The Railway and Transport Union (EVG) is pushing for a law imposing tougher penalties for attacks on train staff, and is otherwise threatening a nationwide shutdown in regional rail transport. The promised law "must reach the Bundestag this year, otherwise we will bring operations to a standstill in January," EVG head Martin Burkert said on Sunday. According to the Justice Ministry, the law is currently going through internal coordination within the government.
In February, 36-year-old train conductor Serkan C. was attacked with punches to the head during a ticket inspection in Rhineland-Palatinate by a 26-year-old man travelling without a ticket. The conductor suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage. At the beginning of July, the perpetrator was sentenced to ten years in prison for causing bodily harm resulting in death.
Union leader Burkert criticised: "On the part of the politicians there were stricken faces and grand words, but no action." He accused the government of a "refusal to work." "The politicians have forgotten Serkan. We have not."
The federal government announced a law to strengthen criminal-law protection of the community at the end of 2025; in February, Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) indicated that railway employees, like paramedics, firefighters, doctors and nursing staff, would be included as a particularly at-risk occupational group.
The Justice Ministry stated on Sunday that the draft law was still in internal coordination within the government. The aim, it said, is for the Bundestag to be able to "deliberate on and, if appropriate, adopt" the draft this year.
Should that fail to happen, EVG works councils intend to reject the January duty rosters at Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB Regio and at private regional rail operators, something they are legally entitled to do, as the EVG stressed. This would not be a strike in the legal sense. Strikes aimed at achieving political goals are not permitted in Germany; the right to strike under the Basic Law is limited to collective bargaining objectives.
The chairman of the general works council at DB Regio, Ralf Damde, said: "If politicians and state authorities do not want to protect us, then we have to protect ourselves." If the law continues to gather dust in the ministry, "we as works councils will refuse our approval of the duty rosters. Political standstill will then become train standstill."
Damde emphasised: "Statistically speaking, eight colleagues are attacked on duty every day." Nobody, he said, knows before their shift whether they will get home unharmed. "That is a statistic of shame."
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