German unions call women's rights demonstration
WOMEN Steffi ENGERT In early autumn, amid the anti-war days of action, the huge peace movement demonstrations and the preparation for the 35-hour week campaign - the DGB (national trade-union confederation) national leadership suddenly announced the first countrywide DGB women's demonstration against the government's austerity polices.
There was justifiable scepticism that the women's demands would be neglected by the apparatus in a half-hearted mobilization. There were quite a number of bad signs.
The leadership of the IG Metall at first backed out on participating in the demonstration. The preparation of the 35-hour week campaign and the steel workers demonstration on September 9 were supposed to be more important. The slogan for the steel demonstration was 'All men to Bonn'!
- Leaflets for the September 18 demonstration were a rarety in most towns and counties. In many places, such as Esslingen, women took matters into their own hands and had leaflets printed as it seemed as if the national call would never come.
The most active women did everything they could to publicize the call for the demonstration during the anti-war rallies, placing leaflets on their stands and so on. But there was little attempt to use the opportunity afforded these mass gatherings to launch the call from the
Despite these rather negative signs the mobilisation for the demonstration was
More than 20,000 women and men gathered in Bonn's Muensterplatz. Such a large turnout can be above all attributed to the efforts of the active women trade unionists.
The IG Metall leadership could not sell its arguments to self-confident women who were not afraid to take on their union leaders directly. So, a shamefaced call finally appeared in Metall, the trade-
All the sectors of the union were represented in Bonn. There were particularstrong contingents from the traditional women's sectors: textiles, clothing, and the NGG (food, luxury goods and hotel union). Also strongly represented were IG Chemie [the chemical industry union], the OTV [public service workers union] and the IG Metall. Even women from the police union (GdP) had banner demanding retention of social factors in the decision to give legal abortion.
### WOMEN AND MEN
Between a third and a half of those present were male colleagues who had taken over practically all the 'responsible' positions: female stewards were far and few between. Women had no role at all in organising the start of the demonstration.
It was more a DGB demonstration for women's demands than one by DGBwomen for their own demands supported by the entire trade union. In some of the corners of the Muensterplatz attempted to engage women trade unionists in conversation.
The banners were a colorful sight. Here and there purple banners could be seen. The 'O' of OTV was often transformed into the women's symbol. men from IG Metall carried boards in front of their foreheads in a graphic illustration of the German idiomatic saying for stupid, saying "This is how men want us to be'
The banners, slogans and chants of the women taking part did not simply raise the question of austerity policies in themes such as the threat of reduction in maternity leave funds, raising of the retirement age and restriction of abortion
Nearly half the banners made reference to the problem of armament - the war, and the relationship beween military spending and social service cuts - particularly affecting women. They also took up Interior Minister Zimmerman's tightening of the immigration laws and the anti-foreigner campaign
NO PERSPECTIVE
The fighting spirit of the women taking part was scarcely reflected in the keynote speeches by Irmgard Blaettel, DGB women's leader, or DGB president Ernst
As for protests against the government, reproaching it for not having kept its promises, there were scanty perspectives for action. Only the rather general threat that 'We won't be had so easily!' or 'We won't take it any longer!' But even these remained without any bite.
However, a few days before the demonstration took place, the leadership had upgraded its importance, presenting it as the start of a longer campaign against austerity policies. But there was not a word about the goals, or the means to carry out this campaign. But the Sep. tember 18 demonstration showed that the trade-union leadership will be under more and more pressure to act from the ranks, and that a lot of members are just waiting for the leadership to issue a call to go into action.
### OUR PERSPECTIVES
The demonstration of September 18 should not only be the beginning of a trade-union campaign against austerity policies. Above all it should launch a serious trade-union fight for women's demands.
The Gruppe Internationale Marxisten (GIM - German section of the Fourth International) argued this in the following terms in their leaflet distributed at the Bonn demonstration:
"Many women trade unionists are unavailable for fulltime union positions because of the double burden of work and the family. Thus, fundamental changes in women's role must be a goal of trade-union policy. Demands such as skilled jobs and training positions for women and girls, positive action, and the setting up of creches, etc. are not divisive.
'On the contrary. Only when these demands are fully integrated into the trade-union struggle for the 35-hour week can division be overcome.'
International Viewpoint 28 November 1983
PEACE MOVEMENT ceived in West Germany in 1982 and in Belgium more recently, appears as the rightist pro-Atlantic Alliance figure within the Socialist International.
To be sure, the balance within the British Labour Party has shifted to the right. But this turn is meeting with re-