A 40 Million Euro Gap: Why 26,000 University Hospital Workers Are on Strike in Germany
Published on 06/15/2026 at 05:32 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The University Hospital in Tübingen expects a €10 million deficit for this year. If the union ver.di gets its way in current contract talks, that shortfall could quadruple to roughly €40 million annually. That stark calculation explains why employers are refusing to even table an offer — and why thousands of staff are now walking out.
Around 26,000 employees across four university hospitals in Baden-Württemberg — Freiburg, Heidelberg, Tübingen, and Ulm — have been called to warning strikes on Monday and Tuesday. The walkout, organised by the services union ver.di, targets the second round of negotiations scheduled for Wednesday, June 17.
While emergency and acute care will continue uninterrupted, patients face longer waits and cancelled elective surgeries. Rallies are planned at all four sites.
Behind the industrial action stands a wage demand that both sides see as fundamentally unbridgeable for now. Ver.di is asking for a 7.5 percent pay increase, with a floor of €320 more per month per employee. Apprentices would receive an extra €250 monthly, plus a mobility subsidy in the form of a Deutschlandticket.
Lead negotiator Jakob Becker criticised the employer side for delivering no proposal at all during the first round. Worse, he said, the employer association AGU had terminated the existing rationalisation protection collective agreement — a move that, according to the union, now opens the door to dismissals. “That has further poisoned the mood among the workforce,” Becker said.
Employers counter that the demands are simply unattainable. Udo Kaisers, a board member of AGU and the chief medical director at Ulm University Hospital, described the union’s proposals as impossible to meet. He pointed to the hospitals’ precarious finances and noted that a promised €1,000 relief premium from the federal government has yet to materialise.
Kaisers urged ver.di to cancel the strikes and return to the table with more realistic expectations. So far, the union has shown no sign of backing down. Whether Wednesday’s second round will produce an employer offer — or any movement — remains uncertain.
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