fighting rightist
Danish government
I asked why they took out the demand for nationalizations from the DKP proposal. Lydia said:
"I personally have nothing in principle against nationalizations, and I don't think that I would have anything in principle against import controls either. But that is also a tactical question, that is, it is a tactical question how far we can go in that respect now. And it is important to
In September, the Danish Social Democrats allowed the bourgeois parties to form a minority government under Paul Schlueter in order to do the dirty work of carrying the austerity policy further.
The installation of the new government, known popularly as the "Toilet-Seat Cabinet" since the names of the parties involved spell out those words in Danish, followed by a general offensive against working people both on the economic level and the level of democratic rights.
One of the first targets were the dock workers, since they are employed on a
The government wanted to cut their unemployment benefits for the days they did not get work.
government used police extensively and brutally to defeat the dockers
One of the dock workers leaders, Karl Joergensen, was jailed arbitrarily on vague charges related to a fire that took place in a warehouse.
down as a result and is still being held in a guarded hospital room. A campaign for his release has been started up by the dockers.
Following the strike, the government introduced a bill calling for special powers to jail persons accused of conspiracy to cause violence or of being a danger to "pub-
Bearing the brunt of the rightist government's onslaught, the dockers have taken the lead in trying to work out a political answer to the government.
article from the June 30 issue of Klassekampen, the paper of the Danish section of the Fourth International, discusses the alternative put forward by the dockers union.
The program calls for a workers government, among other things, to stop the attacks on unemployment benefits; enact a 35-hour week with no cut in pay; stop attempts to introduce large-scale part-time work (shorter hours for the ill or handicapped should be negotiated by the unions); restoration of cost-of-living raises and increases in pensions to keep up with the rising cost of living; a rescinding of the cuts in health insurance; 26-week maternity leaves; stepped up construction of public housing (40,000 homes a year and a halt to the rise of morgage costs); state-financed retraining of laid-off workers; Danish rejection of US nuclear missiles and support for a nuclear-free zone, especially in Scandinavia; and a general reduction of military expenditures.
Kim TVERSKOR
"It's important that the workers have something that they can fight for, somethat seems realistic, that get them to take their hands out of their was "Lydia" talking, who is sometimes also called Kjartan Gudmunds-
He is a Copenhagen dock worker and one of the leaders of the month-long
Along with a fellow docker, mundsson has proposed a working-class program. It was intended to be a policy that the workers movement could unite around and which would inspire tens of thousands of workers to fight the Schlueter government.
That is, it was intended to offer the first outline of a political alternative to the austerity policy that has been being implemented for many years now.
At a general assembly of the Copenhagen district of the dock workers union,
Gudmundsson's proposal was accepted unanimously. He explained why he pressomething we discussed both before and after the strike.
thought that maybe one of the reasons
The following port was that the basis was too narrow -just maintaining the full employment payments for the days we did not get
"The fact of the matter was that Schlueter was attacking the entire work-
He threatened a lot of other people. Our strike did not take up the many other problems caused by this. One of the things we talked about was the need for attacking the government more broadly.
Lydia relates that the proposal was drawn up on an afternoon, the last day for handing in proposals to be voted on in the general assembly Danish They first took a Party published in its newspaper, Land
But it was impossible to get the other workers parties to consider this.
"We discussed how much should be put into the proposal. And it is easy for me to explain why we did not include more radical demands. One example is the question of import regulation. is a question on which there is no agreement on the left. The Socialist People's Party has its model, and the Communist Party has its. The Left Socialists (VS)
get broad support for the proposal if it is to have a chance at all. We might come to a situation five years from now where nationalization would suddenly become the main demand. But that is not the case now."
I asked about how the debate on the proposal was proceeding:
"The first discussion is in the union leadership. The Communist Party members raised the question of whether we should make a direct attack on capitalism. The Social Democrats said they would not go along with that. So, the CPers backed off. They could see the tactical wisdom in supporting such a proposal and uniting around it, so that we could get a proposal on which there would be unity in the leadership. The leadership put the proposal to the general assembly, and it was adopted unanimously.
"Wasn't there a lot of discussion," I asked.
"Yes, there was, " Lydia said. "I explained why we had put the proposal and laid out openly what the tactical consid
That is, it had to get broad erations were. support without being toothless, and I do not think that it is that."
I asked: "Can you explain the impor tance of this program. Isn't direct actions and strikes that are important if anything is going to be changed?"
Lydia replied: something the working class can unite around. It is not enough to say: "Dump
Because unless Anker and the Social Democrats are put under pres sure, they will not be very different from
That is what held a lot of people back from supporting the dock strike, because they difference between the policies that the the bourgeois parties have been following in the context of the economic crisis. The conflict could have led to the fall of the govern-
Then we would have gotten a
Social Democratic government back but without any real change in policy. If, on the other hand, the workers parties could stand together on a basic platform, then they would represent a more credible alternative."
"Can your proposal solve the economic crisis in Denmark?"
"No. I am quite clear that it cannot
But if the working class can force the workers parties to try to carry out such a platform or at least some of the more
9
ment, and they will have a majority. It of labor laid it on the line when he preimportant points, that by itself would be a victory. And that is something that the workers very much need. We need a fighting working class, and the precondition for that is that the various gurus in the workers movement begin to say the same thing. As long as they don't do that, the confusion continues.
I asked, finally, "Who do you think will form the government after Schlueter doesn't amount to a damn whether the other workers parties are in the govern-
Why should we get involved in an argument whether the Socialist People's
Party should be in or not?
worry about that. Whether Gert Petersen is foreign minister, or the chairperson of a party backing the government, ever the devil he is, what does that matter sented the National Development Plan, from his point of view there are no possibilities in the short run of improving the standard of living of the population.
There was too much pressure, therefore, even for the leaders who have always made rotten deals and betrayed the workers like the CTM tops. The maneuvering room for conciliators is vanishfalls?"
Lydia said: "The decisive thing is that it will be the Social Democrats one way or another that will form the govern- forget about our demands."
What is important is that they meet our demands and that the working
Otherwise, they'll