Public sector strike adds to winter blues in Germany
A strike by civil servants - including street- sweepers - added to the winter blues Monday in Germany, where iced- over roads have already hampered traffic and forced frail and elderly people to stay indoors for weeks.
In Hamburg the trade union Verdi ordered an undisclosed number of kindergarten staff and the sanitation workers who drive snow- clearance vehicles to stop work.
Verdi said 800 of an estimated 28,000 city workers demanding pay rises attended a demonstration in Hamburg.
Reinhard Fiedler, a spokesman for the city sanitation department, said that clearance work was not affected because none had been scheduled after daybreak. "We fixed 15 danger spots during the night," he said.
Fiedler said the city had in any case run out of salt, used to melt the snow on roads.
Wolfgang Rose, Verdi′s Hamburg chief, added, "We are letting sanitation staff chose at their own discretion whether to stop work."
Hamburg, in northern Germany, has been covered in snow since mid- December. Without salt, many footpaths are now too dangerous to be used. Many elderly residents say it is years since they have been forced to remain indoors for so many days on end.
Hamburg′s arterial roads have been cleared, but many side roads are impassable for ordinary cars.
Verdi called pinpoint strikes in public services four other states apart from Hamburg. Verdi said shut down most public transport in the city of Mainz, with all 117 city buses and all 23 city trams idle.
The rolling strikes, directed against municipal, state and federal government employers, began last week, when there were stoppages in Berlin and other states to press for wage rises totalling 5 per cent.