BERLIN – Germany’s Ver.di trade union has called for strikes on Monday at the country’s northern airports, including Berlin, which it said would most likely cause longer queues for passengers and flight cancellations.

The strikes will affect Berlin’s international airport, as well as the smaller airports of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen, the relevant regional branches of the services sector trade union said on Saturday in separate statements.

Ver.di said it was calling for security employees to strike at Berlin airport because of disputes over pay for working nights, weekends and bank holidays that had been going on for years.

The strike at the airport servicing airlines such as Lufthansa, easyJet and Air France-KLM would start in the early hours and finish late at night.

It will be the latest in a series of strikes and protests that have hit major European economies, including France, Britain and Spain, as higher food and energy prices knock incomes and living standards after the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine.

“Ver.di calls for appropriate pay for flight security personnel who are working at unfavourable times,” it said in a statement. “Supplements have not been improved since 2006, and we have been on and off negotiating a raise ever since 2013.”

The Hamburg branch of Ver.di said it was also striking over the regular pay rise offered to public sector employees of 2 per cent for the next 27 months and two one-off payments – of €1,500 (S$2,160) and €1,000 – which it said was not enough, given annual inflation running at around 9 per cent.

“Many families have lost a lot of money in the past years due to inflation and coronavirus,” said Mr Lars Stubbe, a Ver.di representative in Hamburg.

Late in February, the majority of flights at Germany’s Dusseldorf and Cologne Bonn regional airports were grounded by a 24-hour strike by Ver.di. REUTERS