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Charité Nurses Begin Two-Day Warning Strike Over Relief Agreement

The walkout seeks renewal of a staffing-and-compensation pact that Charité ended as the hospital cites large budget shortfalls before the Berlin vote.

Overview

  • The warning strike runs for 48 hours on Thursday and Friday, with Verdi saying it began Thursday morning and will end after the Friday late shift.
  • Strikers demand the Entlastungstarifvertrag, a relief collective agreement that sets binding nurse-to-patient staffing rules and pays staff when units run understaffed.
  • Charité has canceled elective treatments and cut operating-room capacity during the action and warned departments will decide which procedures must be postponed.
  • Verdi expects 700 to 900 nursing staff to join the protest and says the 2021 agreement helped recruit more than 1,000 nurses to the hospital since it took effect.
  • The dispute follows Charité’s termination of the pact on August 31 and comes as the hospital reports heavy deficits, a development that raises political pressure ahead of the Berlin election and forces trade-offs between staffing guarantees and other budgeted services.