Published March 19, 2026 — last updated March 19, 2026
A public transport strike has disrupted services across several German states, leaving commuters seeking alternatives as bus and tram workers stage walkouts.
The union Verdi said Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt were particularly badly affected. In Munich, buses and trams also remained in depots. In North Rhine-Westphalia this is the second local transport strike this week, with a further tram strike planned for Friday in some areas. Industrial action in many parts of Saxony-Anhalt is expected to continue through Sunday.
Regional and suburban rail services operated by Deutsche Bahn and other rail companies were not affected. The strikes form part of an ongoing round of collective bargaining across Germany’s public transport sector, now in its fourth month. In most states the dispute centers on working conditions including hours, break times and minimum rest periods between shifts. Verdi deputy chair Christine Behle said negotiations remain at an early stage in many regions.
Some states have already reached deals: Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein concluded agreements, while Hesse — home to Frankfurt — has negotiated a compromise now being put to union members for approval. Talks are also continuing in Berlin, where the next round of negotiations at the capital’s main public transport operator has begun.
Separately, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Germany recorded around 30,000 migrant turnbacks at its borders since the current government took office. He told broadcaster ARD the figure demonstrated the need for continued controls, which were extended in February for six months until mid-September. Dobrindt said the stricter measures help detect smugglers and signaled a shift in policy, but expressed hope that new EU asylum rules due to take effect in the summer, alongside stronger protection of the EU’s external borders, could allow Germany to move away from temporary internal border checks.
In other news, German mathematician Gerd Faltings has been awarded the 2026 Abel Prize for his contributions to arithmetic geometry. The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters praised Faltings for introducing powerful tools that reshaped the field and settled major longstanding conjectures. The 71-year-old, a former director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, previously won the Fields Medal in 1986.