New: We're on strike.

How many days does it need until the city stinks in winter, if the garbage collectors are on strike? That's a question not really solved till yesterday for Germany, as there has been no strike since I can remember. But now all public employees in Hamburg are on strike since tuesday, and we have the answer: 5 days.

They are on strike for keeping 38 hrs work per week. They now have contracts for 38.5 hrs which should be boosted to 40 hrs. The employers try to ridicule the claim by denouncing it as "only 18 minutes more per day". And of course they have a safe job as only a few people else, the work is paid steadily and always on the 1st of the month - but on the other hand public workers are having overtimes for some years and job conditions worsen as well. I think in the end it will all be like in Freiburg: Public jobs are gonna be outsorced, and then the dust is gone again.