bargaining is difficult and tough. Who would have thought? In any case, the outcome was – unsurprisingly – only possible, says Ver.di, because of the support of numerous workers who participated in nationwide strikes in recent weeks. Another surprise: a union official amazed that a strike worked.

He continued: “Our perseverance and unity have brought the breakthrough,” while also admitting, “Of course, this is a compromise and we were not able to implement all our demands.”

Meanwhile, union leaders celebrate this standstill – just about covering inflation – as “concrete and sustainable improvements.”

On the other side, employers claim that the agreement will result in “additional €12.34 billion ($14.62 billion)” over the next 27 months – the duration of the agreement. Germany spends about ten times as much on its military-industrial complex.

To ease the pain, union leaders call the deal “a justifiable compromise,” even though it never came close to what was feasible. Yet the agreement gives Germany’s states planning security and spreads the costs. Nice: the livelihood of nearly a million workers is, for state officials, merely an “expense” (read: something to be lowered).

The previous agreement had expired in October 2025. The union’s original demand was a 7% wage increase, but at least €300 ($356) more per month—about $90 per week.

Ver.di immediately called for the agreement to be transferred to Germany’s 1.2 million Beamte – a special category of civil servants dating back to Prussia, where they were conceived as “administrative soldiers of the state.” Despite international human rights standards, various ILO conventions, and Germany’s own constitution, Beamte are not allowed to strike. This prohibition on the right to strike is another leftover from Germany’s Nazi past – a fact rarely mentioned, so as to preserve the myth that Germany has fully learned from its history.

To pacify the Beamte and prevent discussion about their constitutional right to strike, Germany’s labor relations system usually transfers such collective agreements to them – largely with the same provisions.

In addition, working conditions in eastern Germany are to be aligned with those in the West, both in terms of protection against dismissal – thus increasing job security – and in terms of reducing, for example, the excessively long working hours at the three eastern university hospitals in East-Germany’s Rostock, Greifswald and Jena, where the anti-union AfD received 27%, 37% and 33% respectively in recent elections.

As usual, the agreement will also be extended to more than 1.3 million civil servants and pensioners (retired civil servants). In total, about 2.2 million people will receive a small increase. These include workers in road maintenance depots, university hospitals, prisons, IT departments, animal facilities, day-care centers and schools.

It is telling when union leaders themselves buy into the myth of “empty coffers” in Germany’s states versus so-called “excessive demands” – without ever asking “why” these coffers are empty. Could it have anything to do with decades of neoliberalism and tax cuts, mostly benefiting the rich?

Yet this is where the buck stops. Unions, according to Germany’s labor relations system, are framed as being strictly economic – not political – actors. The message: do not dig too deeply into politics, neoliberal ideology or capitalism.

Meanwhile, in the three eastern university hospitals mentioned above – where about one-third of voters supported the neo-fascist, anti-union AfD – working hours will be reduced to 38.5 per week by January 1, 2029 – three years from now.

Beyond that, the allowance for shift work will increase by €100 ($120) per month, including for nursing staff in hospitals. The general shift allowance will rise to €200 ($240) per month, and to €250 ($300) in hospitals. For the first time, this will also apply to part-time workers in shift or alternating-shift systems.

Yet some argue that the overall result amounts to little more than a slap in the face for union members. More harshly put, the union is accused of selling out wage struggles – including those in public transport – and enforcing real wage cuts to help finance the federal government’s war policies.

Of course, Ver.di will prevent the formation of independent strike committees that could organize a nationwide strike movement against social cuts and Germany’s expanding military-industrial complex. Meanwhile, wages have effectively been frozen for a long time.

In any case, the outcome falls far below the already modest demand for a 7% increase and at least €300 for a one-year term.

The penny-pinching inflation compensation arrives only in April – after five “zero months” of decline. It is only slightly above the official inflation rate of 2.2% – perhaps closer to 2.5% in reality. Workers know that rising prices for gasoline, food and rent hit working households far harder than middle-class averages suggest. The official inflation rate does not capture this reality.

The increase in shift allowances – much advertised by Ver.di – falls far short of compensating workers for what they endure. Most of these amounts are gross, before tax. In the end, they barely fill workers’ pockets.

While Germany’s public services continue to face one cut after another, the workers who keep the country’s social infrastructure running are once again asked to accept real wage cuts or stagnation.

Everyone knows that Ver.di will ultimately sign a deal well below its demands. Even the predictable choreography of collective bargaining in East-Germany’s Potsdam – where negotiations took place – made a mockery of union members.

After days spent behind closed doors with their Social Democratic associates (SPD), representing the states, Ver.di’s chief negotiator – also an SPD member – appeared before TV cameras claiming that negotiations among longstanding party apparatchiks had been difficult and lengthy.

It is rather telling. The Ver.di SPD-SPD talks were a four-day marathon of day-and-night negotiations. One should almost feel compassion for those party insiders who have known each other for years and who, as long-standing SPD members and key apparatchiks, help keep their party in government.

For decades, they have supported militarization and neoliberal austerity policies at the federal level. It speaks volumes about the role Ver.di plays in Germany’s Kabuki-like political theater.

Meanwhile, at shop-floor level, the rapid mobilization of daycare educators, nurses, sanitation workers, forestry employees and university staff has demonstrated a clear willingness to strike. This includes bus and tram drivers, train operators, as well as pilots and flight attendants.

A worker continued by saying: “We really should be paid better.” But that is not part of Ver.di’s plan.

Ver.di wants strikes – but not too many and not too intense. The union understands that strikes bring people together and create a counter-culture capable of enforcing demands. Yet Ver.di has, rather cleverly, kept workers separated. The lever remains too short to achieve more. Meanwhile, Ver.di secures modest outcomes and helps its SPD partners look good on camera.

Undeterred by this accommodation between state officials (SPD) and union leadership (also SPD), one worker said: “I think it would be good if we all went on strike together – a general strike – to really achieve something.”

Just a week ago, Ver.di’s leadership imposed a no-strike order on the entire community of 925,000 public service workers. The union prefers small, isolated strikes – not a unified walkout of nearly a million workers.

It isolates rather than unites under the banner of solidarity. But perhaps that suits the key apparatchiks involved – as long as union leaders and state officials can look good on the evening news, while workers are left with wage stagnation and a handful of measly handouts.