On Thursday morning, the union announced that, from 10 p.m. Sunday until midnight on Wednesday morning, there will be no long-distance, regional and freight traffic.
READ ALSO: German transport union announces nationwide 50-hour rail strike
The EVG is currently negotiating for higher wages for a total of about 230,000 workers with about 50 railway companies - but their focus is on the state-owned Deutsche Bahn.Â
The last three rounds of talks with the employers failed to strike a deal. As a result, there have already been two railway warning strikes in the past couple of months, through which the EVG has largely brought regional and long-distance traffic to a standstill.
READ ALSO: Deutsche Bahn strike brings rail traffic to a standstill in Germany
During its last nationwide strike on April 21st, the EVG limited the action to a few hours in the morning and afternoon. However, EVG negotiator Cosima Ingenschay recently said that upcoming strikes could last for up to a few weeks.
“The next strikes will last longer,” Ingenschay told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in an interview in April, adding that the union could “paralyse the train network for weeks” and that this type of action might be necessary “so that it hurts the employer.”
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What is EVG demanding?
EVG is calling for a 12 percent wage increase, or a minimum of an additional €650 a month, for workers to help pay for rising inflation and cost of living.
Deutsche Bahn bosses previously offered a ten percent raise for employees on lower to middle incomes and an eight percent raise for those on higher incomes, as well as a €2,850 one-off payment to help with rising living costs.
Deutsche Bahn called the offer fair, and criticised the upcoming actions.
"Announcing strikes in response to this is completely excessive and totally disproportionate. There is ten percent on the table, the highest offer in DB history,” said the company's personnel manager Martin Seiler in a statement.
Other railway companies had also made offers in the collective bargaining talks. According to the EVG, more and more offers had been made for fixed monthly amounts instead of a percentage increase on incomes.
The next round of collective bargaining is set to happen at the end of May.
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