German Air-Traffic Controllers Strike Halted by Mediation Bid

[Blue_Tires]

Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) -- A strike by German air-traffic controllers was forestalled when Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH, the air-navigation agency, sought mediation minutes after a Frankfurt labor court ruling cleared the way for the strike to proceed.

The six-hour strike that could have disrupted 2,500 flights at carriers including Deutsche Lufthansa AG was slated to start at 6 a.m. and would have involved up to 3,400 members of the Gewerkschaft der Flugsicherung union.

Before coming to a decision on the appeal ruling, the judge Rainer Bram had urged the DFS to call in a mediator in return for the GdF cancelling the strike.

"We wanted to be able to call a mediator in on our own terms and not those imposed by the court," DFS Managing Director Jens Bergmann said after the ruling. "It means we can discuss all the issues on the table and not simply those specified by the judge."

Judge Renate Binding-Thiemann said yesterday the union could go ahead with a walkout given uncertainty over whether its claims contradict German law and after it dropped some demands. The Labor Court for the state of Hesse upheld her ruling.



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