German postal service using civil servants to break strike?

Postal workers are on strike in Germany. We won't explain what the strike is about because it is fairly complicated. Allegations of management putting pressure on striking workers and indicating to people on limited contracts that participation will "have consequences" are also not primary considerations of this post.

Our interest was piqued by news that Deutsche Post DHL is using civil servants in addition to temporary hires to keep up a minimum level of ooperations.

Civil servants?

That's indeed the case, and it goes back to the history of Deutsche Post DHL.

Like in most of Europe, Germany's postal service, including telecom, was a government operation until the 1980s/1990s privatization of these entities.
While the government still owns some shares today, the vast majority of the company shares are privately owned, and it is run like any other company.

The Germans had a personnel problem when they wanted to privatize the postal service, the telecom and the railroads: the special class of civil servants called "Beamte".
These workers have a privileged status in Germany. They do not have the right to strike and in return they cannot be laid off (unless convicted of a crime that entails at least one year in jail), they don't contribute to a pension plan (the taxpayer pays), their health insurance is better, they typically start right after school and don't leave until retirement.

This status is enshrined in Germany's post-War constitution, making privatization quite a challenge.

So, the government created new entities, colloquially called "holding companies", which then gave the workers to the newly formed private companies in return for their salaries.

While this happened some twenty or so years ago, it means that a good number of employees of the current  Deutsche Post DHL still have the status of Beamte civil servants.

Which means they cannot go on strike.

It is not quite a god sent, unless you equate god with government, but pretty nice to have when faced with a strike and the need to manage temporary hires to run things.

When the use of the civil servants in other than their normal jobs was reported, Deutsche Post said this was done on a "strictly voluntary base". Even though Beamte have enkjoyed the reputation of always doing what they were told to do, there is no reason to doubt Deutsche Post.

It's simply great fun to explain how beneficial this historical quirk turned out decades later.

Train drivers were on strike last week, and, guess what, the trains that were still running were manned by Beamte of the old government railroad company.  Some voices even called for making all train drivers civil servants again.

[Update 9/2015] The strike ended in early July, after four weeks, but the backlog of undelivered mail lasted more than two weeks, as this report of 21 July indicates.