The Industrial action in the 280 public daycare centers leads to millions in losses for the five municipal companies. According to information from the Tagesspiegel, the municipal company Southeast alone could be short six million euros as a result of the cancellation of daycare places.
“We are currently in a serious crisis,” says a letter from the Southeast municipal company to its employees. The letter has been obtained by the Tagesspiegel. According to management, over 100 terminations have been received for the new daycare year. The parents stated that they were “concerned that the childcare situation will become further destabilized due to the strike announcements.”
In addition, there were fewer new registrations than expected. As a result, only 3,800 children attended the daycare centers instead of around 4,250. But this is reflected in dwindling state subsidies.
The calculation is simple, as the state pays an average of 1,260 euros per child per month. If 400 children are missing, the company will receive half a million euros less per month. So, over the course of a year, six million euros will be missing, while the other expenses will continue as before.
It may not be possible to completely avoid implementations within our own company.
The management of the Southeast municipal enterprise in a letter to its employees.
Although there is no talk of staff layoffs yet, the management makes it clear that there are now around 100 more “people” on board than are financed by the state. The letter also states that “transfers within our own company may not be completely avoidable. But: We don’t want to lose any of you!” But to do this, new children must be recruited at all costs.
In this respect, however, things are looking bad, because the next warning strike is scheduled for this Thursday. Parents are very upset about this, said State parent representative Guido Lange the Tagesspiegel, and also “surprised” because before the ballot on the enforcement strike on 19 September, no one had expected another warning strike. As reported, Verdi wants to use the strike to new collective agreement achieve: It should not be about higher salaries as usual, but about relief: fewer children should have to be cared for per educator.
Verdi spokesman Kalle Kunkel justifies the strike day by saying that they want to show their determination. In addition, the warning strike will be accompanied by a rally in front of the House of Representatives, which will have its first session after the summer break on Thursday. The GEW is once again striking and demonstrating alongside Verdi.
However, Verdi cannot count on much support in the House of Representatives: the previous red-green-red government had already rejected the GEW’s efforts to achieve a comparable “relief collective agreement” for teachers. The same applies to the current coalition of the CDU and SPD.
The Senate warns that Berlin would be excluded from the collective bargaining association of German states (TdL) if it concluded such a collective agreement, because this would once again decouple Berlin from the collective bargaining development, as has already happened. Verdi does not accept this argument and refers to the NRW university hospitals: They left the TdL in 2022 without any problems in order to be able to conclude a “relief collective agreement”.
Will the country go to court?
Tariff experts counter that the university hospitals are self-sufficient bodies, while the municipal companies belong directly to the state of Berlin. The case is therefore not comparable at all. If the strike vote results in 75 percent approval for the strike, the experts expect the state to take legal action because the size of the daycare centers is “not subject to tariffs.” Similar things are allegedly being heard from the youth administration.
It is still completely unclear whether Verdi will clear the 75 percent hurdle. There is no clear line in the daycare centers: some daycare centers are completely blocked, others hardly at all. However, there is great concern about parents quitting.
There is no overall overview of the number of dismissals. In the meantime, the figure of 700 dismissals was circulating, but this only applied to three of the five company-owned companies, it is said, and no reasons were given.
The fact is that the state parents’ committee warned of the consequences of the strike from the very beginning, because parents are extremely dependent on childcare. Since there is now a surplus of daycare places in many places, it has become easier to get by without the in-house operations, as many independent providers offer places.
Parents’ understanding for the strike is also limited because the unions have been able to push through salary increases of over 40 percent in the educator profession since 2018. The next increase from February 2025 has already been decided. When starting out in the profession, you will then earn 3,625 euros with allowances, and after 15 years of work, 4,815 euros a month.
