Germany – the land of strikes?

I just can’t be bothered…
I always thought of France as the land of protests and strikes. From baggage handlers taking time off which made me almost miss my flight at the airport to the recent closing down of the Eiffel Tower due to increasing numbers of pickpockets, the only news I hear from France is how the workers are on strike.
But now, I have noticed it’s a constant in London and Germany too. At home, there was one tube strike after the other – I find it hard to believe that every morning I would be spending literally extortionate amounts of money to be stuffed into a tiny tube carriage with far too many smelly people. If I got a seat, I felt lucky. When the strikes started, I would have to walk for miles to a station that worked or take my bike, which would often take over an hour each way and was exhausting over a few days. I was lucky if I could get to work in less than a couple of hours – seemingly a total waste of time.
Now in Germany, we have been affected just this year by three postal strikes and closing of our local postal branch. This week, once again, the workers disrupted the train system. We couldn’t get to our friends’ house last week, as the S-Bahn wasn’t in service. When we wanted to travel to Brandenburg, that was also cancelled. I love how the workers rights in Germany are protected to such a high extent, but the inconvenience is pretty awful.

In the UK, I heard the train drivers get around £40k a year. It can’t be very exciting sitting in a tube all day long, going through tunnels, but the 40 days off a year they get alongside free travel for themselves and their families is a pretty hefty bonus. When I think of how little money some of my friends (and myself for that matter) used to earn in London, it makes it hard to understand how people feel like it’s okay to make such a big drama even though they are lucky to have a job that in fact pays incredibly well in London. I wish I could earn that kind of salary and get that much holiday… When I do my homeless volunteering, the people are desperate for jobs and cannot understand how someone who earns enough money to eat and have a roof over their heads at night could even think about striking.

On the other hand, I understand that people are taken advantage of. At the clothing store I work at here in Berlin, we are creating a workers union, to make sure our views are represented legally and correctly to the managers. It’s a lot of work, but I can already see positive changes happening. There is already more conversation between workers and managers, which can only be a positive thing. I would hope that other companies, especially those in the emergency services, postal or transport sectors, where so many people rely on them to do their job, can also come to agreements before they have to resort to a strike.
Having learnt a lot about workers unions recently, I can see the struggles so many people face to have a fair and nice environment that they wish to go to work in, but it seems this is impossible in some cases. It’s just such a huge inconvenience to so many people, I would find it hard to agree to strike if I was working as a tube driver, but it’s impossible for anyone to understand it unless they are involved. I just hope that all these strikes stop soon, as it is starting to feel normal when we don’t get what we want to just go on strike and let everyone else suffer for it. It doesn’t seem very fair.
What do you think?