GIESSEN/MARBURG (dpa-AFX) - Negotiations on a collective agreement for relief and job security at the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg will enter the second round on Thursday (9:30 a.m.). After the first talks in mid-February, the Verdi union now wants to present the employer with concrete demands for the individual areas of the university hospital. On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of employees had underlined their demands during a two-day warning strike.

Among other things, they are concerned with the minimum staffing of shifts. If this is fallen short of, the employees should be able to collect load points, which should be compensated in free time, according to the will of the union Verdi. A similar arrangement had previously been agreed for the Frankfurt University Hospital.

The union is insisting on an agreement by March 24. That is when an ultimatum expires. In the event that no agreement is reached on improvements by then, the employees had also expressed their willingness to strike. Another topic of the negotiations is the job security demanded by Verdi for the approximately 300 employees of UKGM Service GmbH.

The negotiations are being conducted for the more than 7,000 non-medical employees of the privatized university hospital, which has a total of around 9,600 employees. The state of Hesse and the private owner of the clinic had only agreed at the end of February on investments of around 850 million euros over the next ten years. Two-thirds of the investment sum is to be covered by the state and one-third by the company.

In 2006, 95 percent of the university hospital, which is spread over two sites, was taken over by Rhön-Klinikum AG, which has since been bought by the Asklepios hospital group. The state of Hesse holds the remaining five percent./csc/DP/zb