By DPA
Berlin : Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany’s state-owned railway, has prepared itself for an all-out strike by the main train drivers’ union, a railway board member said in an interview published Sunday.
DB would do all in its power to resolve the eight-month dispute by Jan 7, when the union says it intends to call its 15,000 drivers out on an indefinite strike, Georg Brunnhuber told the Sunday edition of the mass-circulation Bild newspaper.
“But if the union takes up a stubborn position, DB is ready. We have around 1,000 additional drivers available to counter a new strike,” Brunnhuber said, predicting the company could keep 80 percent of its trains running.
He also warned that DB’s board would back a hard line by management in the event of an unlimited strike by the drivers’ union, which has since July called its members out on several limited strikes that have hit commuter, and freight traffic particularly, hard.
The two sides held talks Saturday at an undisclosed location after Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee had intervened last week to pressure them to resume negotiations.