I don't want to be 28
and no longer able to practice the profession I love
just because I'm worn out from work!
In the summer of 2022, the university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia
were in a state of emergency.
More of us is better for everyone.
It was the biggest strike in the history of our health system.
Not about money, but for more staff.
It depends on him how we and our loved ones are cared for,
should something happen to us.
Nevertheless, little was reported about it.
Many people only heard about it in passing.
That's why I'm trying
to tell a more complete story of the strike in this film.
My name is Jonas Alter and I have accompanied three health workers
through the entire eleven weeks of the strike.
Hi, I'm Kira.
I'm 27 years old and an intensive care nurse at the University Hospital of Cologne.
It was clear to me very early on that
I wanted to pursue a social profession.
I wanted to study at some point, not to become a doctor, but a psychologist.
I did a year of voluntary social service at an ambulance station
and had so much fun during the hospital internship.
This made me realise that that's my field.
I then decided to do an apprenticeship in nursing
and have no regrets about it.
My name is Dominik Stark.
I am 31 years old and I came to nursing care indirectly.
Back then at school I didn't really know
what I actually wanted to do for a living
and then I did a work placement at the hospital.
It gives me a lot,
when I see the gratitude of the people.
When they are in difficult moments, they realise that there is someone
who really gets stuck in, who wants to help them, who is there for them
and then also to have conversations with the relatives afterwards
and to hear that they are grateful.
That gives me an incredible amount in return and it also fills me with pride.
And it makes me very happy, I have to say.
I'm Carola.
I am 57 years old and I have been working at the University Hospital in Münster for 32 years.
I had an aunt, or rather she is still alive,
who was in a convent
and she was a nurse in various hospitals.
And when I was a child, we always visited her.
On Saturdays or on Sundays.
And that's why even as a child it was clear to me
that when I grew up, I wanted to be a nurse.
I think it's really great that you can help people
who are helpless in a situation and that's what sick people are, yes,
that you can help them, either to come back to life
or to die a reasonable death,
to die with dignity.
And that's also part of our job.
For several years now,
the nice and fulfilling aspects are increasingly being lost
and fewer and fewer see their future in the hospital professions.
The way things are going,
I can't imagine it lasting much longer,
because it's just not the purpose of the whole thing.
I have had terminal care, where I just couldn't be at the deathbed
of the patient with him
and couldn't take away the pain
or couldn't put him in a position where he might be
more calm, where he feels comfortable and where he might also have better
breathing, because I simply didn't have time.
The relatives tried to talk to me,
but I was had to rush from room to room
and I just couldn't find the words
at a time when they're losing their closest relative,
and that does something to you.
At some point, the whole thing bordered on exploitation.
I kept getting calls, asking if I could quickly cover a shift or
WhatsApp messages or whatever.
I felt like I was never left alone by this hospital.
And that was the point where I said it can't go on like this.
The nursing staff are overworked
and no longer have enough time for their patients.
This can have sad consequences.
I had to watch a patient die while rushing around
because there were not enough staff.
That's why no one could be with him in his last minutes.
He was alone.
Now you might think that was just because of Corona, but it's not.
Understaffing is the norm.
I've been blaming myself for not looking into his room beforehand.
If I had looked into the room beforehand,
I might have been able to prevent the patient
playing with the remote control of the bed
and would have saved a life.
Not the person with their illness counts,
what counts is how much money we can make from the patient.
Now I have to lie to patients on the phone who are not privately insured
and say: Today we have no free bed.
Because we were so busy,
we had to limit the damage.
None of us had time to provide adequate care.
I was afraid,
at the same time I was angry
and once again couldn't understand
how it can be justified,
that at night in an emergency room only one nurse is present.
The workers of the university hospitals did not want to continue like this.
They had given their employers 100 days
to start negotiations with them.
But nothing happened.
And so began on the 4th of May
the indefinite strike at all six university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia.
What we demand and what we want to demand,
that is simply humane care in hospitals
for the patients, but also especially for all of us who work there
and have been working our asses off for years.
And we will provide good care in the future
with a reasonable number of staff, I'd say.
We are here, we are loud,
because you are stealing our free time!
We are here, we are loud,
because you are stealing our free time!
The first day was full of euphoria
and Kira and Dominik also had high hopes for this strike.
I also wanted to encourage young people
who are interested in this profession
or have decided to work in this profession,
that they remain in the profession in the long term and sustainably.
That's why, when this strike came up,
I immediately said I'm in, because anything else would be nonsense.
Because for me
it was clear relatively early on
that I need a plan B
because I won’t last till retirement under these circumstances,
It is physically impossible, you simply can't.
Apart from that,
I probably wouldn't be able to keep up mentally either
and I had been wondering for a while what my plan B might be.
And suddenly there was another door,
where you realised, okay, that's crazy!
If only
my everyday situation would change,
then I can do the job maybe until I retire!
TV-E for us in NRW!
To stem the shortage of staff, the strikers wanted
a comprehensive ‘collective relief agreement’, in short TV-E,
in other words, a contract with the employer that would bindingly stipulate
the minimum number of people who have to work in a department.
The movement's larger goal, however, is to change the way policymakers think.
Because the whole health system is simply broken and will not be fixed,
if we continue as we are.
And so a collective relief agreement
is a first good step
to change the direction of the health system and to reform it.
That was on the 23rd of May.
That was my birthday,
where we went for the first time as delegates,
to Cologne.
Do you want collective bargaining?
How many people are you here today?
What was the weather like in Essen, when you set off?
Can we find someone who, to thunderous applause,
comes to the front and reports from Essen?
Thunderous applause!
Things are, totally good with us.
There were a lot of people back at the strikers' tent this morning
and there are 40 of us here now.
We're doing well.
Enthusiastic,
motivated to the hilt
and we thought we'd get it all done quickly.
The strike's council of delegates is meeting for the first time in Cologne.
All organised areas of the six university hospitals have elected team delegates
to represent them,
and 200 of them were elected to the council.
So were Carola and Dominik.
Today they are preparing for the negotiations with the employer,
starting the next day.
Today we meet in the individual areas
with the individual wards, with the individual professional groups
and try to prepare as much as possible in a short time
so that you can start the negotiations well,
so that you are prepared to gather arguments,
so that you can argue...
We have said from the beginning that this movement is grassroots,
and depends on each and every individual.
That means we have broken up
old union patterns and said:
There is no such thing as person XYZ at the top deciding everything
and at the end of the day we are then informed of the decision,
but we decide together.
From the negotiating table, it goes back to the bargaining commission.
The bargaining commission passes it on to the council of delegates,
the council of delegates to the team delegates and the team delegates to the team.
And of course the response from the team was fed back accordingly.
You can imagine that it's not that easy
with so many thousands of people who took part.
But we tried hard and tried to
include every single person
and that was unique.
From the very beginning, the employees were allowed to
have more of a say than in the day-to-day running of the hospital,
or in the usual wage negotiations of the trade union.
The demands of the strike were also set out together.
18 days before the end of the ultimatum, at a meeting of all active members in Oberhausen.
Oberhausen,
that was the first event where I really took part,
where all departments of the various hospital locations came together,
so for me, for example,
all the people from the intensive care units who were then, very specifically,
introduced to what the demands were
from their own hospitals, and then combined these to a general standard.
Today is not a working day, today is strike day!
We are here in Fulda for the collective agreement, the other thing we are doing…
We want a TV-E for us in NRW!
TV-E for us in NRW!
Louder!
Today, employees from all six university hospitals came together in Cologne.
Not much has happened yet in the negotiations for the contract.
But the strike has already achieved a lot.
More and more are organising in the union and getting involved.
So I have to say that I am extremely enthusiastic about the last four weeks
am incredibly enthusiastic about how many people
have managed to become active,
how many people are now coming together here on the streets,
how we have organised ourselves
and people you didn't know before, who maybe didn't dare
to say anything, suddenly come out of themselves.
This atmosphere, which has now developed here
in the last month, is incredible and we all have the feeling
that together we can finally make a difference.
Squeeze hands if you know colleagues
who have given up the job because of the high levels of stress.
If you've ever thought about quitting everything.
We've all been there.
Squeeze hands if you've ever driven home
and didn't know if all the traffic lights were really green.
Squeeze hands if you have struggled in the last few weeks with
whether you can go on strike because you don't want to abandon
your patients or colleagues.
Squeeze hands if you have met people in the past few weeks
that you haven’t met before
and if in the last few weeks you have felt courage
and hope again, which you had lost.
Give me a hand,
if you believe that we are currently changing
what our work will look like in the future,
squeeze the hand.
if you believe that this movement will last
and you are willing to work for it.
Now let's gather our strength again to see this through to the end.
Until we have a collective agreement that is fair to us.
We will win! - We will win!
We deserve more! - We deserve more!
We decide how we work in the future.
Because more of us is better for everyone!
More of us is better for everyone!
More of them is better for all of us.
We have noticed this particularly during the Corona pandemic.
However, the problem of staff shortages is not new,
but the result of a longer development,
which Carola has experienced in full.
It was 1985 when I started my training.
I had the impression that there were enough staff.
I also didn't have the impression that my colleagues were stressed.
And I never had the feeling
that I am now completely exhausted, overworked, overwhelmed,
which then changed...
This was already becoming apparent at the end of the 90s,
when it was announced that the hospitals had to be profitable.
That wasn't the case before,
but then they got the money from the state just as they needed it.
But that became too expensive.
That's why in the 90s they started to
commercialise the hospitals.
The Federal Minister Ms Ulla Schmidt.
In 2004, under Health Minister Ulla Schmidt,
radical changes were made how hospitals receive money
with the introduction of the flat-rate per-case or DRG system.
Karl Lauterbach played a major role in its development.
Since then, hospitals have received a certain amount of money for each patient.
For hospital it pays to perform more operations, even on sicker patients
and save on staff.
This is how the private clinics can generate more profit.
The university hospitals have to use the money to at least cover their own expenses.
We had enough staff, we had enough equipment, everything was great.
Then, at the beginning of the 2000s, they brought
these people into the administration to make sure that the red pen was used.
And they did that in a big way.
In terms of personnel planning, that meant
we had to work three weekends in a row.
They abolished maternity cover and
they didn't hire any new people either.
That means that the colleagues who had completed their training
were standing on the street unemployed
and could see how they made ends meet.
They had to register as unemployed, they didn't get any jobs.
And it was like a slap in the face, where I thought
What's the point of this? And that's when they started
to dismantle medical schools through consulting firms.
And it was already clear
that at some point it would hit the wall.
Because people there didn't put up with it and said,
I'll see to it that I change job and do something else.
Then, of course, the demographic change over the years comes into it
and at some point there were not enough of us.
The permanent under- staffing only ensured
that there would be strikes.
But what happens to the patients
when people don't go to work anymore?
How is their safety guaranteed?
That is the job of the strike committee.
Because if there are too few employees on a ward,
they call a few strikers into the morning shift.
One person to the paediatric intensive care unit and one to the paediatric area please
The minimum number of people who have to work in each area
is clarified in the emergency service agreement.
At the beginning of the shift, the strikers always come to the picket line.
There they decide whether they can stay outside
or have to go on emergency duty.
...two have to be there.
But we have all that in the spread-sheet, don't we?
Exactly, that's all in this master spread-sheet,
where we see how many beds are there
and how that affects the emergency staffing.
The minimum staffing level is smaller than normal,
because only the most necessary things are done and some beds are closed.
Just because we close beds doesn't mean
that we are putting any people on the street.
We planned and announced this beforehand.
That means that the employer knew
how strong strike participation is and how many beds have to be closed
then the employer has enough time to transfer these patients
to other hospitals.
Yes, I can understand that people see this critically.
But we still care for people who
have the need for care in a university clinic.
They are still with us.
Every day, the university hospitals lose money,
because many treatments are carried out at other hospitals.
After 37 days, this pressure seems to start working.
The employers are making counter- offers for the very first time.
Kira was sitting in on the negotiations for intensive care.
There is no unanimous opinion.
For us in Cologne, the offer would already be an improvement.
In other hospitals it wouldn’t.
But that's why we're all doing this together,
because we want the results to benefit everyone.
But basically we are all quite positive because it's
better than expected.
It's a real high. That's totally awesome.
Finally a start, even if it took far too long.
But now things really get going.
We have to think about how we feed back
what we just discussed.
For the intensive care unit, that was already a major step forward.
But the patient transport
or patient service did not even receive an offer!
And the central emergency wards were offered
that everything would remain as it is.
In Cologne the central emergency department
and the affiliated ward and specialised treatment rooms
have only four nurses on night duty.
That's just enough for a single resuscitation.
What happened in the days that followed,
however, further strained the relationship
between the employers and the strikers even further.
TV-E also for the UKW.
Now, after a 100-day ultimatum and after a 40-day strike
the employers see that they can't get out of this one.
The pressure on them and on us is growing.
The University Hospital of Bonn
is trying to stop the strike by taking legal action.
The Bonn hospital management has filed a temporary injunction
to end the strike.
Management doubts whether staffing levels can be determined by a strike at all.
I'll talk about that with Professor Holzgräber, the chairman of the board.
The question is
what ratio of caregivers to patients is right?
You can imagine, they vary greatly
whether it's in a skin clinic or in an intensive care unit.
These are very different Staffing ratios.
But determining them is not easy.
What is adequate and right?
And there is the question: Who is responsible for this?
In Germany, there are committees
there is the so-called Joint Federal Committee,
there is an InEK institute.
There is another issue:
is a strike at all possible in the situation
And what do you do next?
If you have no clarity, you can consult the legal system.
That is an option in a constitutional state.
That is why politicians
so often address the Federal Constitutional Court,
so that they then clarify fundamental issues.
TV-E for us in NRW!
The lawsuit has the potential consequence of
nullifying the strike and the collective agreement completely
and with it the hopes of the employees for a better future.
What do you think of that?
What do you think?
It’s shit!
The Cologne strikers demand in a letter,
that their board of directors distances itself from the behaviour of the Bonn University Hospital.
We, the staff on strike here,
are very disappointed with the situation at the University Hospital Bonn
and feel that this step is a major breach of trust towards us.
During the last negotiations, it became apparent
that we are moving in a constructive direction towards a positive outcome
for the hospitals in North Rhine- Westphalia and their employees.
Both federal state politics and you as clinic management,
assured us that there will be a collective relief agreement.
For this reason, we are all the more irritated that
this project is being attacked.
But we did expect
that such steps would be taken at some point,
because it is relatively common for lawsuits to be filed at some point.
That's why we were already prepared.
Especially as a member of the bargaining commission,
We were told much more precisely what the situation is
and what the consequences might be,
it was of course also very clear to us:
If we lose this, the strike is over, the leverage is gone
and in the worst case, we get nothing.
Today the court will decide whether the strike will be stopped.
That's why all six university hospitals in Bonn have come together
to show their anger.
When an employer takes such a shitty action,
you're bound to get a reaction.
And it's clear that we, all six university hospitals, stand together
and we won't let ourselves be beaten.
Carina, a surgical assistant from Bonn,
is coming with us to the courtroom today.
So we've taken a lot of night shifts over the weekend
many night shifts to prepare well for this trial.
We have all the other five university hospitals behind us.
We have the strikers behind us,
and I am confident that we will win this case.
Nevertheless, it is of course very exciting.
You never know what the judge is like.
It remains very exciting, but I'm feeling positive.
Okay, we have to get in.
Well, if the court decides
that our strike is illegal,
then we are liable to prosecution if we continue to strike.
That would mean that from tomorrow we would all go back to work.
Business as usual .
and we've gained nothing. .
During the court hearing, the employees' demonstration starts.
Many are angry.
If the strike is banned, everything will stay the same.
They will continue to work under- staffed, further endangering patients,
and continue to burn out.
Today is not a working day, today is a day of strike!
Collective relief agreement now!
The hearing is over
and Carina is coming back from the courtroom to announce the verdict.
We are still waiting until everyone is standing and everyone can hear.
My favourite saying about this strike is that
we are only going back to take another run at it.
And today we really took a run at it
and we won the thing!
In the end, it was about 40 surgeries being cancelled every day.
But the judge also agreed with us that
these surgeries are not necessarily dependent on a university hospital,
and that there are enough hospitals in the area that
can take care of these patients.
And that in a strike situation, it is just not the best time to plan surgeries.
It was pretty hyped up at some point.
The mood was very frosty, at some point she also became aggressive,
banging on the table and everything.
And then they considered what kind of sentence had now been passed.
And the judge with her two colleagues
withdrew for half an hour.
And then the trembling really started.
We were confident that we would make it,
but you only really know for sure when you hear the verdict.
And then the half an hour was up.
We sat there anxiously and then the verdict was announced
that we had won and that our strike could not
be declared illegal and that we could continue to strike for
better staffing and for better working conditions.
The demonstrators have won.
But the other side is taking the matter to the next higher court.
The clinic management is defending itself against the TV-E,
but emphasises that they are taking other measures
to ensure more staff and relief,
for example, more flexible working hours, bonuses and more days off.
We recruit abroad because, in the current situation in Germany,
not in the federal state itself,
we can't find the required number of nurses.
That means we are doing a great deal to actually provide relief
through more carers.
And in this respect, there is absolutely no contradiction at all between
what the union Verdi means by relief and what we are doing.
At the University Hospital in Bonn, there are many nurses who
have come from the Philippines to work in Germany.
Chuck is one of them.
But there is still no answer if a collective agreement will be concluded
and whether the international workers get the extended training period.
Today they are demonstrating in Düsseldorf because many departments
still have not received an offer from the employers.
Since 2020, hospitals have been reimbursed the money that they spent
for bedside nursing care. It is being refinanced.
But in many areas there is still a need to save money.
This also applies to Ellis' department, the patient service.
Patient service is ward work.
We provide the patients with food and drink,
we order the food, so everything to do with the meals.
Then we do a lot of cleaning.
We clean
the bedside cabinets in the rooms,
when patients are discharged, these beds are reprocessed.
We restock materials.
So all the work that relieves the nurses.
If there are staff shortages in patient services,
then more work is added to the work of the nursing staff.
And then they are under more time pressure.
The nurses were very poorly staffed, under stress,
and were just getting the insulin syringes ready for the diabetics
and they said: No, wait, we don't have time now.
I said that the patient was cramping on the bed
and that he had already used the call bell.
Then they dropped everything and went to the room.
They immediately called the people from the other ward
and they came with this trolley.
I quickly moved my food trolley, moved on
and I think they resuscitated the patient.
That's all I saw,
what exactly happened.
I can't see it so well, because I can't sleep
when something like that happens.
Soon after that, the one wing of the ward was then also closed,
due to staff shortages.
Putting patients at risk does not only arise
when there are not enough staff at the bedside.
A lack of staff in the non-refinanced areas
such as patient transport can have terrible consequences.
My colleague had brought an oxygen-dependent patient
to the radiology department.
After his examination, the patient had to wait three hours
waiting for his pickup.
He passed away unnoticed.
Due to lack of oxygen,
because there was no staff to notice
that his oxygen tank had run out.
In principle, patients can
only be well cared for
if there are enough staff in all professional groups .
from the cleaning staff, from the laboratory and from the nursing staff,
from the daycare centre, from the technical staff to the therapy staff.
A hospital is a huge organisation
with many cogs, with many professional areas.
We need relief in all areas,
to ensure patient care. .
That's what we're here for.
The same day was also the first meeting of the new state parliament.
The very first vote of the new legislative period
was about the legal amendment that is needed so that the university hospital
can independently conclude a TV-E. .
The next day they had to decide about the financing commitment,
whether the money that the university hospitals lose as a result of the collective agreement
will be returned to them by the state.
Without these two commitments, the collective agreement would be
completely unthinkable.
And if politics gives us
this financial commitment, then there is nothing standing in the way of the TV-E.
That's the background.
So those hospital departments that are not refinanced,
need this firm commitment,
because otherwise they will not come to an agreement with us.
Carola is also at the demonstration today,
although her mood is really starting to hit rock bottom.
I've had enough, I thought.
I don't want to see any more demonstrations, I don't want to see any more people.
I just want the negotiations to be concluded.
And then it was the best demonstration of all those I've been to,
because the politicians had to listen to
what I had to say to them on the stage.
16th day of the trial - and what is on the table?
Nothing of substance.
You come from different departments and you know it exactly,
all the colleagues in the black T-shirts,
these are the refinanced departments, and there is not even an offer for them.
We have said, a collective agreement
Has to be for everyone and we stand by that.
I didn't even know until ten minutes before this demonstration that I
go on stage at the state parliament and say anything at all.
After the talks on the stage end, the politicians
go to the decisive session.
Kira is coming to the state parliament and will watch the vote.
It is a great honour for me to make the first substantive contribution
in this new legislative period
and then on such an important topic,
namely the topic of nursing in hospitals,
nursing in general, but also all employees in the university hospitals.
And we come to the vote on the draft law in document 58.
In the first of two readings.
Who would like to approve this bill?
I ask you to show your hand.
These are CDU, SPD, the Green Party and AfD.
Who votes against it, that is the FDP. Are there any abstentions?
That is not the case.
This means that the draft bill
as been adopted at the first reading, as has just been established.
The factions have agreed to the second reading immediately.
The law has been amended,
the funding was promised and that in the first two days of the government.
You can see how much the pressure achieved.
The legal legitimacy of the strike
has also been confirmed again by the Higher Labour Court.
But in the negotiations there is still not much progress.
That is why the strikers
publish the Black Book, to make their problem heard,
as a last resort.
The Black Book is simply
a collection of reports from everyday life in the hospital.
And not just any reports,
but reports that we wouldn't otherwise tell.
Stories where people really have been harmed,
whether it was the staff or the patients, it doesn't matter.
But stories where people have been harmed
and especially have been harmed due to staff shortages.
We have already sent versions
to managing directors and chief physicians.
That wasn't enough,
there was no reaction or almost no reaction.
And then we said OK, we're going to take the last step
and publish it in such a way that the public is aware of it,
that the press writes about it.
And that's just
an outcry in society about
what actually happens in a hospital,
where otherwise no one talks about it. .
In the paediatric cardiac ward, a critically ill child
needs surgery.
The child is deliberately scheduled last, that is, in the evening.
Before that, there are three elective cardiac catheterisations.
Elective means that they can actually be scheduled at any time.
In contrast to the seriously ill child in the intensive care unit,
their lives are not acutely threatened.
Why are the urgent, immediately important cases
not scheduled first?
Quite simply, because these urgent surgeries
have to be performed no matter how late it gets.
That's why the elective cases are done first.
So that none of them have to be postponed or even cancelled.
So that the numbers add up.
It's not about the children.
This is about money.
Everyone involved and those responsible for the organisation are aware
that in the afternoon and evening only a minimum staff,
both nursing and medical, is available.
When I arrive I ask:
What do I do when the late shift leaves at 20:00?
Then I'm left alone, even though the child needs at least two people.
I am then told that they are finished by 20:00.
The late shift leaves at 20:00.
My fear and concern proved to be true.
At 20:45 we start to resuscitate.
My anaesthetist and I are alone.
A thousand questions are running through my mind.
The actual resuscitation protocol doesn't work for two people.
The child only just managed to survive.
I cried at 1:00 at night when I was done cleaning up.
The failings of our health system concern us all,
so today we break our silence
not only for us, but for our patient.
All of us
and our friends, parents or children can end up in hospital at any time.
And sooner or later, we probably will.
Then we depend on the health system
to catch us. We need
the cooperation between the different areas to work.
We need the nursing staff to have time for us.
But with the current conditions, it can happen to us and our loved ones that
at moments that are crucial for life, there are too few specialist staff.
That in our last moments, we are alone and in pain.
The person who died because of the empty oxygen tank
could have been one of our relatives or friends
and the child in the cardiac theatre, too.
That's why the understaffing is not a problem
of those who work in the hospital,
but for all of us.
Thanks to the Black Book, the strike was covered by the news for the first time ever.
In general, however, the media and public interest was limited.
The nation is up in arms when it can't fly on holiday,
because hospital workers are on strike
and there are no security staff to direct them.
This is a hot topic that has filled the whole summer.
But when people die because there are not
enough nursing staff, then it doesn't matter,
because it doesn't affect everyone.
Climate change,
what is already happening is that it seems a bit more sunny. Isn't that nice!
We had a hot summer, I heard that on the news yesterday
and I also said, stunned, ‘Are you serious?’
And we have that with every topic.
Where fun and games are concerned,
people get really angry when they don't get what they want.
Health, illness, care,
even on their last journey,
palliative care.
These are all things where people just think,
it's none of their business because it won't affect them.
No, that's not true. They can go outside,
then suddenly fall over and have a stroke.
No one knows what's going on in their head.
Me neither. It could happen to me at any time.
Whether the Black Book had an effect or the strike simply became too expensive,
or whether there was an intervention from politicians, it was unclear,
but the fact is that employers now want to negotiate for so long,
until an agreement is reached today.
No matter how late it gets.
If the key issues are decided tonight
and ver.di union members
confirm it in the next few days, then the strike is over,
and I would be very happy if it were so.
I don't feel like coming here anymore, because
it's just emotionally so upsetting.
And I would be really happy
if you could just put a tick behind it
and say ‘okay, from now on I'm on holiday’,
without having to dwell on it again:
‘what's going on in Cologne, how will it continue?’
Can we do it? Without arbitration?
We can do it.
This is extremely trying for everyone.
It could just come to an agreement tomorrow, yes.
That is very much a possibility. And then we'll go back to work.
And I didn't think that it would be over today,
we'll just have to wait and see.
I won't be happy
before I have a beer in my hand to celebrate the agreement.
The negotiations drag on until late into the night.
The mood at the picket line is good, but also a bit agitated.
Tomorrow the strike could end successfully.
But the negotiations could still fail.
Today is not a working day, today is a day of action!
We are now going to meet with the wage commission.
And then suddenly we were called into the negotiation room,
and I thought, ‘what is going on now?’
And then they told us that arbitration was imminent,
I was stunned.
The negotiations are now on hold and the conclusion of the TV E
is once again in jeopardy.
When collective bargaining is deadlocked during strikes,
the official arbitration body is called upon.
The strike is then ended.
The arbitrators read up on the matter and make a decision about
whether there is a collective agreement and what it looks like.
Because of past arbitration rulings
the strikers fear that the result will be
too employer-friendly.
That many departments will not be included in the collective agreement
and that the agreement does not force the employer
to hire new skilled workers.
Then everything would have been in vain.
Yes, and then
I went home and thought:
What will you do if it doesn't work out?
What are you doing?
Are you going to quit and get another job?
I really had concerns that the whole thing would not work out at all.
I just have no expectations anymore.
I'm just going with the flow, because it's all speculation.
And if I start worrying about whether we'll get an arbitration,
and we don't,
or I'm happy that they're settling it today and we're not.
I no longer know what to think of that bunch of bastards in there.
I really don't know anymore, because they're so...
They negotiate for three days, and then at the end they tell us
that they want arbitration now? It doesn't make any sense.
I'll just wait and see.
If it's good, I'll be pleased,
and if it's bad, I expected it.
But then I personally am not so disappointed at first.
I would just draw my own conclusions
from this whole thing.
My commitment to this clinic
will be significantly less than it was before.
That's already clear.
And that's just because of the monkey dance that's taking place over there.
The situation is uncertain.
Kira is sitting in the meeting about
what the strikers will do in the event of a settlement.
Then a message comes from the employers' side.
Heinz had a call from Mr Schöneck during the meeting,
That an offer may come again this afternoon.
Or that the employers' wage commission
is now meeting at 12:00 and will then decide on it.
That is why arbitration is not an issue at the moment.
We have only talked about eventualities.
The negotiations therefore continued.
The next evening they were halted yet again.
But over the weekend, the negotiating groups were finally able to reach an agreement.
After eleven weeks of strike action.
On Tuesday, all university hospitals will vote on
Whether or not the contract is accepted.
So far, 5 out of 6 locations have voted
and 5 out of 6 locations have agreed.
So we are done and after the vote of the employees, we have a TV-E!
The collective agreement has redefined how many employees
must work in which area.
If you work in a shift that is understaffed,
you get a relief point.
If you have seven points you get a free shift.
Some non-refinanced departments did not get this model.
They get a few more staff,
which they also have to divide among themselves.
That is why the University Hospital of Düsseldorf was the only one
to vote against the TV-E.
But the contract applies across the board, so it also applies to them.
In Cologne, hope is in the air.
The emergency room is particularly pleased
where the night shift is to be expanded from 4 to 17 people.
It seems that working conditions
will improve significantly for many people.
This also applies to Carola.
So for my part, I'm very satisfied because
I got what I wanted in the intensive care area
and I am in the lucky position of
working with a nursing manager who implemented it immediately.
On Thursdays we fought for it and
on Mondays, she had already implemented the staffing ratio in our department.
77 days of strike just gone.
It wasn't until the bargaining commission came back to announce the end of the strike that
many people really felt that they had finally made it.
More of us is better for everyone!
You're happy that it's over.
But somehow you've also grown fond of a lot of people.
We have become a real community.
We have made so many new friendships!
We've been here together
through so many weeks of industrial action.
And it will also be a loss not to see these people regularly anymore.
The collective relief agreement is of course not
the immediate solution to all problems.
How this whole thing went was an emergency call.
Everything that would happen now, without such collective agreements would be even more dramatic.
It would be even worse.
It won't stop there.
More and more hospitals will want them and more and more hospitals will initiate them.
And at some point we might even have these collective agreements throughout Germany.
The University Hospital Frankfurt
only needed a short token strike to get the TV-E.
And in other hospitals, organising is already taking place.
It is clear that our health care system is in crisis.
But it is also clear that there are workers in the hospitals who
who are trying to turn things around.
And now it seems that something is happening in politics too.
Karl Lauterbach has announced the biggest health reform in 20 years.
We are making a big reform now,
it's about overcoming this system of flat-rate payments.
The next few years will show how much these changes will achieve.
The employees of the university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia
have already taken a big step.
They cannot solve the serious problems
in our health system alone.
After the end of the strike, I visited Carola again.
At the agreement ceremony in Münster.
The university hospitals are the smallest part of hospitals in Germany,
the largest part is formed by municipal and religious providers.
Something has to be done about that, and something urgently has to be done about that.
It is one stage
on the long road to changing this entire health system.
This is about a lot.
It’s about the whole big cake.
About the financing of hospitals.
It’s about the increase in staff in every area.
But it is also about the willingness of colleagues to
to be unionised .
And of course there also has to be a willingness
on the part of the government.
Because Mr Lauterbach is the one who helped bring DRGs into being,
who is responsible for the fact that this system
has been the way it is for 20 years.
And as long there is a lack of understanding,
that the pressure from below is missing,
that only hospital staff of whatever colour, can exert pressure.
But the pressure must come from the public itself.
But as long as people are not interested,
we are at the first hurdle.
The story is about a person,
who, of course, is just one example of how
many of you and I have grown beyond ourselves.
It's about Carola.
At one of the first organisational meetings that Carola was at,
shortly before the petition was handed in.
At some point, we collected signatures for a petition.
So I said to Carola: You give the speech at the delivery
and Carola said: No, no way!
And of course Carola gave this speech afterwards.
As a sensible organiser, I of course threw her in at the deep end
and I would say: It was worth it.
It's been a steep career.
Carola has become one of the best speakers at all the demonstrations.
So what we've done is history, quite simply.
And we can be proud of that.
If you liked the film
and you would like to support the project financially,
then there is a link at the top of the description.
I can just get money sent to me via PayPal.
I would really, really appreciate it,
because I don't actually earn anything from the whole thing .
I would be very happy.
Donation link at the top of the description. Have a nice day.