Welcome to the hospital of the future.
I'm pleased to welcome you today here in UKSH.
The GDS exists because the people
didn't want to sign up for Verdi
after Verdi kicked IG Bau out of the service company.
Because the people didn't want to have more of the same,
that Verdi wouldn't act at all.
That's the point.
When we were founded Verdi sat in front of the door and said:
"Everybody who enters has to face a call to order."
That's what they told people.
We came into being through grassroots democracy!
People gathered and said: "We want!"
I remember this like it happened today. The shop chairman was next to me and said:
"Verdi kicked out IG Bau."
"What should we do?" I said: "I'll form a union myself."
"Can one do that?" "Yes, I'll check the statutes, done."
That's how it came into being and it became a superb organisation.
It's all democratic, how it's supposed to be.
We have the basic rules how one has to have them.
We have several cultures with us, many different nationalities,
opinions and so on.
We're for everybody, we don't let anybody down.
That's exactly how we understand unions.
One can be a competitor but, please,
we're for the employees, that's our clientele.
And their working conditions.
A quarrel only serves one: the employer.
Verdi has to grasp that at some point, too.
We're in collective bargaining with Service Stern Nord
since several months.
We had the goal to agree on an equalization of wages
to the colleagues who are directly employed by the UKHS.
In the past, we already concluded wage agreements
where we achieved reasonable results.
At the same time, rising living expenses,
especially rents and the like,
lead to the situation that many colleagues in particular in low income groups
are reliant on secondary jobs.
We want to end this situation
In the negotiations we heard from the employer
the commitment to equal treatment.
Unfortunately that's a tough issue in the collective bargainings.
Since they say that the financial situation won't allow this.
If the demans were to be met
one would have to think about outsorcing and such measures.
We say, though, that this simply isn't enough.
Our colleagues have shown this
through the strikes that we already did several times.
They've shown that they jointly support our position.
We did two strikes at both campi, respectively.
The first strike went on for a whole week.
On Mondy both campi were in full strike
for a certain time period.
We had roughly 300 colleagues at each campus.
Yesterday, we also did a full strike
from 6 am until 6 am today.
According to the information I received
we had 400 colleagues at both campi respectively in action
who participated in this strike.
There were severe difficulties.
We reached an emergency service agreement.
This emergency service agreement applies, well, only to emergency services.
The employer tries to undermine the strike's effectiveness
by qualifying all sorts of things as emergency services.
We reacted to that.
In the end there were considerable interuptions, though.
And we simply expect
a reaction by the employer to this new strike.
If necessary we will extend the strike actions.
One thing is clear: The solidarity that was shown there,
the community that was formed,
naturally lead to, at this strike,
which is the second,
that not one individual said "Not again!" or anything similar
The same flame that we already had during the first strike continued burning.
That shows us that we're on the right track.
If there's no reaction, we'll go public again.
I think we'd do some actions
that would highlight our position.
What I do find interesting, and I have to make a negative comment here:
The Kieler Nachrichten [regional newspaper] report on every minor demo here
but not a single word about our strike with more than 400 colleagues
during our strike week.
In contrast the Lübecker Nachrichten:
The Lübecker Nachrichten did report
and they did it in a very objective way, not angled, nothing, fantastic.
But I am irritated that one of the state's biggest daily newspapers
didn't write a single line about us.
This was really astonishing to us.
The solidarity that we feel, it comes from the UKSH employees.
How many nurses tell our people: "What, that's what you're making here?"
"We stand with you in solidarity!", that was stunning for many of us.
The same in politics: We had support from varios political parties.
We're in a very, very strong wave of solidarity.
We're going to focus on strengthening that wave, of course.
I want to make one thing clear:
We experience on the ground, the colleagues experience on the ground
that superiors try to scare them,
by questioning their right to strike,
by giving out orders in a cranky mood.
We had one case in Lübeck
where a superior teared down our calls to strike.
These are of course by-products that we consider extremely critical.
We hope that , during the next action,
the employer will give proper instructions,
saying that we're processing a strike and a wage dispute in a fair manner.
The most important thing for us which we're promoting is a wonderful solidarity by the colleagues
that work as strike committee, terrificly diligent and effective.
It's a hell of a job, until late into the night.
Some gain three hours of sleep at night because they're preparing everything.
It simply shows that solidarity amongst colleagues can move a lot.
We're proud of that what has been achieved.
For sure, before we're going on permanent strike,
and that's not unthinkable right now
we'll have at least one more strike action
to send out a insistent warning what's going to happen if one doesn't start reflecting.
The strike ballot that'd have to be implemented in that case is already prepared.
Which means that we're ready to attack in this regard as well
if necessary.