Germans face travel chaos as public transport workers stage nationwide strike

China

Germans face travel chaos as public transport workers stage nationwide strike

2026-02-28 13:17 Last Updated At：16:57

Public transport workers in several German states staged a strike on Friday amid a deadlock in labor negotiations, bringing train, tram, and bus services to a grinding halt and impacting millions of passengers. The strike, organized by the Verdi trade union, has seen varying durations across the country. In Berlin, the strike was set to last 48 hours, with public services expected to resume only in the early hours of Sunday.

The union said the strike aims to gain leverage in the ongoing negotiations over salaries and working conditions.

The wage talks involve around 150 public transport companies across Germany's federal states and cover roughly 100,000 employees, with specific demands differing from region to region.

Many employees participating in the strike emphasized that the current salary growth has failed to keep pace with the soaring inflation, leading to a significant decline in their real purchasing power.

"Due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, our cost of living in Berlin has indeed increased. For instance, rent, inflation, food, electricity, and energy, everything has gone up in price," said a driver of the Berlin Transportation Stock Company (BVG).

"Basically, everyone I know, including myself, has received a rent increase notice. Everyone is shocked when they go grocery shopping every week because they find the food so expensive. Basically, everyone is affected," said another BVG employee.

According to Verdi, there has been very little progress in the negotiations between labor and management, and it remains unclear when a formal agreement might be reached. This strike marks the second large-scale action in the current round of public transport wage talks. In early February, the first strike paralyzed public transportation across the majority of Germany.

Innovation, green transition highlights China's economic growth in 2025

China posted steady economic growth in 2025 driven by fast-growing innovation strength and progress in green transition, according to a communique released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Saturday.

Primary calculation indicated that China's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 increased by five percent year on year to reach a record of 140.1879 trillion yuan (about 20.44 trillion U.S. dollars), hitting the annual target, said the communique.

In breakdown, the value added of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries grew by 3.9 percent, 4.5 percent and 5.4 percent year on year, respectively.

Overall labor productivity stood at 184,413 yuan per capita, marking an increase of 6.1 percent over the previous year.

The country's new quality productive forces grew steadily in 2025, with the value added of high-tech manufacturing above designated size increasing by 9.4 percent year on year.

Specifically, the output of high-tech products such as service robots, memory chips and 3D printing equipment grew by 16.1 percent, 22.8 percent and 52.5 percent, respectively.

The country also made notable progress in the green and low-carbon transition, according to the communique.

Preliminary calculations showed that China's carbon dioxide emissions per 10,000 yuan of GDP decreased by 5.0 percent year on year in 2025.

The power generation from clean energy sources such as hydropower, nuclear power, wind power and solar power reached 4.2481 trillion kilowatt-hours, up 14.4 percent from the previous year.

China's overall employment remained stable in 2025, according to the communique. The average surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.2 percent, lower than the target of around 5.5 percent, and 12.67 million new urban jobs were created.