Alf
21st March 2008, 21:25
The ICC's section in Germany has recently produced this article:
Workers' struggles in Germany: an accumulation of discontent
The last five years have witnessed an international development of the class struggle. These struggles have taken place in response to the brutality of the capitalist crisis and the dramatic worsening of living and working conditions across the world. Today, entering a new stage of the crisis, announced by the property crisis in the United States, we can expect a intensification of these struggles. In some of the countries where workers' conditions are most miserable - Egypt, Dubai, Bangladesh - we have already seen the germs of future mass strikes. In Europe reappeared in 2006 with the protests of students in France a proletarian protest movement with a mass character and tendencies towards self organisation.
At this moment, in Germany, we are witnessing the beginning of a new stage in this development. In a leading industrial country of the old capitalist heartlands, a simultaneity of labour conflicts threaten to snowball into a real wave of workers' struggles.
A new year of discontent
The year 2008 began with the German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) being obliged to grant an 11% wage rise and a one hour reduction of the working week to the train drivers. This was the result of months of smouldering conflict during which neither the outlawing of nation wide railways strikes nor the division of the DB workforce by the trade unions was able to erode. This was followed by the mobilisation in the Ruhr area around the closing of the Nokia mobile phone production. A day of action in solidarity with the Nokia employees in Bochum saw the mobilisation on the street of workers from countless different sectors and the sending of delegations from different parts of Germany. In particular, the workers at the Opel car plant in Bochum went on strike in support of the "Nokianer" that day.
By then, the annual ritual of the annual wage negotiations had already begun. The rolling strikes by steel workers was followed by work stoppages by tens of thousands of public sector workers all over the country. By mid March, the doctors from the municipal hospitals were also taking to the streets, demanding, like so many other employees, a 12% wage increase.
But it is above all the unlimited all-out strike of local transport workers in Berlin which, since the end of the first week of March, has demonstrated that, this year, the wage negotiation rounds are directly challenging the capitalist offensive against the working class. This strike of 10.000 workers - already the largest and longest of its kind in post war German history - has manifested a combativity and determination which initially took the bourgeoisie by surprise. This conflict escalated at a moment when the German railways made a last attempt to back out of the concessions it had been obliged to make, and when the negotiations in the public sector were on the verge of breakdown. In the latter sector, the state is "offering" a 5% wage "increase" over 2 years to its employees, demanding in return an extension of the working week of two hours! In Berlin, where the whole of municipal transport is on strike except the suburban trains (S-Bahn, owned by the DB) the perspective suddenly opened of these latter employees, and the whole public sector, going on strike, not only in Berlin, but across the country! The ruling class had to pull the emergency brake.[1] The railway company gave in hours before the resumption of a national general strike of train drivers. At the same time, the federal and municipal employers and the trade union Verdi called in mediators in the public sector conflict, meaning that strikes there in the coming weeks are illegal. In this way, the government, the employers and the trade unions isolated the strike at the Berlin transport company (BVG).
The rest of this article, which considers the real development of class solidarity and of a certain politicisation in these movements, can be found at:
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/march/struggles-in-germany (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/march/struggles-in-germany)
Workers' struggles in Germany: an accumulation of discontent
The last five years have witnessed an international development of the class struggle. These struggles have taken place in response to the brutality of the capitalist crisis and the dramatic worsening of living and working conditions across the world. Today, entering a new stage of the crisis, announced by the property crisis in the United States, we can expect a intensification of these struggles. In some of the countries where workers' conditions are most miserable - Egypt, Dubai, Bangladesh - we have already seen the germs of future mass strikes. In Europe reappeared in 2006 with the protests of students in France a proletarian protest movement with a mass character and tendencies towards self organisation.
At this moment, in Germany, we are witnessing the beginning of a new stage in this development. In a leading industrial country of the old capitalist heartlands, a simultaneity of labour conflicts threaten to snowball into a real wave of workers' struggles.
A new year of discontent
The year 2008 began with the German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) being obliged to grant an 11% wage rise and a one hour reduction of the working week to the train drivers. This was the result of months of smouldering conflict during which neither the outlawing of nation wide railways strikes nor the division of the DB workforce by the trade unions was able to erode. This was followed by the mobilisation in the Ruhr area around the closing of the Nokia mobile phone production. A day of action in solidarity with the Nokia employees in Bochum saw the mobilisation on the street of workers from countless different sectors and the sending of delegations from different parts of Germany. In particular, the workers at the Opel car plant in Bochum went on strike in support of the "Nokianer" that day.
By then, the annual ritual of the annual wage negotiations had already begun. The rolling strikes by steel workers was followed by work stoppages by tens of thousands of public sector workers all over the country. By mid March, the doctors from the municipal hospitals were also taking to the streets, demanding, like so many other employees, a 12% wage increase.
But it is above all the unlimited all-out strike of local transport workers in Berlin which, since the end of the first week of March, has demonstrated that, this year, the wage negotiation rounds are directly challenging the capitalist offensive against the working class. This strike of 10.000 workers - already the largest and longest of its kind in post war German history - has manifested a combativity and determination which initially took the bourgeoisie by surprise. This conflict escalated at a moment when the German railways made a last attempt to back out of the concessions it had been obliged to make, and when the negotiations in the public sector were on the verge of breakdown. In the latter sector, the state is "offering" a 5% wage "increase" over 2 years to its employees, demanding in return an extension of the working week of two hours! In Berlin, where the whole of municipal transport is on strike except the suburban trains (S-Bahn, owned by the DB) the perspective suddenly opened of these latter employees, and the whole public sector, going on strike, not only in Berlin, but across the country! The ruling class had to pull the emergency brake.[1] The railway company gave in hours before the resumption of a national general strike of train drivers. At the same time, the federal and municipal employers and the trade union Verdi called in mediators in the public sector conflict, meaning that strikes there in the coming weeks are illegal. In this way, the government, the employers and the trade unions isolated the strike at the Berlin transport company (BVG).
The rest of this article, which considers the real development of class solidarity and of a certain politicisation in these movements, can be found at:
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/march/struggles-in-germany (http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/march/struggles-in-germany)