Where is the European Labor Movement?
Carol
Z Magazine Online
June 2007 Volume 20 Number 6
EUROPE: Where is the European Labor Movement?
By Benjamin Weinthal
In March the European Union (EU) celebrated its 50th anniversary.
The signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 served as the
inspiration for the end of a war-torn divided Europe and the
beginning of political and economic unity for a new Europe. The
birthday took place in Berlin, the post-unification capital city
of Germany whose government has assumed the rotating presidency
of the EU for the next six months. Angela Merkel, the first woman
chancellor of Germany and a member of the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU), said Europe has reached more in 50 years than we
Europeans could have ever wished. Her motto for Germanys EU
presidency: succeeding together.
Meanwhile, a second notable event succeeded in bringing together
organized labor in the European Union when trade unions in four
EU nationsSpain, Germany, England, and France stopped the
production of Europes largest plane maker Airbus, a rare example
of European cross-border unionism.
The Airbus labor actions provide a window on European power
politics. In late February Airbus announced the elimination of
10,000 jobs, including the closure and sale of plants. Airbus
management, which employs 57,000 workers across Europe, coined
the term Power 8 for its restructuring program, a charmingly
deceptive label for widespread layoffs and out- sourcing. Airbus
seeks to slash 4,300 jobs in France and 3,700 positions in
Germany. The plane maker is also targeting 1,250 jobs in England
while Spain will see 400 job cuts.
The EU political class interprets the Power 8 program as a
necessary element of a competitive neo- liberal rescue measure.
Merkel, the CDU chancellor, said, At first sight the principle
of fair distribution appears to have been respected. Tony Blair,
Britains prime minister, reacted positively to the Power 8 plan
while outgoing French President Jacques Chirac accepted it, but
said the closure of plants must occur in a fair social
dialogue. Chirac will be succeeded by the conservative Sarkozy
who, following a meeting with French Airbus trade unionists, said
he does not feel bound to the Power 8 plan.
Work stoppages promptly followed the Airbus presentation of its
Power 8 program. On February 28, and running into early March,
4,850 German and 4,300 French workers participated in wildcat and
political strikes. German workers, who are not legally permitted
to engage in political strikes, nonetheless struck three German
plants. A political strike aims to influence a change in the
behavior of the government, whereas an economic strike seeks to
alter the employers conduct, in the sphere of labor
negotiations. The Airbus conflict is turning into a complex
interface between political and economic strikes, largely because
Airbus is an amalgamation of public and private ownership. The
French government, for example, maintains a 15 percent share of
Airbus ownership. The German auto manufacturer Daimler-Chrysler,
as well as a number of German regional states, also have sizeable
shares in the company. Airbus is run by a French-German co-chief
executive structure and symbolizes a kind of crowning achievement
of EU business class economic power.
An aim of Airbus, which was founded in 1970, was to compete with
the U.S.-based Boeing Corporation, the worlds top selling
manufacturer of passenger planes. The parent corporation of
Airbus is the European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co. (EADS).
Both Boeing and EADS produce large commercial planes, but are
also leaders in the mushrooming military industrial complex.
EADSs plane division is booming economically, which helps
explain why Michael Eilers, the IG Metall union chairperson of
the works council in the Nordenham plant in northern Germany,
deemed the plan to sell factories unacceptable. According to
Eilers, Airbus is filled with work orders and the prognosis
looks very good for the economic viability of the corporation.
Airbus, whose main headquarters is located in Toulouse, France,
where 11,500 workers are based, has 16 plants across Europe. In
addition to the Nordenham plant, which manufactures fuselage
parts, Airbus is targeting two other plants in Germany for sale,
a classic expression of outsourcing with a view toward slashing
union wages and benefits.
Workers in Laupheim, in the southern German state of Baden-
W|rttemberg, are shocked and frustrated about the Power 8 plan,
according to the IG Metall union representative Michael Braun,
who also noted they are showing a willingness to fight. The
1,200 union members in Laupheim who produce and design the cabin
and cargo components, have shifted, following the wildcat strike,
to an in-plant work-to-rule strategy. Braun said that workers are
refusing to accept overtime work and special shift assignments.
The protest within the plant can be felt, said Braun.
IG Metall is Germanys largest industrial union and dominates
such sectors as auto, electronics and metal work. The union is
arguably the most powerful industrial union in the advanced
capitalist world and the pattern setter for collective bargaining
negotiations in Germany. IG Metallmirroring industrial unions
like the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the U.S.has, however,
suffered massive membership losses and a deterioration of
organizational and strike power. In 1992, following the
unification of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) with
the Federal Republic, IG Metall absorbed 900,000 new east German
workers, and increased its membership base to 3.6 million
members. However, the current membership has plummeted to
2,376,000 million members and the union recently experienced its
first strike loss since 1954. In 2003 east German workers (in the
former GDR federal states) sought to reduce their work week from
38 to 35 hours thereby standardizing their work hours with those
of west German trade unionists. The strike affected the
production of Volkswagen and BMW autos in the worlds leading
export nation. The lack of sympathy strikes in the west German IG
Metall plants, coupled with a woefully ineffectual pressure point
campaign strategy in the east to mobilize union members and
public opinion, turned a winnable strike into a humiliating
flop.
That a single German union represents practically all Airbus
employees contributes to its bargaining and strike power, in
contrast to France where five separate French trade unions
represent Airbus employees. The coordinated IG Metall
work-to-rule action is affecting production. Martin Schindler, a
union representative for the Nordenham plant, reports that, More
is being discussed than produced on the factory floor. Managers
have been complaining about the work-to-rule action and that
members are refusing overtime work. According to Schindler,
displeasure is widespread among the workers.
The third plant targeted by Airbus for outsourcing is Varel,
which is located like its sister plant Nordenham, and produces
fuselage parts. Hartmut Tammen-Henke, the IG Metall
representative responsible for Varel, said that the 1,350 members
are very much in a fighting mode. He said in an interview that
the members fear a sale of the plant because of the loss of
jobs and collectively bargained conditions. An astonishing 35
percent of the workforce in the seven German Airbus plants is
already employed by subcontractors and temporary employment
agencies. Airbus also employs foreign workers who are treated
as second-class workers.
A form of economic chauvinism blocked the attempt on March 16 to
build a Europe-wide union demonstration in Brussels, Belgium and
the protest against Airbus was relegated to the national level.
When questioned about the role of nationalism, IG Metall
representative Braun remarked that [Nationalism] has not
entirely gone away among German workers. What prompted the
cancellation of the rally, however, was a nationalistic flyer
that the French union CFE- CGC disseminated. The flyer asserted
the Power 8 restructuring plan is a bonus for the incompetence
of the German plants. The CFE-CGC wrote: Who is responsible for
the delays by the A380: those who receive a third of the
production line for the A320 plane. The full production of the
A320, according to the Power 8 plan, will be shifted to the
German plant in Hamburg.
The Hamburg IG Metall council chair Horst Niehus charged the
CFE-CGC with encouraging populism and nationalism, according
to a report in the French newspaper Liberation. Julien Talavan, a
union representative from the largest French Airbus union Force
Ouvriere (FO), said We are prepared to block the assembly of the
aircrafts. The FO is insisting on retaining the work in Toulouse
and thereby preventing the transfer of the A320 plane work to
Hamburg.
The emotional, nationalistic language and desire for local
promotion is not limited to France. German protests following the
employers Power 8 announcement resulted in such slogans as
Airbus belongs to Bremen and Airbus belongs to Hamburg. The
germ of German worker chauvinism with respect to the Airbus
conflict could be found as early as May 2006. A bizarre group
under the name of Die Freien secured 30 percent of the votes in
a union election in the Hamburg plant, reported the anti-
nationalistic left German weekly Jungle World. Die Freien warned
of the danger that retiring German senior management could be
replaced with French management representatives. Their program
highlights their vehement opposition to the outflow of authority
to Toulouse in France.
The unsavory nationalistic language spilled over onto the largest
Airbus demonstration in Germany where 20,000 union members from
Airbus and supply parts firms rallied on March 16 to demand the
withdrawal of the Power 8 plan. At the time, IG Metall had struck
the seven Airbus plants in Germany and work stoppages hit Airbus
production in Spain and France. In Britain, hundreds of workers
rallied at the town hall in Chester, North Wales.
Socialist critics blasted IG Metall for inviting right-wing CDU
politicians to attend the massive rally in Hamburg. G|nther Oet-
tinger (CDU), the minister- president of the German federal state
of Baden-W|rttemberg, said, We are fighting for Airbus to remain
in Germany. Oettinger is currently tangled up in a row involving
a funeral speech in which he turned his predecessor, Hans
Filbinger (CDU), a Nazi naval judge, into an adversary of the
Nazi movementa scandalous form of historical revisionism.
Oettinger stressed that Filbinger was not a National Socialist
and there was no verdict from Hans Filbinger by which a person
lost his life. His defense of Filbinger blanketed the front
pages of the German dailies in April. Filbinger, who campaigned
with the slogan Freedom or Socialism during his election race
(1976) for the governorship of Baden-W|rttemberg, was a fierce
opponent of the 1960s German counter-cultural student movement
and created a right-wing think tank that has close ties to
reactionary intellectuals. The foundation is a hotbed of
ultra-nationalist German thinking. Filbinger issued the death
penalty to the WWII deserter Walter Grvger, a genuine resister of
Hitler, whose 78-year-old sister, Ursula Galke, said, A person
of Oettingers intelligence should not be lying.... Mr. Filbinger
was present during the killing of my brother. He read him the
sentence of death and stripped him in a cynical way of his civil
rights before his execution. The statements from Mr. Oettinger
are barefaced lies.
The president of IG Metall, J|rgen Petersin contrast to the
protectionist German rhetoric of Oettingerwent to great lengths
to not play the nationalistic card during the Hamburg rally.
Peters said, We are not fighting against our colleagues in
France and claimed that workers do not allow themselves to be
played off against each other.
Empty union slogans or a genuine attempt to bring about an
anti-nationalistic union atmosphere? A telling example seems to
suggest a case of phoney international union solidarity. Peters
negotiated a new labor agreement (September 2006) with Europes
largest auto manufacturer, VW. The main element involved
employment security for 100,000 German workers until 2010 in
exchange for an increased work week without additional pay. In
December VW announced the dismissal of 4,000 workers at its
Belgium plant and the transfer of the Golf VW auto production to
two plants in Germany. This style of national-based labor
negotiations at the expense of other workers helps to explain why
behind the scenes Belgium trade unionists criticized the
crocodile tears of their German counterparts.
A segment of the German labor movement grasps the pressing need
to change consciousness among German workers, yet many unions
remain stuck in the Middle Ages
Political and economic nationalism remain hot button issues for
German trade unions, largely because of the fascist politics in
German history. Publik, the labor magazine for Germanys largest
service employees union Ver.di, devoted several articles in its
December 2006 issue to the Danger from the right and outlined
new academic studies documenting alarming percentages of racism,
xenophobia, and anti-Semitism in the German work councils. The
cover story highlighted an EU study showing growing racial hatred
directed at minority groups within the EU, according to official
data from the European Monitoring Centre of Racism and Xenophobia
in Vienna. A Free University of Berlin investigation established
that 19 percent of German trade unionists maintain extreme
right-wing attitudes.
A segment of the German labor movement grasps the pressing need
to change consciousness among German workers, yet many unions
remain stuck in the Middle Ages. For example the German labor
federation (DGB) in the Berlin- Brandenburg district dismissed
the trade unionist and writer Esther Dischereit, who was
responsible for the DGBs anti-racism website though an
administrative labor law court reversed the termination and
ordered the DGB to reeinstate her. Dischereit had criticized the
accommodating posture of the labor unions to the National
Socialist German Workers Party in May 1933.
Acoordinated strike action of the four EU countriesGermany,
France, Spain and England to block the Power 8 downsizing
program is an untapped bundle of potential for creating a wave of
internationalism. Unfortunately the fragmented posture of the
unions represents a failure to embrace the opportunity to defeat
a multinational corporation and inspire worker activism across
Europe. The German co-executive of Air- bus, Thomas Enders, told
the magazine Focus, We are at this point highly vulnerable. Long
strikes would affect us severely and throw us still further
back. The turning inward of the national unions advances
Airbuss agenda. The left-leaning German daily Berliner Zeitung
captured the disunity within the EU: The case of the wobbly
company Airbus shows just how widespread economic nationalism is.
More than that, though, Airbus says a lot about Europe itself.
The most pressing and serious challenge for trade unionists on a
regional level is to create measures to protect union standards
in a globalized labor market. A hopeful move is the
trans-Atlantic union merger among unions in the U.S., England,
Canada, and Ireland. The planned fusion is still in its infancy,
but officials of the British union, Amicus, which represents
Airbus workers in England, and United Steel Workers in the U.S.,
announced a declaration to merge this past April. The
multinational union would become the worlds largest worker
organization totalling 3.4 million members.
The merger plan, according to British and American trade
unionists, is the only remedy against worker exploitation on a
globalized level. A concrete example of globalized trade unionism
is the labor protections secured for workers in the maritime
sector. A document (Bill of Rights) outlines the health and
safety protections for sea workers as well as wage and benefits
standards for 1.2 million seafarers. This movement from national-
based labor organizations to cross- border international unionism
represents hope for working people of the world.
Z
Ben Weinthal lives in Berlin and is a Labor Notes correspondent
for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
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