DB Cargo: Dispute over “transformation plans” continues 19/02/24
< Back to listAuthor: Eurailpress editorial team
DB Cargo: Dispute over “transformation plans” continues
The board of DB Cargo AG is currently apparently still planning to end the company's combined transport business and shift it to the subsidiaries MEG, RBH (continental combined transport) and TFG (maritime combined transport). This is part of the “transformation” that is intended to bring DB Cargo back into the black.
According to information from circles of the DB Cargo Supervisory Board, which met extraordinary on February 16, 2024, there are now two “white papers” with measures. A third has been announced, more could follow. DB Cargo does not provide any information on operational and regional details of the planned measures, on the overall strategy of the transformation and on the actual economic benefits of the overall measure. “It is a wrong approach, firstly, to separate the KV, which is always mentioned as a growth market, from the parent company and, secondly, to make the transformation process bypass the employees,” says Cosima Ingenschay, deputy chairwoman of the Railway and Transport Union (EVG). For its part, EVG made various suggestions as to how a transformation of DB Cargo could work without outsourcing the KV from the parent company. According to information from AR circles, DB's current plans include production and sales in commercial transport and provide for the reduction of 1,600 to 1,800 jobs at DB Cargo. The reduction is to be achieved through age-related departures and fluctuation as well as through a shift to the company's internal labor market (DB Jobservice). The subsidiaries should therefore hire new train drivers - in very difficult labor market conditions. The tariff conditions there are different than at DB Cargo AG. There is still no detailed information on the areas of single wagon transport (EWV) and block train transport, which DB Cargo apparently wants to operate as a “rail logistics provider”. Sales for these areas could be dealt with in the third white paper, observers suspect. If employers and employees cannot agree on the future of DB Cargo, an arbitration board could be brought in.