The cash transport industry is on strike: is money getting scarce?

Cash may be scarce at ATMs in the coming days. The reason for this is a two-day warning strike across the country in the money transport industry. The union is also expecting visible effects due to the coming weekend.

Due to a national strike warning, consumers must prepare for cash shortages in the coming days. Since early morning, employees of companies that transport money and valuables in several federal states have stopped working. “We started in many places between 4am and 5am,” said a spokesman for the service union ver.di in Schwerin. That’s why only a few coin-operated van tours have started so far. “There are so many rounds that you will be seeing it in the next few days.”

The background to the warning strike is the salary and union negotiations for about 10,000 workers in the industry across the country. According to ver.di, the German Federal Association of Money and Valuable Services (BDGW) did not make an adequate offer in the second round of negotiations. Even after the subsequent warning strikes which lasted several days, no better offer was made. It is expected that negotiations between employers and the union will continue until Friday in Munich.

The effects may be visible until the middle of the week

As the warning strike is expected to last until Friday at 11:59pm and Saturday and Sunday are not regular weekdays in the industry, ver.di assumes that the impact could be felt until the middle of the week . “It will take a couple of days for things to settle down again.” Money could be tight. BDGW also confirms this. If the participation in the strike is high, “there will certainly be a selective effect on the availability of funds,” said the spokesperson Silke Zöller. However, the customers have also made preparations together with the service providers and , for example, they have larger ATMs in high-traffic areas.

In collective bargaining, the union demands that more than eight hours per workday be paid with overtime pay. In addition, it requires a uniform holiday bonus and a Christmas bonus each amounting to half of the total monthly salary and a holiday entitlement of 31 days based on a five-day week for each employee. In addition, ver.di is demanding a significant wage increase – to a maximum of 23 euros per hour in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony.