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Teachers set to walk out on Tuesday

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Teachers set to walk out on Tuesday
A teacher putting up a strike poster in 2013. Photo: DPA

Teachers plan to walk out in turn on Tuesday after the first in a series of nation-wide public sector strikes took place at the University Hospital in Essen on Monday.

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The United Public Service Union (Verdi) has called upon the police, fire services and state administrations, as well as teachers, to strike in a dispute over salaries and pensions - although the teachers are the only ones to have set dates for their walkouts.

The strike comes after negotiations between Verdi, the German education trade union (GEW) and the wage commission of the federal states (TdL) failed to reach agreement on Friday.

The strikes are set to continue throughout the week.

Verdi spokesperson Karin Hesse told NDR that "it is totally incomprehensible that the employer [TdL] has failed to put any offer forward."

The trade unions are demanding an annual increase of 5.5 percent to teachers' salaries, including a minimum increase of €175 per month.

Negotiations are reported to have hit complications over employees' demands for changes to pension schemes and salary brackets.

The first strikes took place on Monday at the University Hospital in Essen, where at least 200 employees went on strike.

Tuesday sees the first teacher strikes, which will affect several states, and in which 200,000 state employees are set to participate.

In Berlin, primary school teachers are to strike for the whole day on Tuesday.

GEW said that other states to be affected are Nordrhein-Westfalen, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt und Thüringen.

The next round of negotiations are set to take place in the middle of March.

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