Europe's labour left
The labour movement is absent from the great process of European integration. But François Vercammen sees signs of change. In the early 1980s, western European social democratic parties accepted the key elements of the growing neo-liberal offensive: social counter-reform, "brainwashing" the population with reactionary ideology, redistribution of wealth from poor to rich, and deliberate weakening of the trade unions. This was a complete abandonment of programmatic autonomy. The worst and longest-lasting social democratic "treason" in peacetime. In the search for "electability," social democratic parties abandoned their basic policies, which had served since the 1930s: Keynesian economic policy, defence of public services, state intervention, economic and social "programming" by government, and some level of support for the general social demands of the trade unions. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, social - democrats seized the project of European
Monetary Union (EMU) with enthusiasm, even joy. They convinced themselves, and their supporters, that the (new) sacrifices demanded by the Maastricht Treaty on
EMU would guarantee a new ear of prosperity in the future. Leaders of the continent's major trade union confederations did everything to help. They tried to keep labour demands within the limits set by the EMU Convergence Criteria. One effect of this was to push the labour movement in each country into a position of national competition between EU member states. Which obviously ruled out any Europe-wide campaign, mobilisation or strike.
Trade Union leaders presented the European Union as the saviour of labour. They destroyed the alternative perspective, of a strong, active European trade union movement, with its own, alternative political and social policies.
Trade union leaders have restricted the role of the European Trade Union Congress. It has never been more than a lobby and pressure group. Not that there has been much opposition to this strategy from the rank and file. The fact that no pan-European left has emerged shows the depth of the historic crisis of the labour movement.
This is something much worse than an "unfavourable balance of forces." The traditional labour movement is at an all-time low. The situation is truly dramatic.
The working population is being transformed, in a dynamic of fragmentation, and division. What form should trade union work take in these new conditions?
Traditional political-institutional power structures are being diluted, as the economy becomes more globalised, and a supra-national European power centre slowly forms. This situation is paralysing the 100-year old strategy of the trade unions, which has consisted (at best) of promoting demands that can unify the working population, and supported by progressive social legislation. And the increasingly distant relationship with social democratic political parties (or, in some countries, the complete disconnection of the trade union bureaucracy from its traditional political reference point and pressure point) has completed the process.
The traditional left in the trade unions has also been weakened by these developments. In reality, apart from a very few countries, the trade union left no longer really exists as an active and coherent force.
If we are to end this situation, we need analysis, reflection and programmatic proposals which can rebuild common, unitary work. We need to redefine ways of action and organising on the ground, and re-find the autonomous behaviour and reflexes which every real emancipation movement needs. We need to re-legitimise trade union work outside the narrow confines of workplace issues, and outside the CapitalLabour relationship. We must seek to incorporate the needs of all the oppressed layers of society. Including, and particularly at the level of the European Union as a whole.
In recent weeks we have seen two encouraging developments. Leaders of significant sectors of the labour movement in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium have organised an EU-wide meeting of the trade union left in Paris later this month. On the next page we reprint the initial "orientation text" of this unpreceden- it" of this unprecedented meeting. The other good news was the recent
Milan meeting of 500 left trade unionists
(including some of those who signed the pan-European appeal). This important meeting in Italy shows the potential dynamic which a Europe-wide left regroupment can have on the labour movement in each country. Indeed, this new phase of left co-ordination in the trade unions was somehow prefigured by last year's co-ordinated European Marches
Against Unemployment, Marginalisation and Job Insecurity, an initiative that linked unemployed workers, trade union activists, and others who supported the rebirth of the social movements.
Let's hope that this encouraging trend is confirmed, and that we see a Europeanisation of labour struggles. The political context is ripe. Europe's new single currency, the Euro, will be introduced in
1999. This will create, for the first time, a real European Executive power.
Meanwhile, social democratic parties will dominate the governments of all member states, except Spain. They will have no excuses for not introducing the
"social and economic" Europe they have been promising. Time to start increasing the pressure!
EU heads of state will meet in Cologne, developments. It's time to start building Germany on 5 June 1999 to review the counter-summit, and the pan-European demonstrations that will ensure that our voices are heard. *
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