WEST GERMANY 'Respectfulness' on the way out in the unions HUNDREDS of thousands of workers struck in West Germany in the days leading up to Christmas against a bill proposed by the Kohl government that would undermine the unions' right to strike. The biggest and most powerful union, IG Metall, intends to make the 35-hour week a central issue in the campaign for the 1987 parliamentary elections. West Germany is facing a crucial test of strength between the government and the unions.
PETER BARTELHEIMER PETEK BAKIBHEIME
Johannes Rau, the SPD's [Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands -German Social Democratic Party] freshly anointed candidate for chancellor in the parliamentary elections to be held at the beginning of 1987, had his nerve. The public relations firm handling his campaign put full-page ads in all the papers with a wider than regional circulation, in which he appealed to his "dear fellow citizens, male and female," to take up the fight along with him against "an erosion of political propriety."
The motto of Rau's campaign, which has just been set in motion, is "reconciliation instead of division. This is supposed to mean making both world peace and social peace more secure.
"Needlessly," Rau complains, the Christian Democrat-liberal coalition brought on the "most dangerous conflict since 1945 between the parties to labor-contract negotiations." As far as the mood in the unions goes at least, Rau has made a fundamental misassessment.
It is true that the posters and buttons that the IG Metall put out appealing for people to defend the right to strike are still in the national colors - black, red, and gold. But the activists will no longer listen to the magic words of the years of the Wirtschaftswunder ["economic miracle"] and "social partnership," such as "social peace, " "conciliation," and "propriety."
About 150 such activists "disrupted" the traditional annual "meeting of the three kings" of the liberal coalition party, the FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei), on January 6 in Stuttgart. They mingled with the guests, and during the speech of economics minister Bangemann they waved money. This was to point up the Flick concern's "payments" to FDP politicians. At the same time they chanted and sang workers songs. They stepped on his honour's toes
A few days later, the mayor of Frankfurt and deputy chair of the Christian Democratic Union, Wallmann, had to run a gauntlet of about eighty workers when he wanted to participate in the New Year reception of the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB - German Confederation of Trade Unions) in the Frankfurt trade-union building.
As they did with strike-breakers during the fight for the 35-hour week in 1984, union activists poured a flood of scorn and abuse on the top politicians of the ruling Christian Democrats. The speech that Wallmann gave later was drowned out by uninvited demonstrators in the hall whistling and chanting. "Wallmann und Kapital - raus aus unserem Saal" ["Wallmann and capital, out of our hall!"].
After it was all over, Wallmann claimed that he had been trampled on and beaten. Trade-unionists present compared the scene to a "crowd at a late winter sale." But for days Wallmann was assured of national headlines, apologies from the DGB, and a solemn repudiation of all "violence" by the SPD.
In the two opposition parties in the parliament, only Rainer Trampert, the speaker for the Greens, found the courage to say anything positive about this "turmoil and
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disturbance." He did so in a debate in the Frankfurt union hall a few days after the incident, winning the applause of the Frankfurt trade-union left.
The events in Frankfurt and Stuttgart are only episodes in a confrontation that is testing the right of the West German trade unions to strike. In fact, the almost inconceivable lack of respect shown to officials before the holidays indicates a change in the climate in the West German trade-union movement.
After 650,000 people took part in trade-union rallies against austerity in October 1985 and 500,000 workers staged brief stoppages in December throughout the country against the sear. 1986 promises to be a "hot
A year before the crucial parliamentary elections, the government has made its fate dependent on another test of strength with the unions. If the government wins, the wing of the trade-union movement that is ready to fight could lose its capacity for resistance. If the government is obliged to retreat, then a governmental crisis is possible, and an electoral defeat for the right likely.
What is this conflict about? In no other parliamentary democracy in Europe is the right to strike so greatly restricted as in West Germany. This right, which is not explicitly guaranteed by the West German constitution, has been subjected to more and more regulation by court decisions.
Thus, according to the accepted legal precedents, "political" strikes (that is, those aimed against decisions of the government or parliament) are illegal, along with "wildcat" strikes (that is, those not called by the union leadership) and international solidarity strikes.
Of fundamental importance for labor law is a ruling by the Bundesarbeitsgericht [BAG - Federal Labor Court] in 1955 in which it was stated: "Labor struggles (strikes and lockouts) are in general undesirable, since they involve harm to the economy and damage the social peace that is in the interests of all."
From this ruling, it follows that strikes are legal only in exceptional circumstances and within narrow bounds. On the other hand, in accordance with the so-called "principle of equal armament," lockouts have essentially been legalized, although for example, they are forbidden by the constitution of the state of Hesse.
In a subsequent decision in 1980, the BAG granted employers the right to respond to any strike action by the unions with a lockout of 25 percent of the workers in the struck area. 22
In scarcely any other West European country have the employers resorted so extensively to lockouts. For example, in the 1976 printing workers' strike, there were 90,000 locked-out workers as against 16,000 strikers. In the engineering industry in the Stuttgart region in 1978, 80,000 workers struck; 200,000 were locked out.
In the consciousness of the West German workers' movement, the unions have a vital protective function to fulfill in paying their members compensation in the event of strikes and lockouts. The extent of such payments is linked to the workers' contributions and their length of membership. In general, they amount to two-thirds of the take-home wage.
In order to undermine the readiness of workers to strike, the employers are relying increasingly on a second form of "cold" lockout. Plants outside the struck areas are being closed for "technical reasons." In 1971, in the Stuttgart-Mannheim region, IG Metall called out 120,000 workers on strike. In the struck region, the engineering industry employers locked out 300,000 workers. Some 280,000 more were victims of "technical plant closures" on the national level.
With the support of the Social Democratic chancellor at the time, Willy Brant, the unions won the right for workers subjected to "cold lockouts" to get indemnities from the unemployment assistance fund (which after all is financed by contributions from the wage earners).
In 1984, the employers and the rightist coalition tried to break the strike for the 35-hour week by means of a "cold" lockout. IG Metall started selective strikes at key points, calling out 55,000 strikers. The employers responded by locking out 170,000 workers in the areas involved in the conflict. Throughout the country, moreover, in a few days another 373,000 workers were put on the streets by factory closings. The government's objectives
At the same time, the Kohl government forbade the Bundesanstalt fur Arbeit (the unemployment insurance agency) to make payments to the victims of "cold" lockouts. Under the impact of the trade-union mobilization - more than 230,000 people demonstrated on May 28, 1984, in Bonn - the courts ordered the labor offices to pay compensation.
Last fall, the Kohl government, under pressure from the FDP and the employers' associations, decided to deny payments to the victims of "cold" lockouts by changing the law.
Under the new provisions, workers would not qualify if the union made the same main demand in all regions. Article 116 of the Labor Demand Law (which regulates unemployment insurance) had previously allowed compensation to workers who lost time owing to strikes, if the demands of the union in the regions differed slightly from each other.
With its offensive, the government is pursuing three goals.
1. It wants to force the unions, under threat of the possible strike costs, to largely regionalize their bargaining policy, and, in regions with higher unemployment, to accept lower wages and worse working conditions.
2. It wants to force IG Metall -which, along with IG Druck und Papier [the printing-workers' union] won a 38.5-hour week in 1984 and which in September 1986 might demand new negotiations for the 35-hour week - to choose between renouncing a new national struggle for this common and uniting objective or having to face the risk of seeing hundreds of thousands of workers thrown pennyless onto the streets by "cold lockouts." Giving compensation to hundreds of thousands of victims of "cold" lockouts would empty its strike funds in a matter of days.
On the other hand, if IG Metall directed its members to the state social-welfare offices, it would split the fighters into those with, and those without, strike compensation. The victims of "cold" lockouts could in no way count on getting social assistance.
3. Above all, the offensive is aimed at IG Metall and some smaller unions that in recent years have waged successful strike struggles. It designed to win over a "moderate" wing of the unions grouped around IG Chemie, Papier, Keramik, to collaborating with the government. The DGB would thus be split.
The chair of the IG Chemie, Papier, Keramik, Hermann Rappe, who in 1984 already refused to extend solidarity to the struggle for the 35hour week, has been quick to come out for a compromise on this occasion. He proposes a solution whereby the existing legislation on wage struggles would remain unchanged, and only the right to strike for qualitative demands would be limited.
In IG Metall, it was the women who insisted on actions in the factories in the face of a wavering leadership. In the IG Metall Women's Conference in November, they demanded that their leadership heed the article of the constitution assuring the right of resistance in accordance with the statutes of the union, and go on strike against the proposed legislation. International Viewpoint 24 February 1986
Only a few days later, on November 20, 1985, IG Metall chair, Hans Mayr, who had warned the women against a general strike earlier, said at a national conference of union officials in Frankfurt: "We have to get out of our heads any notion of an alternative calling for extensive mobilization."
On December 10 and 18, throughout the country, 55,000 metal workers took part in warning strikes. In cities such as Cologne and Dortmund, the busses and trollies were also stopped by solidarity actions. One result of the actions was that the Christian Democratic members of the DGB demanded that "their" minister of labor, Blum, modify his bill or withdraw it altogether. Their association, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - Social Committees, is threatening a split. The DGB leadership still did not The DGB leadership still did not want to hear of a general protest strike. Under the pressure of the IG Chemie, Papier, Keramik chair, Rappe, it decided that a generalstrike call could be issued only by a special meeting of the National Council [Vorstand]. However, at a press conference in Frankfurt on January 16, the IG Metall National Council reaffirmed its determination to step up its actions while the debate in parliament on the bill continues (as it may until May). Hans Janssen, representative of the wing of the IG Metall leadership that is ready to fight, said in an interview: "Our resistance will be enough to keep the government from amending the act." (Konkret, January 1986). [The proposed legislation is in the form of amendments to Article 116.] Hans Janssen also represented the union activists who in this situation are proposing a new mobilization for the 35-hour week. In the January 1415 meeting of the National Council, this position won a partial success: The IG Metall leadership not only "recommended" to the regional bargaining committees that they raise demands for raises of 6 percent to 7.5 percent in the wages negotiations that are to open in March. It also expressed its intention to end all the agreements on working time by the end of the year at least, and thus to make the 35-hour week a central issue in the parliamentary elections.
Together with the Greens, Social Democrats, and unionists, the GIM, German section of the Fourth International, is supporting a national call appealing for solidarity in the defense of the right to strike. At the same time, this statement calls for a legislative initiative to ban lockouts. The Greens' parliamentary fraction has already drawn up such a bill.
International Viewpoint 24 February 1986