At least they are usually served during the festival. This year there may be a
shortage as a result of a strike by the doughty bakers of Bavaria who feel
that in keeping with everything else connected to the Oktoberfest, their
recompense should assume extra large proportions.

Representatives of Munich’s NGG gastronomy union, which represents nearly
50,000 members of the bakers’ guild, are pressing for a 6.5 per cent wage
increase and this week reported that talks with employers had stalled.

Eleven
reasons to go to Germany

“If we don’t get any further by mid-September, we’ll strike in the bakeries.
Then there will be a lack of pretzels and bread rolls,” Mustafa Oz, deputy
regional president of the NGG gastronomy union, told reporters from Focus, a
German news magazine.

At the moment the strike is not definite, but if it does go ahead, it could
not come at a worse time for the festival, which this year begins on
September 20.

Organisers of the event are adamant that those looking forward to enjoying
this most traditional of Oktoberfest foodstuffs will not go hungry and that
plans are in place to ensure deliveries throughout.

“Of course, it will be possible to enjoy a pretzel with your beer,” said
Claudia Bauer of the press department of the Munich city authority.

Toni Roiderer, the owner of the Hacker-Pschorr beer tent at the festival, said
he hoped the bakers would “respect the tradition” and not strike during the
event.

“But if they do, then we just have to drink more beer,” he suggested.

Oans–zwoa-drei-gsuffa (“One, two, three, cheers!”)

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