U-Bahns and trams run by the Berliner Verkehrsbetrieben (BVG) will come to a standstill for 48 hours on Wednesday and Thursday. Here’s what locals need to know:
German trade union ver.di has called on members working for the BVG, the local public transport association in Berlin, to strike on March 26 and 27.
Strike action means that all U-Bahn and tram services across the city will come to a standstill starting at 3am on Wednesday and finishing at 3am on Friday. Services may also run irregularly in the hours immediately after the strike ends.
Unlike during the warning strikes of previous weeks, certain bus services will run during the 48-hour action. According to the BVG, 34 of the city’s bus routes will run a full service, and seven routes will run a partial service. You can find the full list of running routes on the BVG website.
The industrial action will not impact S-Bahn and regional trains since these services are run by Deutsche Bahn.
In 2025, BVG employees have already gone on strike four times. On March 21, a sixth negotiation round between BVG bosses and ver.di representatives was unfruitful. Ver.di consequently announced the fifth and imminent strike.
Ver.di has been negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement on behalf of BVG employees. Employees haven’t seen a pay rise for several years, resulting in real wage losses. The union is pushing for a gradual rise of 750 euros per month over the next 12 months and a Christmas bonus payment.
Currently, Berlin’s public transport drivers are the lowest-paid drivers across all 16 German federal states, despite the city being the third-most expensive in the country for renting a house.
Since an agreement has not yet been met, indefinite BVG strikes are increasingly likely. Between March 26 and April 4, ver.di plans to hold a vote on indefinite strike action, which would need approval from 75 percent of BVG employees who are ver.di members to go ahead.
If they were to vote in favour, it is yet unclear how long the unlimited action would last. During a prolonged negotiation period in 2008, BVG traffic was disrupted for a total of six weeks over a three-month period.
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