Widerstand
15th November 2010, 11:47
Studies reveal growing private debt and social inequality as ten thousands march under union banners and as the protest week against the IMK (conference of the ministers of interior) launches.
According to the Debtor Atlas 2010 report the number of insolvent citizens rose 4.7 percent, with a total of 6.5 million people affected or 9.5 percent of the adult population in Germany.
[...]
There is an obvious link between such high levels of debt and the current situation facing very many young people, which is characterized by high unemployment, unstable forms of work usually involving temporally contracts, and low wages for those able to find work. Another recent study by the German Institute for Economic Research concludes, “The decrease in normal working contracts particularly hits the generation of those commencing work.”
While men continue to confront the brunt of severe financial strain, the number of women in debt is also rising―by 7 percent last year to a total of 39 percent. According to Creditreform executive committee member Helmut Rödl, this is because “women frequently work in precarious forms of employment―as subcontracted workers or in part-time jobs”. During the latest crisis many women workers lost their jobs or suffered wage cuts. Above all, it is single-parent families who face insurmountable financial problems.
[...]
On an international level Germany lags behind countries such as Great Britain and the US, where 13.8 and 17.4 percent of all adults respectively are registered as insolvent. But the situation is dramatic in Germany, with Creditreform estimating that debt levels could rise further, despite the fact that the country is currently undergoing a period of economic growth.
The labour market reforms introduced by the Social Democratic Party-Green coalition government and the subsequent explosive growth of the country’s low-wage sector led to the sharp rise in insolvency between 2004 and 2007. While the number of total jobs grew, the incomes earned were insufficient to cover living costs.
The latest austerity program passed by the federal government will only serve to exacerbate the problems of the poor and low paid.
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/debt-n15.shtml (highlights by me)
A major reason is the high unemployment in eastern Germany. In particular, women who had often worked full-time in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) have lost their jobs. The low wage rate in the east has declined significantly, albeit from a very high level. It has fallen since 1992 from 60 percent to a third. Those who receive less than two thirds of the median income count as lower earners.
In western Germany, the low wage ratio has increased sharply during the period under observation, with about a quarter now employed in the low-wage sector. One reason is the increase in female employment, which is now much closer to the level found in the east. It is now the exception rather than the rule that a single salary feeds a family. Women are disproportionately affected by low-wage working; the rate is around 41 percent in both east and west.
[...]
Summarising the results of the DIW study, the following picture emerges: The low wages in eastern Germany have been used to depress wages in west Germany. The low-wage sector has spread in both the east and west. This has benefited those on upper incomes, in the west even more than in the east. The collective agreements struck by the trade unions, which still accept lower pay rates for those in the east, are responsible for this.
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/ineq-n15.shtml (highlights by me)
Protests on the thirteenth:
Tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets of a host of German cities, marching against what they say are unfair social policies espoused by the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A day ahead of an important gathering of heavyweights from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), tens of thousands have marched across Germany on Saturday protesting government policies and what they say is social inequality.
Umbrella union group DGB, which helped organize the demonstrations, said nearly 100,000 (recent press figures are between 30.000 and 45.000) people marched in Stuttgart, Dortmund, Nuremberg and Erfurt to voice their disapproval with the Merkel government.
Chief among the complaints was the offloading of the costs of the financial crisis on taxpayers.
"We don't want a republic in which powerful interest groups decide the guidelines of politics with their money, their power and their influence," Berthold Huber, head of IG Metall, Germany's largest trade union, told demonstrators in Stuttgart.
The union is demanding higher wages and the introduction of a minimum wage, arguing that ordinary Germans should benefit most from the country's economic upswing following the financial crisis.
- http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6227396,00.html (highlights and notes by me)
A quick summary of the first day of protests against the Conference of Ministers of Interior in Hamburg, because I can't find a good English source:
Two demonstrations were planned on the 13th - an Anti-Racist demo through St. Georg, one of Hamburgs districts with the highest migrant rate, and an Anti-Repression demo leading into the Schanzenviertel - both of which met severe police resistance.
Around 3000 cops, at least 4 water tanks and 2 "Räumungspanzer" were used against the roughly 1000 demonstrators of the first demo, circling protesters and separating them from the outside populace. As the march was about to head into the inner city shopping district, organizers called it off, protesting the police repression against the peaceful demo.
Following, the protesters split into small groups and hundreds diverged into the city, shouting paroles, handing out leaflets and talking to surprised passerbys. A huge police force tried to keep them out of the shopping district and - failing that - engaged in a huge chase with the aim to get protesters away from the shopping malls. According to press reports, several graffitis were sprayed, and the Axel-Springer company building, the most notorious of Germany's right wing press, had several windows smashed in by bricks.
Protesters meeting in front of the town hall for the second demonstration were chased off by police, and a large crowd began to walk in direction of the second demonstrations starting point.
An even fiercer police repression was put in place, with police building a three row wall around protesters, on multiple occasions halting the march. Arriving in the Schanzenviertel - which had been declared "danger zone" by police, effectively giving them the right to search, temporarily arrest and send off everyone - the march was halted for a prolonged time. Organization called off the event to prevent escalations (around 2000 protesters against 3000 heavily armed cops).
Meanwhile, roughly hundred protesters took to the streets in a non-announced, spontaneous action in Altona, smashing several windows and fighting police with fireworks, bricks and bottles. Police subsequently enlarged the "danger zone" to include Altona.
Riot Porn 1st demo and inner city action: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pm_cheung/sets/72157625378020824/show/
Riot Porn 2nd demo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pm_cheung/sets/72157625260364699/show/
According to the Debtor Atlas 2010 report the number of insolvent citizens rose 4.7 percent, with a total of 6.5 million people affected or 9.5 percent of the adult population in Germany.
[...]
There is an obvious link between such high levels of debt and the current situation facing very many young people, which is characterized by high unemployment, unstable forms of work usually involving temporally contracts, and low wages for those able to find work. Another recent study by the German Institute for Economic Research concludes, “The decrease in normal working contracts particularly hits the generation of those commencing work.”
While men continue to confront the brunt of severe financial strain, the number of women in debt is also rising―by 7 percent last year to a total of 39 percent. According to Creditreform executive committee member Helmut Rödl, this is because “women frequently work in precarious forms of employment―as subcontracted workers or in part-time jobs”. During the latest crisis many women workers lost their jobs or suffered wage cuts. Above all, it is single-parent families who face insurmountable financial problems.
[...]
On an international level Germany lags behind countries such as Great Britain and the US, where 13.8 and 17.4 percent of all adults respectively are registered as insolvent. But the situation is dramatic in Germany, with Creditreform estimating that debt levels could rise further, despite the fact that the country is currently undergoing a period of economic growth.
The labour market reforms introduced by the Social Democratic Party-Green coalition government and the subsequent explosive growth of the country’s low-wage sector led to the sharp rise in insolvency between 2004 and 2007. While the number of total jobs grew, the incomes earned were insufficient to cover living costs.
The latest austerity program passed by the federal government will only serve to exacerbate the problems of the poor and low paid.
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/debt-n15.shtml (highlights by me)
A major reason is the high unemployment in eastern Germany. In particular, women who had often worked full-time in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) have lost their jobs. The low wage rate in the east has declined significantly, albeit from a very high level. It has fallen since 1992 from 60 percent to a third. Those who receive less than two thirds of the median income count as lower earners.
In western Germany, the low wage ratio has increased sharply during the period under observation, with about a quarter now employed in the low-wage sector. One reason is the increase in female employment, which is now much closer to the level found in the east. It is now the exception rather than the rule that a single salary feeds a family. Women are disproportionately affected by low-wage working; the rate is around 41 percent in both east and west.
[...]
Summarising the results of the DIW study, the following picture emerges: The low wages in eastern Germany have been used to depress wages in west Germany. The low-wage sector has spread in both the east and west. This has benefited those on upper incomes, in the west even more than in the east. The collective agreements struck by the trade unions, which still accept lower pay rates for those in the east, are responsible for this.
- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/ineq-n15.shtml (highlights by me)
Protests on the thirteenth:
Tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets of a host of German cities, marching against what they say are unfair social policies espoused by the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A day ahead of an important gathering of heavyweights from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), tens of thousands have marched across Germany on Saturday protesting government policies and what they say is social inequality.
Umbrella union group DGB, which helped organize the demonstrations, said nearly 100,000 (recent press figures are between 30.000 and 45.000) people marched in Stuttgart, Dortmund, Nuremberg and Erfurt to voice their disapproval with the Merkel government.
Chief among the complaints was the offloading of the costs of the financial crisis on taxpayers.
"We don't want a republic in which powerful interest groups decide the guidelines of politics with their money, their power and their influence," Berthold Huber, head of IG Metall, Germany's largest trade union, told demonstrators in Stuttgart.
The union is demanding higher wages and the introduction of a minimum wage, arguing that ordinary Germans should benefit most from the country's economic upswing following the financial crisis.
- http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6227396,00.html (highlights and notes by me)
A quick summary of the first day of protests against the Conference of Ministers of Interior in Hamburg, because I can't find a good English source:
Two demonstrations were planned on the 13th - an Anti-Racist demo through St. Georg, one of Hamburgs districts with the highest migrant rate, and an Anti-Repression demo leading into the Schanzenviertel - both of which met severe police resistance.
Around 3000 cops, at least 4 water tanks and 2 "Räumungspanzer" were used against the roughly 1000 demonstrators of the first demo, circling protesters and separating them from the outside populace. As the march was about to head into the inner city shopping district, organizers called it off, protesting the police repression against the peaceful demo.
Following, the protesters split into small groups and hundreds diverged into the city, shouting paroles, handing out leaflets and talking to surprised passerbys. A huge police force tried to keep them out of the shopping district and - failing that - engaged in a huge chase with the aim to get protesters away from the shopping malls. According to press reports, several graffitis were sprayed, and the Axel-Springer company building, the most notorious of Germany's right wing press, had several windows smashed in by bricks.
Protesters meeting in front of the town hall for the second demonstration were chased off by police, and a large crowd began to walk in direction of the second demonstrations starting point.
An even fiercer police repression was put in place, with police building a three row wall around protesters, on multiple occasions halting the march. Arriving in the Schanzenviertel - which had been declared "danger zone" by police, effectively giving them the right to search, temporarily arrest and send off everyone - the march was halted for a prolonged time. Organization called off the event to prevent escalations (around 2000 protesters against 3000 heavily armed cops).
Meanwhile, roughly hundred protesters took to the streets in a non-announced, spontaneous action in Altona, smashing several windows and fighting police with fireworks, bricks and bottles. Police subsequently enlarged the "danger zone" to include Altona.
Riot Porn 1st demo and inner city action: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pm_cheung/sets/72157625378020824/show/
Riot Porn 2nd demo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pm_cheung/sets/72157625260364699/show/