Workers fight austerity drive New tide of struggle sweeps Europe
Socialist Outlook newspaper1990sPaul ClarkeTranscribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.
LABOUR UNREST is sweeping Europe. While the struggle at Charles de Gaulle airport in France has been widely reported in Britain, events in Germany, Belgium and Italy have been equally dramatic.
Much of the present strike wave is against at defending job security against cutbacks and restructuring, as governments move to cut the number of workers and demand 'flexibility' in state-run industries.
In both France and Italy this is connected to the privatisation drive.
At the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, Air France workers scored a partial victory at the end of October in forcing the withdrawal of the restructuring plan which would have cost 4000 jobs.
general strike against government economic policies.
The mass demonstrations in all large cities protested against 11 per cent unemployment, a government wage freeze and the tax system which allows employers to evade contributions, whereas all workers pay very high taxes.
Plant occupied
The new surge of labour militancy in Italy peaked in September by the mass occupation of the Enichem chemicals plant in Crotone, in southern Italy against a restructuring plan which would have cut 20 per cent of the workforce.
On 27 October 120,000 German building workers demonstrated in Bonn against government plans to scrap winter lay-off payments. This followed the occupation by miners of the Haus Aden-Monopol pit at Bergkamen of the nearby power station, which is threatening to switch to cheap imported coal. The miners also organised a 60,000-strong demonstration against threatened job cuts.
This was followed on 29 October by simultaneous demonstrations by unemployed workers in 200(!) German cities.
The biggest mass demonstration in Belgium for many years, 150,000 strong, took place in Brussels on 31 October against the attempt of the government to impose a 'social pact'.
This pact is similar to one being proposed in Spain, which proposes limiting wage rises 'to create' jobs, and to cut costly redundancy payments which hinder the bosses' restructuring plans.
The debate on alternatives to redundancy, focusing on work-sharing and cutting the working week, is very strong in Germany and France, although almost absent in Britain.
Volkswagen employers in Germany are proposing a four-day week as an alternative to job cuts - but with a 20 per cent cut in pay.