There is a Lufthansa airport shuttle from Munich airport to the main station. Runs every 20 min. Usually it is 1/2 full or less because it is a suboptimal solution for most, but if the airport S-Bahn connection is down it should be a substitute. Will be stuffed full, of course.

I don´t think that a S-Bahn is affected by the strikes against the railway.

Anyway, with 24h warning time, there should be time to arrange for more buses.

>I don´t think that a S-Bahn is affected by the strikes against the railway.

While S-Bahn München is somewhat separated from Deutsche Bahn, it is still a 100% subsidiary. I don´t know about details in S-Bahn engineers´work contracts.
U-Bahn certainly won´t be affected, though.

Deutsche Bahn is separated into several regional companies that all belong 100% to DB.

The strikes are scheduled to begin on Thursday. Based on what I read, freight traffic will be targeted first in a limited strike. The GDL does not want to say in advance which freight trains will be delayed.

If passenger trains are not going to operate, the GDL will give 24 hour notice.

The intent of the initial limited strike is bring to reason the senior leadership of the Deutsche Bahn leadership.

Wir hoffen, dass wir den Arbeitgeber mit diesem zeitlich befristeten Streik doch noch zur Räson bringen", sagte der GDL-Bundesvorsitzende Manfred Schell.

I think counting on passenger service between any two points is like playing Russian Roulette. The train may or may not run as scheduled.

The strike vote was 96% in favor. Do they have a secret ballot? I've never heard of that level of approval for anything outside the Soviet Bloc, so the drivers must indeed feel they are hard done by.

Having followed the more easily understood aspects of the threatened German rail strike, I now have a question that derives from the seeming growing number of piecemeal regional court decisions that lack consistency and unit. The basic question is this: How and when does a supreme court take charge and hand down a binding decision that covers all of Germany??

C/would of Fodorites who has more than a cursory knowledge of the German court system shed some light on what to me seems to be a growing legal tangle of complex decisions no two of which are fully alike.

Learning from this forum that the DB is made up of many subsidiaries headquartered in various German cities has made understanding a little easier but the big legal picture eludes me.

If a strike is to be averted, either one of the two men called pigheads by the Bild am Sonntag (German newspaper) must back down, or legal rulings must forbid the strike.

In direct reference to this issue, I have reproduced below the original German text I just read. Here is what I understand from it.

The labor court in Chemnitz has ruled in Saxony that the GDL may not call a strike. With the decision, the DB Regional Network Traffic found its legal motion fully supported by the labor court. The union will not be allowed to strike in the area of the DB subsidiary. The court ruling affects neighboring rail lines. Included are ...

Trains that carry cars and their passengers will not be struck because a valid wage agreement is in existence that had not yet been terminated.


Arbeitsgericht Chemnitz
Einige Lokführer dürfen nicht streiken

Die Lokführergewerkschaft GDL darf nach einer Gerichtsentscheidung in Sachsen nicht zum Streik aufrufen. Damit setzte sich die DB Regio Netzverkehr mit ihren Forderungen in vollem Umfang vor dem Arbeitsgericht Chemnitz durch, wie ein Gerichtssprecher sagte. Der Gewerkschaft wurden demnach der Aufruf zum Streik und die Durchführung im Gebiet der Bahntochter verboten. Von dem Beschluss betroffen sind Nebenbahnen in Deutschland, wie etwa die Erzgebirgsbahn in Sachsen, die Kurhessenbahn und die Oberweißbacher Berg- und Schwarzatalbahn in Thüringen.

Auf die DB Autozug will mit einer Klage vor dem Arbeitsgericht in Frankfurt am Main einen Arbeitskampf der Lokomotivführer verhindern. Das Urteil ist noch nicht gefallen. Ein GDL-Anwalt sagte dazu, dass Autozüge ohnehin nicht bestreikt sollten, da es dort einen gültigen Tarifvertrag gebe, der auch noch nicht gekündigt worden sei.