Rail workers' union to be renamed TRANSNET

In May 2000, the advisory board of the German Rail Workers' Union (GdED) decided to rename the trade union "TRANSNET". The new name aims both to reflect changes in the union's field of organisation and to open new opportunities for international cooperation.

At a meeting on 16-17 May 2000 in Kassel, the advisory board of the German Rail Workers' Union (Gewerkschaft der Eisenbahner Deutschlands, GdED) decided to rename the union TRANSNET Gewerkschaft GdED. This move implemented a decision made at a conference in 1996, when the delegates had decided to find a new name for the trade union and rename it by November 2000 at the latest. With 340,000 members, GdED is the seventh largest union affiliated to the German Federation of Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB).

The necessity to rename the union arose from changes in the sector it covers. The traditional "railway" label no longer covers the work of employees in the German rail sector. Today, the union represents employees in transport, services, railway systems and telecommunication networks. In the latter sector, GdED/TRANSNET is, for historical reasons, the collective bargaining party at Mannesmann-Arcor, currently the second-largest provider of (non-mobile) telephone communications in Germany, after Deutsche Telekom. In 1996, the telecommunications activities of German Railways (Deutsche Bahn AG, DB AG) were transferred to a subsidiary company, DB Komm, wholly owned by DB AG. In 1998, DB Komm was taken over by Mannesmann and renamed Mannesmann-Arcor. Today, DB AG owns only 18% of the firm, which has 6,500 employees.

By organising employees in a growth industry like the telecommunication sector, TRANSNET is competing for members with the Postal Workers' Union (Deutsche Postgewerkschaft, DPG) - which is participating in the process of founding the Unified Service Sector Trade Union (Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, Ver.di) (DE9911225F) - as well as with the German Metalworkers Union (IG Metall) and the Mining, Chemicals and Energy Union (Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau, Chemie, Energie, IG BCE). In response to the declining importance of industrial sectors, unions which previously represented industry are now trying to gain a foothold in the service sector, and especially information and communication technologies.

A similar development can be observed in the regional passenger transport sector, which is dominated by the Public Services, Transport and Traffic Union (Gewerkschaft Öffentliche Dienste, Transport und Verkehr, ÖTV). TRANSNET now wants to gain more importance in this sector too.

Given that the membership of German unions is still declining (DE9908113F), it is not surprising that each union is adopting new strategies for organising new members. While several unions have chosen mergers to solve the problems of changing job structures and declining membership figures, TRANSNET is trying a different strategy to gain members. GdED was originally involved in the process of setting up Ver.di, but decided early on to stay independent, arguing that a large organisation might lead to members being less able to identify with the unions, thus encouraging a further decline in membership. Instead, TRANSNET is focusing on cooperation at national and international level. The international cooperation is formally institutionalised within the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF), whose president is Norbert Hansen, president of TRANSNET, and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). In concrete terms, TRANSNET already cooperates with unions in the Netherlands concerning goods transport and in Scandinavia concerning ferry transport. The union has chosen the English-based name TRANSNET in order to make communication easier and symbolise its international orientation.