GERMANY--Strikes spread: "the general strike is now on the agenda"
By Gérard Torquet and Pierre Vandewoorde From Rouge 2243, 3/13/2008 [Edited]

Against a background of financial scandals, after the failure of wage
negotiations for civil servants and warning strikes, the general
strike is now on the agenda.

"8% raises to fill our coffers in Liechtenstein! " is the ironic slogan
that rang out on the streets of the big cities on March 5, the day of
mobilization. This day was organized by the Verdi union, in the
context of wage negotiations for the 1.3 million employees in the
national government, the states ("Länder"), and town governments.
While profits are exploding and the money scandal continues to occupy
the police and courts, only a 5% raise is proposed, spread over two
years with, as an extra provocation, a one-hour lengthening of the
work week, taking it to 40 hours. Even the most liberal [as in
"neo-liberal" ] institutes and observers of economic life recognize
that, since 2005, public servants have lost 4% of their purchasing
power. The demand for an 8% raise, with base pay of 200 Euros [$311.50 US] minimum and a raise of 120 Euros [$186.88 US] for apprentices (who currently get 600 Euros [$934.38 US]) is thus extremely popular and felt to be something owed [to the workers].

After years of concessions and compromises, Verdi really needs a
success to stop the loss of its members and the temptation to create
corporatist unions [apparently, state-controlled company unions], as
was done to the airline pilots and doctors. Employers remain
inflexible, and the union is threatening to call a strike of
indefinite duration at the end of March or the beginning of April. But
fully making use of its power like this, also risks losing control of
the situation, and the union bureaucracy is wary of a terrain that it
has ignored for such a long time. For the moment, union leaders
prefer to leave a harsh conflict, like that at the Berlin state
transportation company, isolated. Bus, streetcar and subway workers in
Berlin are on strike until March 14, while the [Berlin] Senate, with a
SPD [social democratic]- Green Party majority, refuses to let go of
anything [won't spend a penny on raises]. The example of the Deutsche
Bahn train crews (see Rouge 2236) has gained ground. Moreover, the DB
train crews went on strike again, on Monday, March 10, to impose the
agreement signed in January.

There are abundant reasons to extend [strike] action. Verdi won a
minimum wage of 9.80 Euros [$15.26 US] an hour for postal workers, but a court refused to extend this raise to all postal delivery firms, a sector completely open to [private] competition from now on. Now that the legitimacy of capitalism is weakened by the extent of the money scandals around Liechtenstein, now that the revelations are piling up
about people who preach sacrifice to those at the bottom (from the
union bigwig who was sitting on the corporate board of Volkswagen to
the former Chairman and President of the postal service), and the vote
for the Left Party expresses the search for an alternative, favorable
conditions for a broad social offensive definitely exist.