Doctors strike at the university clinics

As of Monday, thousands of doctors at the university hospitals will be leaving their work

04/11/2011

From next Monday, the doctors at numerous university hospitals throughout Germany are expected to resign from work. With the strike, the doctors want to enforce their demand for a salary increase, which also provides higher wages for night work.

Already in June, the medical union Marburger Bund (MB) had submitted the demand for a tariff increase of 6.3 percent, with five percent based on linear salary increases and the rest is earmarked for a better compensation for night work. But with the negotiating partner, the tariff community of the countries (TdL), such tariff increase was not to do. The TdL negotiator of the Lower Saxony Minister of Finance Hartmut Möllring (CDU) was massively opposed to such an adjustment of medical fees at the university clinics.

Strike at the university clinics in Germany
All over Germany doctors will go on strike on Monday at the university clinics. This applies to the university clinics in southern Germany as well as to Freiburg, Heidelberg or Tübingen as well as to the medical college in Hannover or the university hospitals in the far north as in Kiel and Lübeck. A total of 23 university clinics have joined the strike call and on November 24, the doctors want to give their claims with a major demonstration in Hanover additional weight. The indefinite work stoppages could drag on for months, so the concern of the experts such as the MHH Vice President Andreas Tecklenburg. The hope of the Marburg federation before Monday to reach an agreement with the TdL, goes to zero. After the members of the Marburger Bund had voted in favor of the strike in a ballot with 97.4 percent, the negotiating partners on the side of the countries reacted in surprise, but an increased willingness to respond to the demands of the medical profession was not apparent. The doctors are calling for a tariff increase of 6.3 percent overall, with five percent intended to be linear salary increases and the remainder of the adjustments to better pay for night work. At present, the doctors of the university clinics for full work at night only receive a surcharge of € 1.28 per hour, which is a medical „imposition“ same, the „Expression of lack of esteem for their work“ said the first chairman of the Marburger Bund, Rudolf Henke.

Doctors at university hospitals so far disadvantaged
As justification for the rather extensive demands the medical union called clear financial disadvantages of the physicians in the university hospitals opposite doctors of other carriers. At the university clinics are the doctors „have fallen behind in the past two years“, emphasized Rudolf Henke. According to the experts, the university clinics urgently need „Connection to the tariff policy development, otherwise the problems in the recruitment of new talent and the acquisition of specialists will be aggravated.“ In addition, must „Excellent medicine can be paid much better“, so continue Henke. Since the negotiating partners of the collective bargaining community of the countries were not willing to support the demands of the doctors, the Marburger Bund had declared collective bargaining after five rounds of negotiations at the end of September for failed and called the approximately 20,000 doctors at the university hospitals to strike. Starting Monday, the work stoppage will begin in 23 university clinics. According to the doctors' union and the hospital management, emergency care for the patients is guaranteed at all times despite the strike. (Fp)

Image: Stephanie Hofschlaeger