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Responding to stonewalling by Lufthansa management over raises and profit sharing, German public sector union Verdi has announced its intention to hold short "lightning strikes" later this week at the German national air carrier. Representing 52,000 flight attendants and ground crew workers, Verdi has insisted on profit-sharing and a nine-percent raise valued at an annual cost of $211 million to the company, in order to regain concessions made in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and share in the enormous profits the company has enjoyed in the past nine months. Lufthansa's refusal to go above a 2.4 percent raise this year and 1.5 percent next year, may has raised fears of a new round of costly labor unrest only two years after a three-day pilot strike cost the company $79 million.