Claus Weselsky

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Claus Weselsky, 2015

Claus Weselsky (born February 18, 1959 in Dresden ) is a German train driver and union official . Since May 6, 2008 he has been federal chairman of the German Locomotive Drivers Union (GDL).

Life

Childhood, education and work

Claus Weselsky was born into a working class and later new farmer family in Dresden and grew up in the GDR in the Dresden district . He has two older siblings. After Weselsky's birth, his parents and their children moved to Kreischa near Dresden as part of the “ Industrial workers in the country ” campaign , where a new farmer's position had become vacant. They took over a four-sided yard there . Weselsky graduated from the Polytechnische Oberschule and worked in agriculture on the side .

He learned the profession of diesel engine fitter and was selected after the first year of training to specialize as a train driver. From 1975 to 1977 he trained as a rail vehicle fitter at the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) in Dresden . 1977 followed by training as a train driver for diesel and electric locomotives . He was then employed as a train driver at the DR, initially on shunting locomotives, from 1982 on freight trains and later also on passenger and express trains. Weselsky lived in Kreischa until 1990. He was never a member of the SED .

Union activity

In May 1990 Weselsky joined the union of German locomotive drivers (GDL), which was re-established in early 1990 as the first free union .

After the reunification in the GDR , Weselsky worked for the DR from 1990 as a coordinator as well as a member of the staff council and works council. After the GDL had founded an Eastern Association, Weselsky headed its local branch in Pirna from 1990 . In 1992 he drove his last train, then he worked as a union official. He was initially a works council in regional transport in Dresden. After 1992 he was deputy district chairman of the Dresden district and from 1999 deputy district chairman in the merged district of Berlin - Saxony - Brandenburg . From 2002 to 2006 he worked in the collective bargaining department of the GDL. Weselsky has been a member of the DB Regio AG Supervisory Board since July 2006 .

Since the merger of the Deutsche Reichsbahn with the Deutsche Bundesbahn in 1993, he has belonged to the Deutsche Bahn AG (DB). There he has been exempt from union activities since 2002. In 2002 he moved to the trade union headquarters of the GDL in Frankfurt am Main .

Between May 2006 and May 2008 he was Deputy Federal Chairman of the GDL. He became known to the general public in 2007 and 2008 during the wage dispute with Deutsche Bahn. In May 2008 he was elected to succeed Manfred Schell as federal chairman of the GDL.

In the 2007 collective bargaining dispute, he was primarily involved in negotiations with Deutsche Bahn as a tariff expert. In the same year, Deutsche Bahn offered him the position of Chief Human Resources Officer, which he refused.

In mid-2010 he was elected Vice-President of the Autonomous Engine Drivers Unions of Europe (ALE). In 2012 he was re-elected as GDL chairman with 90 percent of the vote.

In addition, since 2012 he has been deputy federal chairman of the trade union umbrella organization DBB Beamtenbund und Tarifunion (dbb).

Controversy

When a conflict within the GDL board escalated in mid-April 2013 and ended with the dismissal of Weselsky's two deputies by the main board, Weselsky came under criticism from within the association. His predecessor Schell accused him of an authoritarian leadership style and resigned the honorary chairmanship of the GDL in protest. Weselsky sharply criticized the initiative for democracy and the rule of law in the GDL , which Schell co-founded in the same year . In August 2015, Schell was removed from the GDL member list due to payment arrears. Because of the allegation of behavior that was damaging to the union, the executive GDL board also decided to expel ex-functionaries Volker Siewke and Dieter Kowalsky.

In August 2014, Weselsky came under public criticism because he had discriminated against sick or disabled people on a GDL day of action with a comparison to the establishment of the significantly larger-numbered Railway and Transport Union (EVG). He said: "When two sick people go to bed together and father a child, something handicapped comes out of it from the start." Weselsky apologized for this statement. His relationship with the EVG chairman Alexander Kirchner , who had a disabled son, has since been considered destroyed. Weselsky later described his statement as the biggest mistake in the collective bargaining dispute.

A GDL strike in autumn 2014 also triggered extensive criticism of Weselsky in the media. He was particularly accused of a lack of willingness to negotiate and the endeavor to expand the GDL's sphere of influence - to the detriment of rail customers and the competing rail and transport union. Among other things, the strike length of 50 hours or 61 hours and the strike date on one of the busiest weekends of the year, on which the autumn holidays began in seven federal states and ended in two federal states, and the official celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on September 9 , were criticized November 1989. When a tabloid printed his phone number on the occasion of a four-and-a-half-day strike, he had his phone redirected to that of railway boss Rüdiger Grube . The German Association of Journalists , however, criticized the tendency in the media to "pillory the chairman of the union of German locomotive drivers as a private person". This violates “the journalistic rules of the game” and “also plays into the hands of the opponents of tariff plurality”. The media journalist Stefan Niggemeier was also critical of the media coverage of Weselsky, which he compared to an "unobjective mob". After an anonymous threat, Weselsky applied for police protection at the end of 2014 .

Private life

Weselsky is married, has an adult son and lives in Dresden. He also has a second home in Frankfurt am Main, where the GDL head office is located. He has been a member of the CDU since July 2007 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Claus Weselsky  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Michael Rothe: The buffer stop . In: Saxon newspaper . tape 69 , no. 249 , October 25, 2014, ZDB -ID 2448502-0 , p. 3 .
  2. ↑ Hermann Tydecks: This Dresdner put the train lame. In: tag24.de/ Dresdner Morgenpost . October 15, 2014, accessed October 26, 2014 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Thomas Gutschker: Mensch, Weselsky . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . No. 47 , November 23, 2014, p. 3 (similar version to faz.net ).
  4. ↑ a b c d e Bahn-Rambo, know-it-all, siding: Weselsky has been sitting in the warm office since 1992 . On: Focus Online October 20, 2014, accessed October 21, 2014
  5. ↑ Since Weselsky was not a member of the SED and also did not hold an office in the FDGB , he was hindered in his professional advancement in the GDR and was only able to switch from the shunter to passenger trains late. (Cf. Claus Weselsky. In: Munzinger Internationales Biographisches Archiv. 14/2011 from April 5, 2011, supplemented by news from MA-Journal up to week 25/2013, accessed on October 26, 2014)
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Simon Book, Benjamin Wagner, Claudia Panster, Frank Specht, Dieter Fockenbrock: Der Machtplayer . In: Handelsblatt . No. 97 , May 22, 2015, ISSN  0017-7296 , p. 10 .
  7. ↑ Kerstin Schwenn: In the shadow of Claus Weselsky . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 271 , November 21, 2014, ISSN  0174-4909 , p. 20 (similar version to faz.net ).
  8. ↑ Kerstin Schwenn: Strippenzer Weselsky . FAZ.NET , November 8, 2014
  9. ^ Announcement: Jésus Fraile is the new ALE President. In: ahead. 62 (2010), issue 6, ISSN  1438-0099 , p. 18
  10. ↑ Weselsky re-elected with 90 percent . Press release of the Union of German Locomotive Drivers (GDL) dated May 9, 2012, accessed on October 19, 2014
  11. ↑ Nikolaus Doll: Mud battle with the train drivers . In: The world . April 26, 2013, ISSN  0173-8437 , p. 11 (similar version welt.de ).
  12. ↑ Matthias Breitlinger: "This labor dispute harms the GDL" . In: Zeit Online , October 24, 2014, accessed November 4, 2014
  13. ↑ Michael Stürzenhofecker: Claus Weselsky: The lone fighter . In: Zeit Online, November 4, 2014, accessed November 4, 2014
  14. ↑ GDL boss Claus Weselsky throws out predecessors . The Tagesspiegel (online) from August 31, 2015
  15. ↑ Criticism of the GDL boss does not stop . On: Focus online from August 30, 2014, accessed October 19, 2014
  16. ↑ According to a comparison of the disabled. Pressure on GDL boss Weselsky is growing . On: Süddeutsche.de of August 31, 2014, accessed on October 19, 2014
  17. ↑ GDL boss Claus Weselsky is the nation's bogeyman . On: DerWesten.de of October 18, 2014, accessed on October 19, 2014
  18. ^ Corinna Budras: Rail strike . Stop this man! On: FAZ.net of October 18, 2014, accessed on October 19, 2014
  19. ↑ Fairness urged. Retrieved December 9, 2018 .
  20. ↑ Stefan Niggemeier | Waterboarding for the publicly dangerous madman! German journalists on Claus Weselsky. Accessed December 9, 2018 (German).
  21. ^ Christian Gaertner: Claus Weselsky, the agitator of the train drivers . In: Welt Online of October 29, 2007, accessed October 19, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Weselsky, Claus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German train driver, Federal Chairman of the Union of German Train Drivers (GDL)
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden