Magdalena Plachetka just wants to earn what she is entitled to. The 45-year-old cleans operating rooms at the Vivantes Nord hospital. The work is hard: everything has to be thoroughly disinfected after every operation, with up to 50 operations per day. Although she works with doctors and nurses, she is not employed by the state-owned hospital group Vivantes, but by a subsidiary, Viva Clean. This means that she is not covered by the public service collective agreement (TVöD) and is paid significantly less than her colleagues who work directly at Vivantes. “I don’t get enough gross by 580 euros,” says Plachetka.
The Vivantes cleaner is not the only one who no longer wants to accept this unequal treatment. In the ongoing collective bargaining, the employees of all subsidiaries are demanding 100 percent alignment with the TVöD. Because the management’s offers in the first two rounds of negotiations were unsatisfactory, the Verdi service union called on around 2,200 employees to go on a warning strike on Monday.
In addition to cleaning, the tasks carried out by the Vivantes subsidiaries also include catering, logistics, technology and rehabilitation. The parts of the company were outsourced in 2006 as part of austerity measures. A mistake that several state governments have already wanted to reverse. Since 2017, every coalition agreement has stated that the subsidiaries should be returned to state ownership.
Collective bargaining round in the public service of the federal states (TV-L) In parallel to the collective bargaining at the Vivantes subsidiaries, the TV-L negotiations are taking place nationwide. Around 2.2 million state employees nationwide are affected. On Wednesday Verdi is calling for another warning strike. Berliners must expect restrictions in daycare centers, schools and district offices. Employees of the fire department, police and Senate administrations should also join.
The demands In collective bargaining with the states, Verdi is demanding seven percent more money per month, but at least an increase of 300 euros to strengthen lower wage groups. There had already been extensive warning strikes in the past few weeks. In Berlin, the BVG was also recently affected, but its employees were not called on a warning strike on Wednesday. (wah, with dpa)
The current agreement between the CDU and SPD also states: “The coalition will carry out the repatriation of the subsidiaries of the state-owned hospitals as quickly as possible.” But despite the approaching end of the legislative period, the coalition has not yet made any move to initiate reintegration.
The Charité colleagues were successful
Instead of waiting forever for reintegration, Verdi now wants to fight for alignment with the TVöD in terms of collective bargaining. Last year we were able to the employees of Charité Facility Management (CFM) achieved a respectable success at the sister company Charité. After 48 days of indefinite strike, the CFM employees agreed on a gradual alignment with the TVöD.
It is not yet clear whether the collective bargaining dispute at Vivantes will be similarly severe. This is contradicted by the fact that the wage gap with TVöD at the Vivantes subsidiaries is significantly smaller than it was at CFM before the last strike. As early as 2021, the employees won a collective agreement, whose level is 80 to 90 percent of the TVöD.
The Vivantes management is ready to negotiate. In the first round, they presented an offer that provided for gradual alignment with the TVöD – albeit spread over the next four years. The adjustment would only affect wages. Even then, regulations for company pension schemes, bonuses and Christmas bonuses remained significantly behind.
Outsourcing is an instrument of wage suppression
Elif Eralp, top candidate of the Left
After years of empty promises, employees’ patience is running out. “That is a very long time and is not 100 percent TVöD,” says collective bargaining commission member Sengül Kayakarabult, criticizing the Vivantes proposal. Anything short of immediate, full alignment would be a concession.
The coffers are tight
“The country has saved 19,000 euros on me in the last four years alone,” says surgical cleaner Plachetka – that is the amount that corresponds to the distance to TVöD. “We hardly get any new people. Many leave because there is simply not enough money.”
The employees’ willingness to fight is contradicted by the limited financial scope of the state-owned hospital group. In the second round of negotiations, Vivantes did not present an improved offer, only referred to the first proposal. The next round of negotiations will take place on Tuesday.
Vivantes argues that it is financially at its limit. The company is already running an annual deficit of 120 million euros. A financial restructuring program is intended to reduce the deficit to 10 million annually.
Dorothea Schmidt, managing director of human resources management at Vivantes, said the current offer would cost the company a further 50 million euros. “This is a financial feat for a company that is in the middle of a profound restructuring,” said Schmidt after the second round of negotiations.
The Senate could help
Who could act would be the state government. The Senate already offsets the hospital group’s deficit every year. In this respect, Vivante’s financial scope is largely determined by the state of Berlin. In addition, the hospitals have been structurally underfinanced for years, as the Berlin Hospital Association has criticized. Due to a lack of billions in funding, necessary investments are cross-financed from ongoing operations – and thus also from wages.
The approaching election date in September this year is very convenient for the strike movement. At the invitation of the strike rally, the left-wing top candidate Elif Eralp and the SPD co-chair Bettina König came to the fully occupied Münzbergsaal on Franz-Mehring-Platz. Christoph Wapler, labor policy spokesman for the Green Party, also stopped by to say hello. Only the CDU didn’t show up.
SPD member Bettina König made it clear in her welcoming speech that she was noticeably embarrassed by the seemingly never-ending story of reintegration: “It is still at the top of our agenda,” promised König. She will ensure that “soon, in a timely manner, it becomes a concrete reality”. This was not well received by the employees. “You’ve been telling us this for eight years! By the time that happens, I’ll be retired,” an older woman in a Verdi high-visibility vest commented on the speech.
The left-wing top candidate Elif Eralp, on the other hand, acted as if it had not been the SPD and the Left who had made the outsourcing possible in the 2000s and then missed the reintegration until the CDU election victory in 2023. “Outsourcing is an instrument of wage suppression,” said Eralp, adding that equalization of wages is the minimum, a question of justice. Nothing stands in the way of implementing reintegration. “Red-red-green has a majority, we can take the steps.”
Union secretary Frizzi Ruschka is nevertheless optimistic that faster alignment with the TVöD can be achieved. “The chances are good if your colleagues really put the pressure on.”