After the successful strikes in 2001/2002 the Paris solidarity collectives had already dissolved themselves when new conflicts erupted in 2003. During these struggles, which were not always successful, unexpected contradictions and difficulties emerged, which only contributed to them becoming valuable experiences.

About the strike at Frog Pub
There are several Frog Pubs in Paris, English style beer pubs, whose menus and ‘sport events on big screens’ are aimed at a young and solvent clientele. Expenses reduced by all means necessary: the kitchen staff work in tiny kitchens (e.g. 12 square meters kitchen for 450 square meters pub area). The wages vary between the minimum wage and 1200 euros for the chef. The working time, the reasons for dismissal etc. are defined by the boss alone. There is no clock to punch in and out, so the boss often ‘forgets’ the payment of extra hours. The costs for having to take a taxi after closing time of the subway are not refunded, although most of the workers live in the outskirts. The staircase serves as changing room.

The waiters and service staff are mainly British; the kitchen workers are of Tamil origin. Most of them don’t speak French. The whole kitchen staff is recruited within the Tamil community by a guy of Tamil origin. He is the only one who speaks good French, he is the middleman of the boss, he organises the work and decides whether a worker gets penalised or not. He is the only channel if someone wants to talk or negotiate with the boss. In this position he also represents the interests of the staff and was later on elected as their delegate. November 2002 the kitchen workers were trying to get in contact with unionists. In order to protect themselves, initially also against their representative, some of them developed a form of collective resistance and turn to the CNT. The CNT reacted like a union would react and informed the management about the existence of a union representation within their company. The precondition for such a union representation is a minimum number of 50 staff, which the management had tried to prevent up to then, by declaring the single branches as independent companies. The CNT wanted to gain recognition by going to court. First of all the management sacked the elected delegate and recruiting guy. Although he was not their friend, on April the 13th, the rest of the workers voted unanimously for strike. After a confrontation the company dismissed another kitchen worker.

The workers at Frog had no experiences of struggles in France, they were union members for the first time and they were on strike for the first time. They couldn’t assess what was possible and what was legal. They also couldn’t assess the real power of the union and therefore they had to rely on partly vague and sometimes big-mouthed statements of the CNT, which gave the impression that they could break the resistance of the bosses. The ethnical divisions within the staff, which was consciously implemented by the management, could not be overcome in process of the strike. On the other hand, the ethnical identity of the Tamils ensured a unity for several months.

The targets
On April the 16th, 28 out of 29 kitchen workers of the Frog chain walked out. They demanded: the cessation of dismissals, the annulling of all penalties, the adherence to the conditions prescribed in the work contracts, better health and safety conditions (separate toilettes, showers, dry lockers), payment of the extra hours, if they can not be avoided in the first place, election of delegates in all four branches of the chain in Paris, paid holiday, payment of the travel costs, extra pay for working after midnight, 100 per cent extra pay for nightshifts, an extra months wage at the end of the year, improved work organisation (no divided shifts, e.g. two hours in the morning, four hours in the evening; no end of shift after closing time of the subway), freedom of union activities. The boss refused any negotiations and told them that they could stand in front of the restaurant as long as they want, that he wouldn’t give a damn. Obviously he couldn’t imagine that a strike of these immigrants - who haven’t got a clue about anything - could have an impact on his business. Convinced that he had the law on his side he immediately went to court. There he obtained a legal order declaring that the strikers and the CNT were not allowed to enter or to block the restaurant. The striking kitchen staff were replaced by British service workers, now on duty in the kitchen.

Soon the strikers realised that mere picketing and leafleting wouldn’t be enough, but facing the legal order the CNT didn’t want to enter the restaurant. First there were some doubts raised about the actual power of the unions. Now the striking Frog workers contacted the collective who previously had been supporting the strike at McDonalds. The cooperation started with a joint participation of striking Frog and McDonalds workers at the Mayday demonstration and with the rather chaotic occupation of the pub in Bercy by sixty people after the demo. On the 3rd of May, Frog and McDonalds workers, together with a large number of supporters, entered the pub of the Rue Saint Denis, where they clashed with the boss and some of the service workers. Afterwards they blocked the McDonalds restaurant at des Halles. The strikers were in good shape and wanted to continue the action, but the CNT tried to hold them back.

On May the 7th, the pub in Rue Saint Denis was occupied again. The very aggressive boss locked in clients, strikers and supporters until the cops arrived. The cops ordered that the doors be opened, negotiated a smooth retreat of the strikers and pressured the boss to enter the negotiation process. The boss promised to do so, but the very next day he refused to negotiate again.

The striking workers continued pressuring the boss by occupying the restaurant the following day. At this point the internal quarrels within the CNT became ever more obvious. It also became clear that not the workers and their struggle, but the advertising effect of these actions for their union were most important to them and they tried to increase this with banners, stickers and badges. In contrast, the solidarity collective only had the aim of helping the workers win.

It also became clear that only the “tough actions’ - as the strikers called them - would be able to force the boss to negotiate: without the occupation the restaurant ran as normal, with the help of scab work by the service staff. At this stage the strikers enforced joint meetings of workers, the solidarity collective and the unions. The CNT had always refused to have this kind of meeting.

The CNT was focussing on a legal arbitration and announced that the legal process would require the suspension of any actions in front of the restaurant. At this point the strikers had planned an occupation that was supposed to last for at least three days. The union secretary brought an end to the occupation on the first evening, and all the CNT members joined him. For the strikers and the supporters there was nothing else left to do but to follow them.

The strikers could no longer assess to what extend the union would support them. The arbitration process had a demoralising effect. Eventually the actions in and around the bar became less important for the CNT than the legal process. The solidarity collective didn’t question the monopoly of the CNT in regard to the legal activities. It confined itself to the struggle on and in front of the pub floor, which the CNT was unable to fight. This division of tasks resulted in the struggle having to submit to the legal confrontation.

In front of the pubs a constant pressure was exercised on the clients. They were asked to show some solidarity and not to enter the pub. The biggest and most profitable pub was our main target. We tried to have pickets every afternoon, whenever possible. Every time the police were called in order to prevent our activities and to make us leave the allegedly private land. Every time we responded by saying that we are acting as part of a labour dispute (which, in France, forbids the police to intervene). With every action we managed to stay in front of the restaurant and to extend the boundaries of legality. By end of the summer we had managed to make sure that one of the previously most visited pubs of the area was nearly empty. At the end of the arbitration process the boss complained that he had lost about 500,000 euros. Also at the other branches we had a similar success.

The employer finds a weak spot
The boss took a harder stance and only later we understood why. Unlike the CNT he didn’t want to solve the conflict in front of the court. At the beginning of the summer he contacted the nationalistic organisation Tamil Tigers, which dominates the Tamil community. He demanded that the organisation should put pressure on its striking members to return to work. He claimed the strike would harm the reputation of the community in France. In front of the staff he boasted that the head of the organisation had promised to intervene. We only heard about that later, when the striking workers broke the taboo of talking about this question bit by bit. It was only then that we realised the extent of the divisions within the community and the impact which their political past still had, far away from their home country. But now it was too late to counteract this attack, the shit had already hit the fan: the strikers were already divided over this question. We found out that one of the most combattative strikers was repetitively threatened. The collective tried to use informal ways to deliver the message to those responsible for the threats, that any attack on the striking workers would have big repercussions within the militant movement and that this would also harm those responsible for the threats considerably. It took a long time before the message arrived, but finally it did.

The employer realised that he had found a weak spot and he made use of it. He urged strikers individually on the phone to give up their jobs. He offered money. He threatened them with heavy repressions if they turned up at the work place. Some of them cracked, but we only understood that much later, partly due to communication problems and the strikers fears of being seen in a bad light by their supporters.

By mid September eight out of the 28 strikers had gone back to work, eleven had accepted their dismissal on the level of individual arrangements, and eight were still on strike, of which three had gone to court over their dismissals. This core of workers were determined to fight, but were more and more discouraged.

At the end of September they told us, that they did want to negotiate about leaving the job for money. They thought it was impossible to go back to work facing this tension charged atmosphere. They were convinced that the boss would sack them on the slightest pretext.

We re-assured them of our support and respect, and advised them to stick together in order to achieve the best results. Two of them nevertheless signed individual arrangements and disappeared from the scene.

On Sunday, the 19th of October, the lawyers started the negotiations on the base of the 5,000 euros which the boss had offered as leaving pay and which the striking workers had refused. On November the 3rd, an agreement signed by both parties finished the conflict: the last strikers accepted their dismissals for a leaving pay of 5,000 euros (2,000 euros for the two workers who had been hired at the beginning of the strike) plus payment for the outstanding holidays; the CNT received 10,000 which they handed over to the strikers who distributed the money evenly amongst themselves.

That’s how the last striking workers finished the conflict collectively and demonstrated to those who had given up the strike earlier and who had preferred individual arrangements that it pays to stay determined together. The boss who believed that the whole story wouldn’t cost him too much underestimated the long term affects which the work of the collective had on his clientele; because his former popular pubs are still half empty...

Some preliminary conclusions
The reason for the eruption of the strikes, their endurance and for some of them having been successful was mainly the tenacity of the striking workers, but also the fact, that they took the organisation of the strike into their own hands. They had defined their aims according to their own demands and to their perception of the power relations - this excluded any falsification by external forces, supporters or political experts. According to the situation the strikers coordinated with other struggles and joined them when possible. The will of the striking workers was also the decisive factor at these times. Sometimes, as happened during the Frog strike, the workers tried to contact other workers in struggle, because they needed support and they were aware that solidarity is something reciprocal.

Recently some structures have tended to claim openly or indirectly the successes of the struggles, which the solidarity collectives had supported during the last three years. This is most obvious with the strike of the cleaning women of Arcade, which had suffered from a lack of support by external activists. It is often ignored how much work was necessary and how many problems the strike had to confront before it was finally successful. In order to change an unfavourable relation of forces more is necessary than some reports in the media, demonstrated union membership and some mates who turn up on demonstrations every now and then.

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

Notes on the text
This article was published in wildcat no.71/autumn 2004. If you want to read more on this topic try the article “Marx and Makhno meet McDonald’s: Casualized workers in Paris win several strikes, honorably lose another with combined union and extra-union, legal and illegal tactics. (http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/marxmakhno.html)

The Experience of the Paris Solidarity Collectives - A new Stage
The article was published in the first issue of the new French revue La Question Social - Revue Libertaire de Reflexion et de Combat (The Social Question - Libertarian Journal for Reflection and Struggle). The following is the part of the text dealing with the strikes at Frog Pub, a strike that was less internationally known than the McDonalds strike. There is a German translation of the whole article on http://www.wildcat-www.de/wildcat/71/w71_frog.htm.

1) The fact that eastern European workers got involved. So far capital has more or less managed to use the eastern European countries as a large pool of labour force which could be mobilised for short term projects like large construction projects or the seasonal work in the harvest. By legal regulations the state also managed to enforce a hierarchy within this new work force, some workers are able to move more or less freely, because of the their EU-status, others can only enter with special temporary contracts or only illegally. During the last month there have been several examples of eastern workers in the ‘west’, who didn’t accept their role as an available/dispensable and cheap commodity of labour. Like any other workers, their potential to fight back depends on their collective power as a workforce. We could see Polish and Romanian workers in the harvest in Germany or Spain who took legal actions against their bosses. We only heard of cases on small farms with few workers, so the decision to take legal action instead of collective struggle might be due to their isolated situation. African building workers in Berlin went a step further. They established contacts with support groups and organised demonstrations in order to claim their wages. In Spain in early 2004, Polish workers working for a subcontractor in the mining industry demanded the access to the Spanish social security system, although they were officially employed by a Polish company. They threatened a strike and even the Polish embassy got involved to settle the conflict. In the case of the Laing strike in London we only heard that a lot of eastern European workers were working on the same site and partly got involved, but more information would be required to understand the whole process, the difficulties (language...) and divisions (different conditions...) and the way in which they managed to overcome them. Nevertheless, the example shows that these workers don’t accept being treated as immigrants by the bosses any longer and that they don’t have to be seen as immigrants anymore by their work mates and left supporters.

2) The fact that people from the direct action movement got involved. We are used to solidarity declarations and young Trotskyists collecting money for striking workers. Fair enough. And we are used to more or less ideological debates about the alleged new subject, the precarious worker. Fair enough as well. But we are more interested in practical processes and experiences and their interpretation: what can ‘the movement’ learn from ‘workers struggles’ and the other way round, and where do the boundaries (activists/workers) dissolve? The leaflet of the group involved, the Wombles, mentions the social dimension of the construction site, the gentrification of the Kings Cross area and they supported the strike practically by occupying the cranes. Of interest is how they perceived the relationship between them and the strikers and about what they got out of the dispute.

De-constructing the Contricks
Laing O’Rourke is a major construction company in the UK and the main contractor on the Kings Cross Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), one of the biggest and most significant construction projects in the UK. They are also builder of UK spy-base GCHQ and many Police renovations. In Autumn 2004 the workers had a series of protests over the new contracts (or contricks as the Laing workers are calling them) and unfair dismissal. They have been supported by direct action groups.
The Facts

Early October: The UCATT union agree the new contract with management, despite not having seen it in full, and there having been no ballot. Workers are told they have six weeks to sign or face the sack. Small groups are taken in to sign, bullied and threatened. The GMB union advises workers not to sign. Only 14 out of 400 workers signed.

4 October: Steve Hedley, union activist, is sacked and 100 workers walk off work in protest. He was sacked by contractors Westinghouse, which employs casual workers on construction projects, after a shunt box worth £800 piece went missing during his shift. He was immediately dismissed and lost over two week’s wages.

8 October: In support for Steve, traffic was brought to a complete standstill in King’s Cross as a picket-line halted all deliveries to the CTRL. All vehicles entering and leaving the site were stopped and backed up cars, vans, concrete wagons, steel deliveries and heavy plant caused gridlock in this major London junction from 7am till 8.30am. Hundreds of workers from the site showed solidarity. Since then Steve has been offered £2500 to stop causing trouble. He has refused.

10 October: The workers requested that GMB rep Steve Kelly comes in to negotiate the employment contacts with management. He was thrown out of the CTRL site and all other GMB reps were banned. Tempers flared.

26 October: Lunchtime meeting of hundreds of workers in a park to agree demands and elect representatives. Heathrow Laing workers join them. Workers appoint a stewards’ council made up of representatives from dry fixers, crane drivers, groundworkers and steel workers to negotiate the contract.

5 November: Workers at the Channel Tunnel in Kings Cross hold a sit in protest in their canteen to demand the GMB is recognised and allowed onto site. A samba band played outside in encouragement. Managers agree to talk to the GMB after only one hour.

11 November: Public meeting with the workers and supporters. The local residents group and various activists were there.

22 November: Several cranes occupied by direct action people on the Laing O’Rourke Kings Cross Rail Link construction site.

The Contrick
Under the new contract or ‘contrick’ as it has been renamed by workers many currently ‘self-employed’ workers become Laing employees, but at a price. The basic pay is drastically reduced to a basic rate of £7.50 per hour (11€), and there is a drop in overtime pay. There is however a ‘discretionary bonus’ – which the boss decides whether you get or not. Those earning between £90 and £180 a day will see their pay slashed in half. A day off must be planned 40 days in advance and holiday pay could be cut by £20 per day for each worker. Management has told workers they will be sacked if they do not sign. Construction union UCAAT has told workers to sign the contract despite there having been no ballot and no full viewing of the contract itself. The GMB union has been barred off the site, in contravention of construction industry agreements. The enforcement of discretionary bonus payments from management means workers now fear this will be used against people who are trade union activists or anyone regarded as a troublemaker. Some employees have been forced to sign the contract after being threatened with the sack if they refuse. Others, who barely speak English, have been pushed into signing a contract they do not understand. However, in a sign of rising confidence, a group of workers from Eastern Europe refused to accept management’s promises until they heard it from the stewards themselves.

The Prol Position
The workers organised their own lunchtime meetings and elected their own shop-floor representatives. It was clear that these people had to be from the actual workforce. In the public meeting held later the workers welcomed support from the community, such as help with leafleting by the anti-capitalist groups and troskists groups, but it was clear that the struggle had to remain in the hands of the workers themselves. Having been so clearly betrayed by UCATT the point now was to negotiate directly. The need for national solidarity and spreading the struggle was also clear. They called for a national ballot of all Laing O’Rourkes workers to reject the deal. Their demands are in the leaflet below. Hundreds of workers at the following sites have all refused to sign and potentially face the sack: Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Kings Cross and Kent sites; Canary Wharf redevelopment scheme; Newham Hospital, London; Heathrow Terminal 5; Ascot Racecourse Redevelopment Scheme; Paradise Street Development, Liverpool; Gatwick Airport; John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford; and construction projects for Police stations & facilities for the Greater Manchester Police Authority. Many of these are huge multi-million-pound building projects. The heathrow workers have been particularly militant and the ‘T5’ project is already very controversial with an environmental and residents campaign against it.

The anti-capitalists
After meeting with the workers and asking them what sort of support they wanted, some local anti-capitalist activists wrote and distributed a leaflet, some of which is below. To emphasise their point they occupied two cranes on the CTRL site.

Up to now the anti-capitalist movement in the UK has made only a few meaningful links with grassroots workers struggles. The Liverpool Dockers struggle, which anti-capitalists supported, the links between Reclaim the Streets and the London Underground workers struggles, and the bin men strike in Brighton in 2000 are three previous examples. This new interest partly springs from the new debate around ‘precarity’ in direct action circles. The groups have since got calls from other sites to do similar actions. They have declined to this because at Kings Cross the crane occupations were part of an on-going struggle organised and lead by the workers themselves. Their actions were one part of this and to some extent a catalyst at an awkward stage of the struggle. The requests have come from groups of workers who are not themselves active. The wombles are reluctant to be ‘rent an activist’ and they understand that the push has to come from the workers themelves, both politically and practically.

Extract from one of the workers’ leaflets

Don’t fall for the Laing O’Rourkes “contrick”
The tax-man is the driving force behind the new contract. We’re all going to end up on the cards whether we like it or not. The question is whether we go on PAYE with a cut in money or with the same take home pay as now. The new contract cuts our basic pay and introduces a complicated bonus system that can be withheld at management discretion. No one denies this - not even the company. The company is trying every trick to con us into accepting the new “contrick”. We are being called into small meetings where UCATT union officials and company managers telling us to sign up to the deal or else we will be down the road. UCATT should be ashamed of themselves - they have become part of the Laing O’Rourkes machinery - industrial relations policemen against the workforce.

There should be a national ballot of all Laing O’Rourkes workers to accept or reject the deal. If there is going to be a new contract, then we demand:

* No cut in take home pay

* No complicated discretionary bonus scheme

* Full holiday pay (base on average take home)

* Full sick pay

* Pension scheme

* Redundancy pay

* Effective start date for everybody should be when they first started working for Laing O’Rourkes not when we sign the contract.
Stick together!

We have already had one walk-out and held meetings off site, we are all over the newspapers. Workers on Canary Wharf, Terminal 5 and Ascot are all up in arms. We are already in talks with them. This deal needs to be re-negotiated NOW. They can try their bully-boy tactics all they like but if we stick together across this job and all the other projects, we can get this con-trick overturned.

Extract from a Wombles leaflet

De-construction
If Laing O’Rourke get away with implementing these contracts, it will have huge implications for all construction workers - driving down wages and imposing conditions that put workers at greater risk. They fear that production bonuses and forced overtime will lead to a faster work pace, cut corners and exhaustion, with health and safety likely to suffer.

In recent years, the building industry has been using a huge amount of subcontracted, casual labour. Many construction workers have seen an erosion of rights, job security and benefits as a result. A decline in safety standards has led to more deaths at work, with over a 100 deaths per year in the industry, and managements refusing to take responsibility.
Double-Crossed in Kings Cross?

Local residents recently won a court order forbidding Channel Tunnel Rail development work 24 hours a day due to the noise and disruption it would cause. This is likely to cause a delay in work costing the contractors millions of pounds. Laing O’Rourke intends to claw back their massive profits by cutting workers wages.

However, noise is only one problem faced by local residents. Since the 1980’s local people have been resisting the development, fearing the destruction it would cause to their community. The Kings Cross Rail Link has already cost the area social housing - many council and housing association flats were pulled down to make way for the development. There is now a seven-year waiting list for council flats in the area. Most new private housing will be expensive and far beyond the reach of local people. The 20-year construction programme will lead to the area’s gentrification. The jobs such ‘regeneration’ will create are likely to be part-time/temp jobs in shopping malls and other services - poorly-paid casual work for people who will no longer be able to afford to live in the newly desirable area.

From prol-position news #1, 3/2005

See http://trouble.at/motarbetaren

It’s all about subsistence - not about competition about jobs and increased exploitation
The explicit General Motors’s program in week 2004.36 about the plants in Rüsselsheim (Opel in Germany) and Trollhattan (SAAB in Sweden) and the underbidding when it comes to sending classmates to unemployment, is only about speaking out clearly what is always an imperative with the competition between plants and workers’ collectives. A competition that is most fierce within the major companies.

If GM is sincere about closing either one of the present plants and centralize production to the remaining one, then the decision is already made. With this decision, Trollhattan is most probably the loosing part, with its distance from the European chains of production and markets, and its relative smallness. This is so, whether the Swedish Metall (the metal workers’ union) is offering lower wages and longer working time or not.

The most certain motive for GM is to let both plants present programmes for future increase in exploitation of the workers, with increased speed, reorganization of work processes and organization plus longer working time without corresponding increase of wages. With this rationalization planned, and to be accomplished by the local union and plant management, GM will be stronger off, no matter if they will close either of the plants, or not.

The background, apart from the always-overarching motive to get fewer workers to produce more for less payment, is the extremely fierce competition on the automotive market. They talk about an approximately 30 percent over capacity of production for the total automotive capital relative to the world wide demand.

The union strategy - crisis management
The union policy at present is 1) to sign a common protest appeal among the Swedish Metall union, the German IG Metall and the EMF (the European Metalworkers Federation) against GM playing off the two plants against each other; 2) to put their faith in GM considering „strict business economy“, whatever that may be, and that a „Swedish solution“ then is „very well at hand“ (according to the local union official in Trollhattan, Paul Akerlund); and 3) to let plants close and workers get fired, and instead emphasize the need for „restructuring“, with new jobs created with new techniques „on behalf of other jobs“. The price to be paid by the workers is to be balanced off by a good „unemployment insurance and an active labour market policy“ (the Metall union president, Goran Johnsson, in the union paper Dagens Arbete (Labour Today)). Beside this, the same Goran informs us that „those who loose this automobile production most probably will get some other production“.

Goteborg and the transmission plant
The SAAB factory in Goteborg has for a long time been under the same threat, however less explicitly. This threat was even more acute when the transmission plant changed from belonging to SAAB to be part of a GM-Fiat joint venture about gearboxes and motoring. The motive for the joint venture was from the start to play off the 17 factories in action in Europe against each other by stressing that the 17 factories were at least 3 or 4 to many without mentioning which was to be superfluous.

It was obvious from the start that the bosses wanted to increase competition between the plants, that is the workers, by implementing streamlining and rationalizations - in the end to increase the exploitation of the workers, says one worker in Goteborg.

Both the union and the management talk about „we in Sweden this, and we in Sweden that“. „If only we improve quality, write more improvement suggestions (i.e. kaizen, transl. note), reconsider when we are about to call in sick, etc.“ then the plant will remain. They suggest that if only we are willing, and make some efforts, it will work. But the new gearbox got screwed, the production of that went to Russelsheim (!), despite that they told us that „we“ were cheaper and produced better quality. I mean, how reliable is it when the bosses are appealing to our - yeah, our - willing at the same time as they let in Italian „brass“ (the wankers wearing ties, transl. note) to measure our machines?

A struggle for subsistence, and for better jobs
When GM decides - whether it will be Trollhattan or Russelsheim - it is up to the workers to fight. If they close either plant, to secure what ever there is to secure - that is subsistence. In the end that is what it is all about - as it is said, if they want loyalty, they can buy a dog. Demand, say, 5 years of wages and paid retraining. If GM won’t pay, demand it from the state. If the state won’t pay, demand it from the union - in the end it is to them we are paying our money every month, year in and year out. If Goran Persson (the Prime Minister of Sweden, transl. note) want to contribute with some billions (SEK, transl. note) for a motor-way project to Trollhattan, that will take longer time than the next threat of closure, then fuck the asphalt, give the money to the workers of Trollhattan.

If they continue production, there is the need to refuse worsening of work conditions and environment. It is no solution to let them have your little finger, since they, like all capitalists, are not satisfied until they get whole your body and soul. You can, just the same, say No today.

If they want to close today or in three years, it doesn’t matter how much - or little! - we agree to do. We can just as well approach them today and demand the only thing that counts in society - cash money. They can take their jobs and shove’em, if they only want to get us to work harder for less money. And in the end, they will fire us one after the other, instead of all collectively. Remember the 70 workers (at SAAB in Gothenburg, transl. note) that got fired last spring - with no thank you’s what so ever). The day before they were about to leave, some, well selected, of them got the offer to stay until the summer vacation, however not with a permanent contract. The management even got workers from Sodertalje (the SAAB motor factory south of Stockholm, transl. note) to work for the just fired Goteborg workers! In France workers threatened to blow up their closed factory, and got well more money than the legal system allowed them, says the same Goteborg worker.

Five years’ wages, that would do a „good unemployment insurance“, to use the words of Goran Johnsson. And keep holding our heads high.

September 24, 2004

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

From wildcat no. 71, autumn 2004

In search of 5000 talented workers to build automobiles
In November 1999, Volkswagen labor director Hartz presented the new project called “5000 x 5000“ to the public. 5000 working spaces would be established to produce the new Volkswagen “Touran“ model in Wolfsburg (Germany) and Hannover (Germany). The goal would be to bring “work places from abroad“ back to Germany. The project wanted to show that even under German (high-wage) conditions it would be possible to create profitable production.
The basic idea of the project was to produce a number of pieces for a fixed wage of 5000 DM (2556 Euro). Furthermore, there were no surcharge payments allotted for overtime, nightshifts or weekend-work, and no Christmas or summer bonuses and no overtime compensation through time off. Working hours were rolling time from 28.8 to 48 hours per week with Saturday as a normal workday. It was a list of wishes.

The wishes were not in agreement with Volkswagen contract with the Volkswagen Workers Union, so Volkswagen founded a subsidiary company, the Auto 5000 GmbH. At the end of March 2001, Volkswagen started negotiations with IG Metall. In principle, the IG Metall welcomed the concept, but there were some corrections necessary concerning working hours and wages. On July 28, 2001, a collective Auto 5000 agreement, with a duration of three years, was concluded about the conditions of the production of the Touran in Wolfsburg. The results were: 3500 unemployed workers would be hired. They would go through a special application procedure; the application would be processed solely by the Auto 5000 job center. The selected applicant would have to complete a three-month qualification period (paid by the job center), in which they should achieve general suitability for industry. After that, the applicant would have a six-month probation period including: training, more qualification, and building of the efficiency necessary for the demanded quota of the number of pieces. They would get unemployment money and later in the plant, they would get fixed wages of 2045 Euro per month. After completing probation successfully, they would get unlimited employment with a monthly wage of 2300 Euro plus a minimum bonus of 256 Euro, before tax naturally, and an additional personal achievement bonus and a plant-wide production bonus. All of the additional payments would depend on achieving the demanded profit margin. In comparison with the agreement between Volkswagen and its employees in the VW Wolfsburg plant, Auto 5000 employees would earn 20-40 per cent less.

The Auto 5000 contract “stipulates value creating regular working hours“ as 35 hours a week on average per year. They can be expanded to 42 hours a week if necessary. Up to 200 hours can be collected on an overtime account.
Compensation is made through time off or payment with 25 per cent added. The early and late shifts on Saturdays and the start up shifts on Sunday evening count as regular working time. Paid overtime can really only be created by management mistakes. If the number of pieces of the necessary quality is not achieved, it is necessary to do unpaid rework. The responsibility of defects lies with the “team“ that produced them. Weekly, employees have to do three hours of qualification, 1 1/2 hours of which are paid. During the first two years of the contract there is a mutual cancellation period, after that the legal requirements are valid.

There are various additional agreements within the collective Auto 5000 agreement, which “set the form of the working organization“. It is full of demand formulations about how “to create human working organizations“, “varied and holistic working matters“, “flat hierarchy“, and “semi-autonomous teams“ with “advanced options, dispositions and spaces for decisions“. In an appendix about achievement- an employee rating appears to be based on the criteria of the “biological and social reasonability“ of the personal setting.

Additionally, there is a “collective agreement about qualification“: After two years of “continued qualification“, all of the employees of the “Learning Factory“ become “accredited Professionals for Automobile Production“. With a contract for “co-management“, the workers council is allowed to determine the goals of production, personnel numbers and bonuses.
The glorification of the Auto 5000 location and the agreements about “holistic working organization“ and “co-management“ produced a storm of ardor in almost all of the media. Even critical unionistpraised the project. IG Metall celebrated this “innovative model“ in general and the maintenance of the 35 hour week in particular, certainly after the “dramatic negotiations“, as a “remarkable signal for the labor market“.They even noted as an achievement that all successful employees were to be employed after their probation period.

The production of the Touran started in January 2003 (after a delay). By the end of 2004, it should have been completely functioning. Out of 43,000 applicants, 3,780 were chosen for the phase of qualification and finally roughly 3,000 were hired. Almost 90 percent were unemployed before and were better qualified than average. Half of them were from Western Germany and half from Eastern Germany. The composition of the workforce in view of age and gender was typical for automobile production. The average age of Auto 5000 personnel was 32 years old. 149 of the employees in the probation period were not later employed or signed off by themselves.
However, the start up phase could not have flown smoothly. Auto 5000 management needed to integrate “supporters“, workers with Volkswagen-experience, into the Auto 5000 project. All in all, 107 people were added, mostly for the lower management. Now there are four hierarchies: management, leader of the assembly section, engineers and “supporters“.

Obviously, there were clashes with self-confident workers. A social science study paid by Volkswagen and IG Metall reflected what was easy to hear, “They think they can do what they want with us former unemployed.“The study captures those experiences on tiptoes stating, The “raised social sensibility of the unemployed“ and the “demand of self-responsible action“ created a “particularly critical sounding board“ for however inevitable conflicts. “The still highly motivated crew gives, just like the representatives of the concept in management and in workers council do, reason for good chances to hold the project on a successful track and contribute to a renaissance of even, enhanced industrial production work in Germany.“ (SOFI Göttingen: interim report about the project 5000x5000)

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

It is one of the last warm days of autumn; the oil price is rising and at Opel in Bochum, they are playing football. The work has stopped, the workers are striking and the young Peter Jaszczyk is their leader. A large, strong man, 30 years old, long hair, convinced communist. Faced with the rise in the price of petrol he is demanding a wage increase for him and his colleagues. He is aware of their strength. In Bochum, they make the axles for factories in half of Europe. Production has now slowed down everywhere. For the management there is no other choice. They have to increase the wage of the Opel workers, by 8.5 percent plus extra bonuses on top of the regular wage.

For the employees it is a year of defeat: First Siemens threatened to move the production of mobile and cordless telephones from Bocholt and Kamp-Lintfort to Hungary. Then DaimlerChrysler announced they would possibly be producing the Mercedes C-class in Bremen and South Africa instead of Sindelfingen in the future. Finally, VW are considering over 30,000 redundancies if the personnel costs in the West-German plants do not drop significantly.

- Published in “Die Zeit”, liberal weekly newspaper, on November the 11th, under the heading “The disempowerment of the workers”

Alone against the rest
Fear over losing ones job, threats of relocation and outsourcing, the closure of workplaces, wage freezes and increased pressure at work (and to accept any kind of work) leads to “disempowerment” of workers, so they say in “Die Zeit”. It that true? Does this strike not show just the opposite? A few hundred workers organized themselves independently from the union in the clear knowledge that they could force Opel, Europe-wide, to its knees – and how! It impressed hundreds of thousands of workers, provided the VW workers with a substantially better final agreement than their personnel manager Hartz had intended and given a new dynamic to the rather timid discussion about the Monday Demos. The strike in Bochum was the first item on the news every day and parliament held a special session to discuss it…

Colossus on clay feet
Producing about 5.5 million vehicles per year, General Motors is still the largest car producer - and is hit particularly hard by the worldwide sales and overproduction crises. The discount battle in the USA and Canada (where 50 percent of the cars are produced) has lead to GM paying out for every car sold, and over 1000 dollars per car goes to pension payments, a mark of the (past) workers’ strength in the USA. That is why GM is particularly affected by the falling sales - and the Opel shares on the German market have fallen below the average amount. The 2003 business year saw GM make losses of 286 million dollars in Europe. The years gains of 3.8 billion dollars for the company as a whole is recently based on gains in the financial sector (we described a similar development for Ford in Wildcat 68). These 3.8 billion gains are much more than out weighted by the 15.5 billion Dollars lacking in the pension funds.

Car production is only possible with a high number produced per factory, which means a high capital investment and a strong connection to the location. The car industry has reacted to the crisis of the last three decades with ever more rationalization measures: today, less than ten percent of the total costs are spent on wages. The worldwide over-capacity puts pressure on the prices - something the car companies try to evade through ever faster product cycles and by churning out new types of cars (town cars, SUV, Vans, Mini-Vans, Fun cars), in order to achieve a short-term advantage over their competitors. Complains about “mis-management” relate to the fact that Opel has not had a ”sales booster” on offer for a long time, hiding the general problem: the car industry is in over-accumulation crisis. The constant costs in the factories are too high. “Constant” are not only the costs for machinery, “constant” are also the wages and pension funds, which cannot be cut.

The complaints about mis-management reveal a second problem: for years now, the automobile companies have not been able to come up with solutions other than repeating the same cost cutting measures repeatedly. Outsourcing leads to a disproportional growth of the supplier industry. The cost-cutting pressure of the automobile companies forces the suppliers into a concentration process - in future there will be 30-50 mega suppliers left, worldwide.

Cost cutting and increasing use of electronics on the new car models leads to a deterioration of the quality, expressing itself in more frequent and expensive product recalls. Despite this situation, the research and development departments are being downsized (Synergy effect). However, looking at the downsizing and cuts alone gives us a false picture of the situation: since the low point in 1994, the number of people employed in the sector has increased by 130,000, today about 775,000 people work in the car industry (plus another 1 Million in supplier industries). Most of the new jobs are created in the supplier industries, in line with their share in the production of 75 per cent. The car industry is the most effective sector in Germany but not able to accumulate sufficient surplus value.

The just-in-time strategy has reached its limit: the original intention of the new production structure (outsourcing, low stocks etc.) was to diminish the impact of industrial actions; then the workers discovered the vulnerability of this structure and their power within it. If the automobile companies declare today that the production strategy “one car model in one factory” [Alleinfertigung] is the new remedy, they will create new bottlenecks and will potentially become more vulnerable to collective actions of the workers. If the new Astra is only produced in one plant, the production cannot be compensated or shifted with short notice if a strike does occur.

Here we can see the general problem of the most advanced capitalist mode of production: either it creates flexibility, which means it will be expensive, or it creates dependences, which makes it vulnerable. The 7,600 workers producing the Astra and Zafira models in Bochum can be replaced with short notice by their colleagues in Ellesmere Port and Antwerpen, where they produce these models as well or by the colleagues in Gliwice, where they assemble the next generation model of the Zafira. This parallel production structure is cost intensive and therefore on the agenda of the negotiation process.

The power of the workers in Bochum today is based on them producing the axles and gearboxes, and in their pressing plant. The production of the plants in Antwerpen (Belgium), Rüsselsheim (Germany) and Ellesmere Port (Britain) is dependent on the “bottleneck” Bochum and on about 2,000 workers working in these specific departments.

The workers in Bochum were aware of the key position that they have. The desperate attempt of capital to overcome the profit squeeze means that the workers have an even greater potential to interrupt the international production chains effectively. The media does not like to write about this fact, because it has absolutely nothing to do with “disempowerment”.

In Bochum, the workforce has been “socially acceptable” halved from 19,200 (in 1992) to 14,200 (in September 1999) to 9,700 today, (without any mass redundancies, mainly by not replacing retired workers). The leap in productivity means that despite this even more cars are (or could be) produced today. The union mediates the downsizing and the intensification of work. As compensation, they got some adjustments to the collective contract. The IGM (Metal Workers` Union), the works council, and some retirement age workers taking on part time work were happy. Capital however was not happy for very long; everything developed too slowly at Opel, the social peace was paid for too dearly. Forster, who was taken over from BMW board of directors in 2001, didn’t achieve the set targets, despite his cost-cutting program, Olympia, which had made two billion Euros in cost- and turnover “improvements” by the end of 2003. The company works council was always willing to negotiate. In November 2003, they introduced the program 30-plus, which reduced the weekly working time to 30 hours, due to there being not enough work for the number of employees in Rüsselsheim. Included was a minor wage compensation for the workers. Despite all this ‘progress’ and despite of the showcase factory in Eisenach, they expected losses of 400-500 million Euros on the European market in 2004 - and the sales numbers of cars in the USA slumped even sharper in autumn 2004.

Overall, Opel has many reasons to join the frontal attack, of Siemens, DaimlerChrysler, Karstadt-Quelle. Moreover, for the workers the time of socially compensated downsizing seemed to have ended: “Either we walk out now - or Hartz IV [the new, harsher, unemployment benefit] is waiting for us tomorrow”.

Self-organized - against union and management
In the plant in Bochum the group Gegenwehr ohne Grenzen (GoG, Resistance without Borders) has been active for a long time. They started in the 70s as an independent group, standing as candidates in opposition to the union in the shop steward elections, without falling for the trap of the various ideologies of party politics or for the role of mediator focused exclusively on their company. One of the struggles in 1973 was for information meetings between the works council and the union shop stewards that would ensure a permanent flow of information to and from workers in the different departments. But the class struggle in 2004 goes beyond this kind of institution: a 35 years old warehouse worker is one of the spokespersons of the workers but is modest when describing his role: “Any of my work mates could do this just as well”. The workers do not want a strike committee, but have assemblies every two hours instead, where information is exchanged and decisions are made.

In 2000, two days of spontaneous strike by the workers created a domino effect of missing parts for other Opel plants. The tactics of the strike in 2004 were based on this experience and those of two other spontaneous actions that happened between 2000 and 2004. The activists were aware of the fact that their power was based on the factory and its productive links with the other plants. The gates were blocked immediately and stayed locked throughout the whole strike, in order to prevent the delivery of completed parts. Whole gangs of workers roamed the departments in order to “convince” those still working of the necessity of the strike. 1,000 to 2,000 workers were actively involved in blocking the gates. For six days, they only went home to sleep. They were busy discussing, they gave interviews and established new contacts within the factory and with workers from other plants. By occupying the factory, the weakness of the “strike-free” weekend, which has been problematic before, was turned around: on Saturdays and Sundays, the strike opened itself to the outside, and not only relatives came to the “family days”, many workers from other companies used them to express their solidarity. The feeling of being a fish in water was evident during the demonstrations. The strikers were quite happy to have a go at the work-mates who had not been seen in the factory or at the gates for days and who now posed with their union caps on the demo.

The management reacted with dismissals and warnings. They had a list of 20 - 25 alleged ringleaders, but at first, they only sacked one uninvolved worker and one active works council member and the spokesperson mentioned above received several warnings. These threats could provoke new reactions. The question remains, is what we are seeing “disempowerment” of the workers or to a new workers autonomy?

Unionists, Cops and Dog-collars
During the dispute the works council members who follow the official IGM line didn’t dare to act openly against the strike, but they had their revenge later by making sure that strike activists were not re-elected as shop stewards. They also used the regular information meeting in the factory to manipulate the workers who were not engaged in the blocking the gates.

After the sixth day of strike, when the other plants were finally brought to a halt, the union answered with a call for an international day of action. For the protest in Bochum town centre, they mobilized the priest, the mayor and party and union reps against the strikers. In their speeches, they all spoke more or less openly in favour of ending the strike. Active strikers were banned from the stage and they did not get a chance to speak. The IGM was finally able to enforce itself on the general assembly the following day. As well as a manipulated ballot sheet, the IGM relied on ID-checks, security guards by the stage and missing microphones at the assembly.

In order to confront the workers, the union gathered pious priests and skinhead-type security guards around itself. This time they were still able to avoid calling on the cops to intervene, which was allegedly threatened if it did come to prolonged strike actions.

Employment security
At Opel the 500 million Euros cost reduction is not on the negotiation agenda, merely how they will achieve the cost cuts, something that IGM boss Huber had already made clear at the beginning of the wildcat strike:

FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, conservative newspaper): “Lower wages, longer working hours, cuts in bonuses? What are you going to scarify?” IGM-Huber: “Longer working hours can be counted out due to the existing under-utilisation of capacity. In addition, wage reduction alone does not help. I am not telling any secrets if I say that we will have a closer look at the extra payments at Opel.”

On 9 December 2004, the preliminary result of negotiations was announced: in Germany between 8,500 and 10,000 jobs were supposed to be reduced through redundancy payments, early retirements, outsourcing of departments and by shifting workers to special government sanctioned “employment and training” agencies. This is a third of all the staff! In Bochum 2,900 workers are supposed to change over “voluntarily” to so-called transfer associations. The extra costs of one billion Euros (for the redundancy payments etc) are met by the remaining workers giving up extra payments (see Huber). Over 60 per cent of the personnel, costs of the transfer societies are paid for by the ministry of employment.

Contrary to its official announcements, the IGM does not expect that enough “volunteers” will be found, so right away they created a so-called “arbitration committee”. The aim of this board is to set up lists of ”dispensable” workplaces for each department, in line with “industry standards”. There is also a legal test case planned, but not in order to attain security against dismissals. Just the opposite, the aim is to establish criterion that can be presented as examples for further redundancies and which would exclude the possibility of appeals or objections.

The next steps of the negotiation process deal with the possible outsourcing of departments (spare part department, axle production), wage reductions and maybe at some point they will look at employment security up to 2010.

The outcome of the negotiations at DaimlerChrysler and VW give a hint of what to expect any actual “security” is of course - as laid out in the contract - excluded; instead, the union is defined as a negotiating partner. The union principle “equal wage for equal work” does not count anymore: people who are hired more recently will permanently earn less. Service departments will have a worse status. The core staff is more or less left in peace, but they are increasingly outnumbered by temporary workers, workers of outsourced departments and recently hired employees who earn less. Those working for many years continuously in these core departments have become a minority. For most of the workers a few months or years of unemployment are as common as cash-in-hand work, temporary work and travels abroad.

The unions attempt to re-define their diminishing role as a “social partner”. The “employment security” fits the wage reduction and work intensification just like the 35-hours week fitted the flexibilization of working time, like a hand in a glove. In this way, the “partners” in this wage agreement were able to force through the cost reduction and wage cuts as a kind of “social partnership”. Above all, this means taking the decision as to timing out of the hands of the workers. Instead of a hot autumn, we saw a series of conflicts and negotiations where one part of the deal was avoiding them taking place at the same time: KarstadtQuelle had been settled before the strike at Opel started; the wildcat had been defeated before the dispute at VW intensified etc... Because the main danger would have been the copycat effect: Bochum and Wolfsburg (VW) on a wildcat strike at the same time - unthinkable!

In the IGM magazine, the article about the Opel strike was published under the headline “fighting and negotiating”. The union fights for its function within capitalism and therefore against the workers. Like the formulation of the expert for wage- and collective, contract Hagen Lesch, working for the employer-friendly Institution of German Economy (Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft): “That is part of the tasks of the unions, to rein in radical developments”.

“We should stop the production at GM European-wide; otherwise the bosses will play us off against each other”. (Worker at Vauxhall)

From the stitched-up Siemens workers, to the B10 motorway occupation by Daimler workers in Mettingen, to the six days of wildcat strike in Bochum... The factory is still the most concentrated expression of the capitalist contradiction, not only in terms of production of surplus value, but also as an arena of class struggle. During the strike, the self-organized coming together and collectivity in the factory offers a glimpse of a new society. This experience might develop a similar importance for the future class confrontations, as did the wildcat strikes in the 70s. However, the conditions have fundamentally changed, after 35 years of capital’s crisis the class has to free itself from a common downward spiral. Only in a new independent movement, can they have the necessary experiences and discover new possibilities.

A continuation of the strike in Bochum could have directly involved tens of thousands of other workers from the supplying industries and the other GM factories in the dispute. Apart from their innumerable amounts of solidarity declarations, these workers kept practically silent and did not join the strike. Incidences of open workers` power remain isolated in a few factories, but nonetheless they are connected by the production process and have been for some time. Across the big companies and the supplier chains, this can be avoided by diverting the production process. In small and medium-size companies, a small number of confident workers are able to make a big impact.

The IGM and works council’s structure was left out of the organization of the strike, which also indicates a new quality of the class confrontation. There were single work-mates with official functions who acted in solidarity with the strike, but for many activists it is clear that the officials have been in their way and that next time they should be “excluded or locked out”. The information meetings, which have been fought for, can also only be an intermediate step towards independent workers assemblies.

Despite the independent organization and practice of the strike, the demands remained defensive: “No compulsory redundancies”, “No dismantling of plants 1, 2 and 3”.

The IGM and its concept of “employment security” can happily support these demands. Despite the independent struggle against management and the company works council, the workers relied on exactly these two bodies in the negotiations. Those workers who wanted to give negotiations a chance and voted against the strike are now confronted with a provisional result that confirms, and makes more concrete, the initial threats that lead to the strike.

The strike shows the current boundaries of class confrontation. The unions try to save themselves and to confirm their role - the workers can only rely on themselves and are going to have to adjust their future actions accordingly.

The current class composition leaves space for a new workers’ autonomy. This autonomy can only be experienced within struggles and, in order to be successful, these struggles have to be waged against the negotiators, too. The wildcat in Bochum has shown once more: class struggle is not a democratic and institutional event, but a living confrontation, which requires a determined and activist core as a reference point for workers that are more cautious. Both will now have to reflect on the results of the negotiations and the strike itself.

The “volunteers” for the redundancy program are supposed to be found by January, and then both sides expect a re-emergence of the confrontation. This will have to be at a higher level. As one activist at a meeting put it: “To give in now, to take a step back, would be hard. The step forward will also be a hard one!”

This next step of emerging workers’ autonomy - against the “disempowerers” and “negotiators” - we should support!

Volkswagen
Whilst the production at the European Opel factory was still running behind after the strike in Bochum, the second round of negotiations began at VW on the 28 October; the ‘hot’ phase of the pay round.

The VW firm also made losses in 2004 in their car-producing department (38 Million Euros in the first nine months) and has had to balance this against gains in the financial services branch. The personnel boss Hartz wants to instigate a 30 percent saving in personnel costs by 2011. To start this there will be a two-year wage freeze and a lower starting wage for new employees in order to bring the VW wage in line with flat rate agreed by the IGM collective wage agreement for Niedersachsen (it is currently 20 per cent higher). Even before the second round of negotiations began, the works council and the IGM reduced their demand from 4 percent to 2 percent. They were indicating that they were prepared to negotiate on the lower starting wage when it comes to getting employment guarantees.

For VW conditions, workers are ready to struggle. At the first round of negotiations on 11 October, 7000 workers in Emden and Kassel had already downed tools. A delegation went to visit the strike at Opel. But even when a few thousand VW workers protested by driving very slowly in their cars and so slowing traffic for hours during the negotiations in Hannover and when the information meeting in the research and development plant blocked the HGV entrance, they never achieved the independence that they did in Bochum. In Emden, Kassel, Braunschweig and Salzgitter it once again came down to warning strikes and demonstrations with the usual few thousand people taking part. VW had an official agreement of no strikes while the original collective contract was still running, but as soon as this was over there were strikes in all the VW factories on the 1 and 2 November _ these were the first (warning) strikes in Wolfsburg for 20 years. With 50,000 workers striking, almost the entire company workforce took part. There were huge demos outside where the negotiations were taking place in Hannover.

The actions that the IGM organized at the end of the official no-strike agreement is a testimony to how much the workers in the factory are ready to fight, as well as to the lessons of Bochum, using focused, controlled warning strikes and information meetings to keep the discontentment under control. The mobilisation kept the IGM and company works council from pushing through a strike ballot, the results of which could not be predicted. Instead, on the 2 November, the negotiation results were suddenly presented.

A 28-month wage freeze, which is half a year more than the VW management had originally demanded. An end to the yearly bonus payments and new results orientated bonus scheme brought in 2006. In 2005, there will be a one-off payment of 1000 Euros. The work time account will be extended to plus/minus 400 hours and the possible weekly working time rose to 40 hours. In order for workers to take early retirement from the working life, they can accrue 66 hours a year onto a life-work-account. This raises the weakly working time by a further 2.6 unpaid hours.

The pay for apprentices has been reduced and now be only 85 percent of the apprentices will be taken on. The other 15 percent will be placed with the VW daughter company AutoVision, where extra trainee places will be created. There is a lower wage agreement there as at VW. The employment guarantee until 2011 contains a revision clause.

Nevertheless, one cannot simply refer to this as walkover by the employers. The wages of the permanent employees remain the same. However, a two-tier system and a split workforce have been created with the lower starting wages. The wage levels will drop in the long term. The permanent workforce will be directly affected financially by the cuts in bonus payments and the loss of the overtime bonuses. Ever increasing flexibilization of work time means that workers have ever less of their own time at their disposal. Although most of the workers are pissed off, the spark from Bochum has not caught light. This is partly because at VW - the showpiece of the German social partnership system - the higher wage was not won in the self-organized struggle, but rather as a result of the negotiations. However, exactly this pacification of the large VW workforce using generous wage packages is also now in crisis. It still worked this time, but the legitimation of the works council and the union is showing cracks.

Material
Now we are leading 2:0, they are taking the best players off the field. [I.e. in Antwerpen and Rüsselsheim the production has ceased and the union is now finishing the strike]

In the future struggles the international chains of production will hit considerably harder, as we have shown, so I am very optimistic.

It has to be much harder. Like at Opel where they shut down the production completely. So that they know what is going on here.
- VW workers, 28 October, in Hannover

Eisenach: The factory for experiments on living workers
(From Freitag (German Magazine), 14th of February 2003, www.freitag.de/2003/08/03080601.php):

One example of cost-cutting and increased productivity is the Opel factory in Eisenach (East Germany), which was opened on the 23 September 1992. In the following eight years about 2 million Deutsche Mark (about 1 billion Euros) were invested. The factory has a production capacity of 178,000 cars per year, and of employing about 2,000 workers. The works council boss, Harald Lieske, is boasting that in contrast to other German Opel plants, they work three hours more per week and earn 25 per cent less. In November 2003 so-called ‘corridor-days’ (Korridortage) were agreed on for periods of low sales: all workers in production are asked to give up one shift (eight hours). Part of the deal is that the staff in Eisenach got guaranteed employment up to 2007. However, by 2001, there were several periods of reduced working hours (short time) and the annual production was only 137,000 cars. In order to achieve this number they had to get the Astra production to move to Eisenach, the Corsa already being produced there, and all with very short notice. In summer 2003, this was given back already. For 2004, the production of 158,000 up to 160,000 of Corsa was taken. Now about 1,800 people are working there (the promised 2,000 was never reached). This will not change after the negotiations.

“Last year Eisenach celebrated its tenth anniversary. The media reported euphorically about the most modern car plant in Europe. The fact that we have been the guinea pigs, which General Motors used in order to test new production models on, models that now are enforced in other Opel-plants, they did not say a word about. Today we are worn out by the enormous strains that the assembly line demands of us. Many workmates have problems with their backs and joints. The spirit of Hartz is noticeable with us too - they demand total flexibility from all employees. Last year, when sales were down, they cancelled shifts and left them unpaid. For years now, no new people have been hired, not even to compensate for the turnover, which results in a catastrophic situation of understaffing. When it all goes pear-shaped because of the staff deficit, they hire temporary workers for 5.80 Euros per hour. Everyone can see that they are second-class employees; they even get given different work clothes. If they get ill, the temp agencies sack them immediately”.

“We stay in!” - Chronology of events
April 2004
Opel-boss Forster renounces any further employment guarantees of the kind that had previously been given.

Summer 2004
The management announces that new MiniVan (the next generation of Zafira) will partly be produced in Gliwice (Poland) instead of Bochum.

September 2004
Opening of the “battle for production location” between Trollhättan in Sweden and Rüsselsheim about the common platform production of the next generation Opel Vectra and Saab 9.3. The decision is meant to be made at the beginning of 2005. Management and works council negotiate a contract of “production location security”. (Employment is guaranteed by slashing bonuses including all Christmas bonuses and a cancellation of wage increases until 2009).

12 of October 2004
The GM-leadership declares “the most radical cost-cutting program in the 80 years history of American car producers in Europe”: 500 Million Euros cost reduction and 12,200 jobs cut in Europe. The German newspaper FAZ quotes a GM-manager: “If we take into account all facts, we would have to shut down the plant in Bochum. But of course we can’t just go ahead and do something like that.” The quarterly report was due to be published on the following Thursday, giving more official information.

Thursday, 14th of October 2004
When the first reports appear in the media, the early shift at Opel Bochum gets together for a 45-minute meeting to consult. The news becomes more concrete: 10,000 jobs are supposed to be cut in Germany, 4,000 of those in Bochum, 3,500 in 2004. The late shift in plant 1 agrees to down tools, plant 2 and 3 follow their example. At 4:32 pm, Bochum is silent and the gates are blocked. Groups of workers take a walk through the plant, the paint and press shop, calling on the few who are still working to stop. Most of the time they succeed. Union and works council warn the workers not to “act rashly” and try to postpone things to the international day of action on the following Tuesday, 19th of October. Repeatedly they spread rumors that people are back at work. Nevertheless, every shift assembly votes for the continuation of the strike.

Saturday, 16th of October 2004
Foremen and security guards try to smuggle parts out of the factory, but some attentive pickets manage to prevent this. Rumors about a possible lock out of plant 2 and 3 are raising the mood to such an extent that the police in Bochum declare they will not to plan an intervention at this point in time. In front of plant 2 a “family-day” takes place, which becomes an expression of the broad solidarity the strike finds in the local population, with activists from the Monday-Demonstrations and with many delegations of workers from other companies.

At the weekend 16th/17th of October 2004
The IGM-boss Hubert makes clear what the official line of the union is: “Nevertheless, I am expecting that on Monday regular working relations are back on the agenda. If not, we will not be able to effectively negotiate with General Motors...”

Monday, 18th of October
At 6am, the workers in Bochum vote for the continuation of the strike, but the other plants are still working. The management had prepared itself for the strike. There had been stockpiling of goods during the previous few weeks, the managements had ordered extra shifts. During August management and the works council had already agreed to eleven ‘corridor days’ taking place in October in Eisenach, meaning compulsory time off for the workers during the strike. In Rüsselsheim the production workers (except from those in the press shop) are sent home on Thursday, the cancelled working hours are subtracted from the annual work time account. Finally, the late shift in Antwerpen feels the impact of the strike: necessary parts are not delivered. The strike starts to hurt. Still, in Trollhättan and Antwerpen the union’s principle is to defend “their own” plants: they prevent “their workers” from striking. In Ellesmere Port, the union secretary speculates on an advantage for “his plant” and does not inform the workers about the strike. Luckily, the leaflets of some Trotskyist group spread the word in the end.

Tuesday, 19th of October
The production in Antwerpen and Rüsselsheim comes to a halt on Tuesday, Ellesmere Port follows on Tuesday afternoon and Kaiserslautern is expected to stop on Thursday. On the international day of action, the whole European union apparatus is gearing up for action: demonstrations, anti-Americanism, workers pride, Opel-ideology, but everything that mentions or could relate to the strike is excluded. In Bochum, all bourgeois personalities and institutions are set into motion, the mayor, the priests, the union functionaries, the media, the company management, the minister for finance and economy and his chancellor. Even the parliament meets for an extra session. A united front is supporting the IGM (Metal Union) in order to tame those workers “who had gone wild”. Management and the company works council promise in a joint declaration “to look for a socially acceptable way to adjust the number of employees within the framework of re-structuring”. The same morning, management had already threatened the ‘ring leaders’ of the strike with legal consequences. After the demonstration, the atmosphere at the factory gates is agitated, while the union is already talking about given preconditions for a new negotiation process and is calling for an end to the strike. Nevertheless, the workers assemblies of the early and late shift vote in favour of continued strike action.

Wednesday, 20th of October
The union seems to accept the demands of the activist workers for a general assembly of all three shifts and rents the Ruhr Congress Centre for Wednesday morning. Instead of a rank-and-file democratic assembly people face checks of their company IDs, their pockets and bags are searched, there are no microphones for the assembly, only for the stage, which is blocked by security guards, so no one other than the works council members and IGM-reps are allowed to talk. No discussion, only a secret ballot. The ballot sheet reads: “Should the works council continue the negotiations with the management and work be started again? Yes or No”. The fighting collective of the workers is turned into individual bourgeois voters. Despite this 1769 workers still voted in favour of strike (over a quarter of the assembly), but the majority (4673 workers) voted against.

“This solidarity gives us the hope that we could hold out in an even longer dispute.”
- From an interview with Manfred Strobel, published in “Express, newspaper for socialist work in companies and unions”, 10 November 2004.

Manfred Strobel is a long-standing member of both Autokoordination, a group of critical car industry workers, and GoG, existing since 1974. He was expelled from the IGM (the metalworkers’ union) in 1984 because he stood as a candidate on an anti-union list for the works council elections.

“People are not like one would like them to be. A lack of consciousness is not a defeat, but is rather linked to the wider political struggle. A lack of consciousness could also be due to the mistakes of the “left”, the “left co-manager”. You cannot break out of the de-politicisation of the political class, the church, the unions etc in just seven days. Consciousness is not something you can decree, dictate or order. It develops itself through understanding and learning in the confrontation itself and from the point of view of a possible on-going perspective. The critique of the bourgeois economy is one thing, and an important one, the other thing is the development of an at least conceivable post-capitalist vision, but this is thin on the ground. In addition: the strike in Bochum - with aspects of a workplace occupation - was a defensive struggle from the outset, and not one that attacked the system. […]

[But it was] a small conquest for emancipation: The employees had organized themselves. From Thursday on it was clear, the workforce would discuss and decide together every step and every action. Without any great vote or anything, the gates were occupied in order to stop the HGVs leaving the factory with goods - they could drive away empty. In the works council office there were lists on display that anyone with a suggestion could add too. We quickly managed to wrangle the necessary technical equipment out of them. At regular info-rounds, the actual situation of how things stood was made known and discussed. The mic was open for anyone and everyone - with only one limitation: no party political agitation. That, and other things, worked amazingly well and things did not seem to be that difficult - apart from little to very little sleep that you or someone else had at during this time. The workforce was certainly no homogeneous community, but we had good solidarity; also with lots of different opinions and perceptions. I think, that lots of us had the impression that this was coming from us, and not from above. That was our strength and our power. This is self-organization and that despite the IGM and Co-managers, who piped up at the top of their voice, in public, that they were against this form of confrontation… But what should you expect from these Hubers and Franzens? It was totally our thing!

Loads of people came from Bochum and other places, loads of donations of money and other things. Our material needs were more than taken care of! People opened a bank account for the financial support. This solidarity gives us the hope that we could even win a longer dispute. No one can guess at this point how long it will go on for. When we look at the actual changes that are being threatened, we are discussing a longer continuous confrontation - maybe a few weeks. […]

Cited from the Contract
§ 6 The Revision Clause

In the event of significant changes to the basic conditions or the economic environment, the following procedures can apply:

6.1 The parties to the collective bargain shall commit to holding a review meeting. It is required that one party requests the review meeting and also that it is not immediately apparent that the company’s economic reaction mechanisms can be implemented, or these prove insufficient, such as the reduction of overtime, cutbacks of external labour, the use of mobility and the relocation of production. The aim of this review meeting is a mutual adherence to section 4.

6.2 If an agreement between the parties to the collective bargain cannot be reached, a common arbitration board will be called to arbitrate.

6.3 If this procedure also cannot reach a result, then the existing wage contract can be terminated with three months notice at 30 of June or 31 of December of the year. The wage contract will not be effective after such notice.

6.4 In the case that the wage and conditions contract is terminated, the agreement on the security of the location and the workforce (of 28 September 1995) is correspondingly terminated in its respective version at this point of time.

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

[From wildcat no. 72, January 2005. You can find more articles on the situation and struggles in the automobile industry in this newsletter. On DaimlerChrysler see the article on the wildcat-website (http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/wildcat/71/w71edaim.htm).]

We were the people!
(Banner on a Monday demonstration in Leipzig - “We are the people” was the main slogan during the demonstrations in 1989)

While the initiatives of the unemployed, the social forums and other alliances were preparing for a hot autumn for months, the Monday demonstrations against the welfare reform disrupted the silence of the midsummer break in east-German cities. Several thousand people took the streets week after week. What had begun as a small protest in Magdeburg grew as rapidly as it shrank again, after it became clear that the government would only carry out cosmetic adjustments to the so-called Hartz IV reform. Up to now, it is not yet clear if the Monday demonstrations were the prelude of a general movement against the attack on the level of reproduction of the proletariat, or if they will end up in an impasse of a new East German self-identification.

The attack
Hartz IV marks a paradigm shift. The abolishment of the unemployment benefit affects a root of the specific organization of capitalism in Germany, more than any other measure of the government. It wasn’t tactically clever that in autumn 2004, Hartz, as a personnel manager at VW, was also seen as the force behind the attacks on the standard working conditions in the industry.

With the disappearance of the unemployment benefit, all claimants will be forced on to the same level of income after one year of unemployment. The application of the ‘principal of need’ or ‘means testing’ will result in the administration nosing around the living conditions of the unemployed and their relatives. At the same time, the controls by armed customs officials are intensified, in order to punish people doing cash in hand jobs. This is meant to drain the “undeclared resources” which still help a lot of unemployed to make ends meet in a bearable way. The abolishment of the unemployment benefit is supposed to build up sufficient pressure on the unemployed and to save money: they estimate that about 600,000 people will be immediately excluded from drawing benefits. The former minister of social affaires, Blüm, an opponent of Hartz IV, is warning that the reform would damage “ancient understandings of justice”. Up to now, after working twenty years or more in the factory an income was guaranteed in the case of unemployment or after reaching a certain age. This income was calculated on the basis of the last wage and was even adjusted to the wage increases of the industry. With the cessation of this guarantee, a pillar of legitimism of the ‘Rheinish Capitalism’1 is destroyed; the social peace in this country was also based on the permanent separation of the core working class from the claimants of social aid.

Hartz IV takes people’s dignity. Their income is cut down to basic needs and for some it is cut entirely, meaning that they become permanently financially dependent on their partners. Secondly, using the threat of cutting their income, the personal adviser in the dole office can force any recipient of unemployment money to dress up in cute uniforms to collect rubbish in the park. The recipient will get a pittance of one Euro per hour extra in addition to the dole money. This indignity is cutting deeper than political apathy.

For East-Germany, where fifteen years after the fall of the Wall only a few islands of high productivity are peaking out of a sea of stagnation and unemployment, the reform Hartz IV is a synonym for the end of development: the re-construction is finished, there is not more to expect. Migrate or be unemployed at the lowest level of reproduction.

Who is taking to the streets?
The Monday demonstrations were organized by neither the SPD2 nor the unions – in order to support the Social Democratic take over of the government as in 1998 – nor were they financed by the DGB3 – like the demonstrations on 3rd of April 2004. Neither the copyright-claim of some of the former East German civil rights fighters for the brand ‘Monday-Demonstration’ nor the insults of the DGB-Boss, who said that the organizer of the demonstrations was a united front of PDS and NPD4, could prevent the people from verbally expressing their anger on Mondays. And they expressed themselves rather rudely: “Shoot the bastard [Hartz]!”, “Send Clement [Minister of Economy] down the mine, put Schröder at the line – for no more than just a dime!” After 14 years of being put off, the people are fed up: they simply don’t believe anything anymore and the demonstrations were a possibility to say it out loud. One angry woman speaking in Leipzig: “We won’t vote for the pigs anymore. We are enough ourselves. Next time we gonna vote ourselves!” These are no reps talking. It is not the apparatus of the DGB or the PDS who is the driving force behind the demonstrations in Leipzig, Magdeburg, Senftenberg, or Stralsund but small local social forums, rank-and-file members, groups which have already organized anti-war protests, local union activists or PDS members and people who didn’t appear previously at all. Accordingly, the demonstrations were not homogeneous. In the East it was mainly ‘normal people’ who formed the demonstrations, i.e. They were ‘proletarian demonstrations’.

Those who come too late...
In every western-European country during the last few years, the pension system was reformed and the income of the unemployed was cut. One consequence of the Re-unification is the very high and regionally concentrated unemployment in East Germany that prevented these adjustments from being tackled in the 90s. The attacks today are socially imbalanced and economically short-circuited – and they cannot be justified by the promise of creating new jobs. Even conservative theoreticians of economics notice these shortcomings of Hartz IV.

In order to legitimate such drastic cuts, a credible promise of creating full-employment is necessary. Shortly before the national election in 2002, Hartz and Schröder actually announced to the public that their program will halve the unemployment figures! The developments in East Germany refute the assumption that flexibility and low wages would create employment. In the meantime, it became clear that whole generations will find themselves as working poor in so called mini-jobs and compulsory work schemes or will be unemployed until they reach pension age. Even the government retreated from their assumption that Hartz IV would create jobs.

...have to face Monday demonstrations
The erosion of the base of social democracy is in full swing. The ‘Election Alternative’ mobilizes many people and could become, according to its composition, the first ‘workers party’ of the Federal Republic of Germany. In August we could see how worn out the political class in Germany is.

Politicians quarreled within their own political organizations about the right approach towards the demonstrations, the president of Saxony, who voted in favor of the new reform, would have liked nothing more than to join the demonstrations himself while the leadership of the DGB was afraid of calling for everyone to participate in the protest. The nerve ends were exposed and Schröder nearly lost it over some thrown eggs...

The simplest form of critical dialogue – namely the very attempt to make oneself heard – and the democratic formation of opinion were equated with the threat of collapse of order and were defamed as “violence”. This shock reaction within the whole ‘political class’ has encouraged the demonstrations and made them grow. When Schröder met DGB-Boss, Sommer, in September to talk about how to carry out Hartz IV the situation had something grotesque about it. Because Schröder’s speech about the Agenda 2010 in spring 2003 has been the conscious rupture with the co-operative model which prevailed up to then: unions and the lower hierarchy of the SPD were excluded from the decision making process with the aim of making sure that they wouldn’t water down the attack as usual. The DGB was anxiously concerned about not calling for the Monday demonstrations right until the end ...how could they now channel and control the protest?

Limits...
In August, people took to the streets en masse to express their anger and did not seem to be too impressed by the media’s counter-propaganda. The demonstrations were a spontaneous eruption and as such were unpredictable for the politicians. The main weakness of the movement was that not enough self-organized structures were developed by September. This is when the organizers let themselves be pushed into the role of having to make alternative proposals to the reform. Of course Lafontaine didn’t mention in his speech in Leipzig that he had wanted to merge unemployment and social aid immediately after he had become minister of finance (in 1998, with the coming to power of the SPD). Instead, he presented an economic critique of Hartz IV: that economically it made no sense to place all the weight onto the shoulders of the workers and unemployed as long as there are no new jobs.

Lafontaine wants the economic boom first and then the compulsory work schemes. And he can link this view to the dominant voice of the protest: “Work instead of Hartz IV” - no critique of capitalism, but the wish that it would function.

One reason for why an unemployed movement in the west of Germany has never existed is that not everyone wants or at least wanted ‘work’ and that especially the politically active minority of the ‘unemployed’ treat the ‘state benefits’ as a legitimate form of income. In the east however, work is mainly seen as participation in society and unemployment as exclusion from it. What has made possible the big demonstrations in the east is at the same time (still?) their limit. Maybe 600,000 ‘one-Euro-jobs’, created as a reward for the “We want work”-chants, will put an end to these stupid slogans. The protesters will damn the ‘one-Euro-job’, as not what they wanted after all.

This is the point where the supposed partners of the protesters, the charities, go behind the back of the Hartz IV opponents. After months of criticizing the cuts as far as they concern their clientele (and therefore their income) they discovered the flipside of the reform in the summer: they themselves would be able to employ thousands of people with one- or two-euro-jobs. With the words of the media spokesperson of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt5: we have to give Hartz IV a chance, given that it is about creating employment. In the meantime, and in hope of new cheap labour, the Arbeiterwohlfahrt has left the collective wage agreement...

...can be overcome?
The majority of the Monday protesters haven’t questioned the need ‘to save money’ in principle – they just don’t agree that the money should be saved from the income of the pensioners and unemployed etc.. With the discussion about fair and unfair ways of saving money the movement against the Hartz reform is running the risk to turn itself into its very opposite. The government program, in its destructive approach lacks a positive proposal, some sort of new social contract, which would be able to give a new legitimacy to the capitalist mode of production and the state.

The critical voices would like to get into a dialogue about such a positive proposal. Within this dialogue, the demands for a guaranteed income of 1,000 Euro or more won’t be more than an embellishment of the re-construction of a new model of capitalist valorization. Some cruel and unfair elements of the law will be corrected and with some cosmetic changes, like the unemployment protection clause [Vertrauensschutz] for people over 58, Hartz IV will be carried out...

The slogan stating that there is enough money and that we only have to distribute it differently also only appears radical at first glance, but in effect it uses the protest in order to justify capitalism in alignment with Lafontaine and others. They conceal the essential scandal of capitalist valorization: things are supposed to deteriorate for the working class because its work becomes more productive. This has not much to do with rationality, but with economy. Because we produce ever more with ever less work, we are supposed to tighten our belts and work even more. All protests demanding “Yes to saving money, but not on our costs”, all assumptions of ‘fair distribution’ are playing into the hands of this mechanism, are declaring it as a law of nature and are helping to set workers in competition with each other on a worldwide scale. If productivity is rising in China, what is supposed to be bad about that? Nice for everyone: less work, more time, better life. This only constitutes a problem in a world where having a share of the social wealth is tied to the disposal of ones own labor force (or the command over the labor force of others). When we are unemployed, it is not work that we are lacking, but the possibilities to do all the things we like to do. To move (public transport), to travel (railway tickets), to go to concerts or the cinema, to use the machines that we would need to “create the world as we would like it to be”... all these things are still tied to money.

And the radical left?
Everyone says; “In August they were queuing up everywhere to get our leaflets, in the demonstrations, in front of the job centers. We could have distributed even more; the people wanted to know stuff”.

The fact that tens of thousands of people in the streets can’t change anything was perceived by the participants as one of the main limitations of the demonstrations. In other countries, during the 90’s we saw that even bigger and more radical mobilizations couldn’t fight back the attacks on the welfare system.

This obvious powerlessness de-motivates. It might instigate the hope for the ‘strong arm’ or awake the wish for political representation, but it could also lead to asking the right questions.

We think that the neo-Nazis are the smaller danger. They can act openly in some cities and they have simple and often more radical answers to the “social question” than those of the left parties. But apart from their symbolic success in Magdeburg, where they were able at one occasion to lead the demonstration, their influence was marginal. In Leipzig, as in other towns, neo-Nazis were verbally kicked out of the demonstrations – without being physically attacked. In a lot of towns the organizers were rather awkward, they didn’t know how to handle the situation, they stressed that they themselves are not “political” and that they don’t want to “exclude anyone”.

Where the neo-Nazis organized Anti-Hartz-Demonstrations themselves (e.g. in Wolgast under the name ‘Schöner Wohnen Wolgast’, in Herne/Ruhrarea...), the protest was disastrous with very few people taking part and subjected to the mockery of the public. The political journal AK (‘Analyse und Kritik’ - former ‘Arbeiterkampf’) hopes that the PDS will be able to get control over the demonstrations because otherwise ‘we’ (?) would have to face up to long lasting social protests from the right. Such a position is not of the radical left – it is also a false position, given that the bigger problem were the people and organizations of the left, which tried to monopolize the protest.

Well-meaning unionists or the ‘Election Alternative for Work and Social Justice’ accompanied the protests with all sorts of proposals about taxation of the super-rich and companies and an alternative program for a new economical upturn. The MLPD (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany) first gained influence with their open mics – and then drove the demonstrations into an open division. Also within the social forums there were internal quarrels and power games for which the mass of protesters only existed as an uninformed or unconscious rank and file.

Instead, we should extend the struggles on a local level, encourage and politicize the daily conflicts in the job centers and dole offices, support the process of self-organization from below. The protest will have to find different forms of expression, which go beyond the given framework, it will have to become more imaginative and more direct. We don’t have the time to spend three months preparing for the ‘Agenturschluss’ (introduction of the new unemployment regime). We don’t have to wait, we can occupy the job centers here and now, or organize actions of appropriation in posh shops, organize free public transports or proletarian shopping tours. First of all, we have to put an end to the megalomania, thinking we could topple Hartz IV by organizing some demonstrations. The mobilization for big events like the demonstrations on the 2nd or 3rd of October only play into the hands of those who want to get a seat at the negotiating table. Why don’t we demonstrate in front of the big companies, going to visit the workers at the end of their shifts? There is something like a general social unease; there is anger and hate at work. But up to now everyone plays their roles, as striking students, angry unemployed or workers who fight against wage cuts and extension of the work time. Every now and then, we could see small delegations from different companies at the Monday demonstrations. Permanent workers are interested in the situation of the unemployed, because they might be the next in the queue.

And the general outrage about Hartz IV also contributed to the mobilization of the Daimler workers in July. This is where we should proceed, supporting the process of self-organization and politicization from below. The possibilities haven’t been so vast and so promising for years.

Unfinished and Incomplete Chronology

26th of July
Magdeburg (East): About 200 people demonstrate, the media and the police say 600. Although there was hardly any advertising, apart from a short note in the local newspaper, and the Monday was rather rainy, a lot of people joined the demonstration spontaneously.

2nd of August
Magdeburg: 6,000 people. The mobilization for the demonstration was accomplished by word-of-mouth rather than by posters or leaflets. The demonstration started fine but then about 60 Neo-Nazis took over the head of the demonstration with two banners (“taking the peoples’ anger to the streets”). The organizers announced that everyone who is against Hartz IV is welcome on the demonstration. The appearance of the demonstration was very different from the lefty and unionist demonstrations: no stewards, a lot of self-made banners, no loudspeakers, no rally with speeches. Instead, normal people with bikes, push chairs and working clothes.

9th of August
Germany-wide: Minimum 40,000 people in East German towns – for the first time demonstrations in Hamburg and Cologne as well.

Magdeburg: About 15,000 people. This time with banners against benefit cuts and against the far right. No banners from the right this time. Most banners for employment, some of them rather angry: “Jobs for everyone – if not, we gonna riot”. Chants like “We don’t have time for low wages and work schemes” (this rhymes in German!) were sometimes confronted with disapproval. Nevertheless, there was a lot of frustration and anger around, some discussed the storming of the town hall.

Leipzig (East): 10,000 people take part, unions, religious groups, communist groups, neo-Nazis, anarchists and others. “Down with Hartz IV” is the dominant voice, but everyone seems to go into a different direction after that. More radical leaflets are appreciated with interest, but the general atmosphere is one of a blunt “anti”.

16th of August
Duisburg (West): The first real Monday demonstration in Duisburg. 200 people listened for one and a half hours to a dozen speeches at the ‘open mic’ (which was turned up for the MLPD-members and down for the others). After that, a 10 minute demonstration accompanied by the singing group of the MLPD.

Düsseldorf (West): About 650 to 700 people. MLPD with an open mic, the PDS with their social forum, ISL5, unemployed groups, the anti-fascist group with their own leaflet, and surprisingly many people who haven’t been seen on a demonstration for years (apart from the anti Iraq war demos).

Leipzig: Over 20,000, a lot of unemployed and older people, but also a lot of young folk who didn’t look like ‘demonstrators’. Not many self-made banners, no chants, no loudspeakers... more or less a silent march.

Potsdam (East): About 500 people turned up at the rally, organized by the ‘Family Party’ and the ‘Grey Panthers’ (pensioners party). PDS, DKP (German Communist Party) and unemployed organizations were there as well, but no fascists. The guy speaking for the ‘Grey Panthers’ demanded a ‘people’s front’ against the government and presented a seven-point-plan for the rescue of Germany (fight back of illegal employment of foreigners, German companies should come back to Germany...)

16th and 23rd of August
Magdeburg: In both demonstrations, the neo-Nazis could march behind the demonstration, secured by the cops. The anti-fascist shouted slogans against them being there. The attitude of the majority of the demonstrators towards this problematic didn’t seem to have changed. The numbers of participants is shrinking and the atmosphere amongst some of them is getting more aggressive.

23rd of August
Potsdam: Not more people showed up than last time, but more flags, the youth organization of the metal workers and building workers union joined the protest.

6th of September
Eisenach (East): 200 people came to the protest. The ‘Alliance against welfare cuts’ launched a ballot about the Monday demonstrations principals from Magdeburg: everyone is allowed to join, we distance ourselves from the fascists etc.. Then the demo started: different organizations of the MLPD, a lot of older members of the PDS, about half of the protesters are ‘normal’ unemployed. The ‘Eisenacher Kameraden’ (fifteen skinheads aged between 20 and 30) were told to march at the end of the demonstration, escorted by five cops. The ‘people’ are stuck in between the bureaucratic paternalism of the MLPD and the fascists, and show few initiatives of their own.

9th of September
Erfurt (East): A Monday demonstration on a Thursday: about 600 came, which means that the number of protesters was going down. Speeches from the union, a ‘normal’ citizen and a lefty guy. People seem to realize that this type of demos don’t lead very far. A lot of them are genuinely angry and frustrated about the callousness of the government. They don’t expect anything anymore from them.

13th of September
Magdeburg: About 2,000 to 3,000 people. For starters the protest leader Ehrholdt, the social forum and the MLPD had verbal fights on the mic. Ehrholdt started with his usual short and meaningless speech (confirming that he understands himself as part of the “democratic forces” and that he doesn’t want a “social change” like the extremists from the left and right). The high point of it all was the speech of a loony, probably a friend of Ehrholdt, who argued against the “billions of wind turbines” in Germany and the “30 percent of interests” which every loaf of bread contains. Quite a few of the demonstrators left the scene shaking their heads.

Senftenberg (East): Still 2,000 to 3,000 people in the streets, no Nazis, no political parties and lefty sectarian groups, but open mic and good atmosphere.

Freiburg (West): About 150 protesters marching for an hour, listening to MLPD, Linksruck (Trots) and unionists. Two weeks before there had been more people and also the composition had been different. More ‘unorganized’ and more people who weren’t part of the political scene. Two weeks before, one also felt a dynamic between the demonstration and the other people in the street. This was lacking this time.

Berlin: Another heterogeneous demonstration, big confusion. Clearly less people than last time. The speech of the main guy of the MLPD was really unpleasant as he presented himself as the representative of the democratic forces (“100,000 for the 3rd of October” - Day of the German re-unification, when one of the nationwide demonstration was planned) and argued against ‘Attac’ and the planned demo on the 2nd of October. It was a real split including the ‘spontaneous’ speech of the MLPD after the demonstration (which was held in order to vote for a resolution for the demo on the 3rd of October).

Footnotes
1 "Rheinischer Kapitalismus" is a term used by the bourgeoisie, meaning a form of Capitalism relying on a social peace and equality rather than conflict and including a formalized negotiation role of the unions in company management structures, and state provision of a social infrastructure (e.g. Health and Education).
2 Social Democratic Party (SPD)
3 Deutscher Gewerkschafts Bund, the head body of all the unions Party of Democratic Socialism – which is the legacy of the SED, leading party of the GDR
4 National Democratic Party of Germany – fascists
5 A charity organization linked to the SPD
6 International Socialist Left, a Trotskyist group

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

From wildcat no.71, autumn 2004

These were the questions over which most of the confrontations between the government and the official representatives of the workers took place during autumn 2004.

All the confrontations up to now have stayed on a symbolic level, and which, apart from single action days, did not lead to a mobilisation of those actually effected. It is mostly a political confrontation about how much influence the unions should have when it comes to future restructuring on a state and company level.

Changes to the 35-hour rule
The conservative government wants to bring in more changes, even after the original 35-hour per week rule was already weakened in January 2003 with for example, the extension of possible overtime per year from 130 hours to 180 hours. The debate takes place under the pressure of propaganda about closures, i.e. actual relocation of production. The unions say the 2003 changes are sufficient, and anyway hardly any companies took them up, showing that the debate is politically, not practically significant. The companies are demanding the right to negotiate directly with the employees over work times, without going through the union, something Bosch, Doux, Sediver and other large companies have already done. The other main issue on the table is lowering the costs of overtime for large firms from 10 - 25 per cent extra to only 10 percent extra and getting rid of the extra breaks in overtime work. With the introduction of unpaid longer working hours at Bosch which was agreed to by the largest union there, employers are seeing a green light for more demands. [You can read more about the 35-hour week and the associated flexibilization at ]

Relocations
This year the Unions published a list of 50 companies who have relocated in 2004. Microelectronics mostly moved to eastern Europe and Asia, small production such as household appliances and a few call centres moved to Francophone North Africa. Here are a few examples: Sediver, who produce electrical equipment, have said that if the 300 workers don’t agree to a 25 percent wage cut the factory will move to Brazil and China saving 150 workplaces in France. Snappon GDX, part of the US Gencorp car part company, who produce for PSA and Renault have moved their factory from Chartres to the Czech Republic. The machinery was moved under protection from riot police after workers had built barricades and chained themselves to the machinery.

An electronic car part manufacturer, Vishay, sacked 300 workers in Colmar and moved production to China and Hungary. Management claim that the factory in Shanghai produce at 60 percent lower costs. In Morocco there are already 60 call centres with 7,000 workers who work for the French market. It is apparently 40 percent cheaper for companies there with an average wage at 400 Euros, compared with 1,100 in France. There have been protests by call centre workers in France, including at Timing and Wanadoo. However, in 2003 only 5 percent of new call centre jobs of French companies were created abroad.

But these examples have been well publicized and are forever being used to push through worse work conditions. There is however strong evidence against this theory that all jobs are being lost abroad. After China, France has the most direct forging investment of any other country. Behind the real redundancies and factory closures there are other figures: despite the protested closure of the STMicroelectronics plant in Rennes the US company has continually increased the number of French employees from 2,400 in 1990 to 10,500 by 2004. Only 5 percent of the whole capital invested is invested abroad.

The minimum service in the case of strikes in the transport sector
There is a question as to whether this is an attack on the backbone of the last big militant sector - the transport workers in the public sector - or whether it is another popular campaign of the right to win votes by doing something against ‘the individual interests of a group of workers holding the citizens to ransom’. Despite the government calling it a “minimum service” law, what they want is not so much the guarantee of a minimum service (as they have in Spain, Italy and Portugal) but rather the duty to give prior notice of strikes. This would be an extension of the notice laws introduced by de Gaulle after the miners’ strikes in the 60s including details of affected workplaces and number of workers likely to take part.

The CGT are saying, “The best prevention of conflict is dialog”, signing “conflict prevention” deals with management and so forth. On 4 October there was an action day at SNCF for higher wages and against the changes in the right to strike. The running of the trains was not affected. On 25 November the unions mobilized for a demo in Paris with 50,000 railway workers and some strikes about pensions and also against the new “cheap line” iDTGV that is seen as a first step towards privatization of the SNCF.

From prol-position news #1, 3/2005

The Wildcat-article (see here) was written a few months ago to understand the background and purpose of the Hartz IV-reform and the movement against it. Since then the new unemployment benefit (Arbeitslosengeld 2: Alg2) has been introduced and the municipal social security offices and the federal employment agency (Arbeitsagentur) have formed joint offices for managing those getting Alg2. From the start, problems arose. The computer programs, which for the first time combined all cases in one database with all employees theoretically having access, often worked partially or not at all. Many Alg2-notifications sent out were inaccurate, especially those sent to families. Frequently, cases weren’t processed in time so people had (and still have) to wait for weeks before getting their money. At the end of December the work agencies sent the wrong account numbers to the some banks so funds weren’t transferred in time. New case managers, who in theory should handle about 75 cases each, were trained - but so far most still handle many more.

In the upcoming months, the employment agency might manage to solve most of these problems. But what concerns the government though is that far fewer unemployed could be excluded from benefits as it hoped and predicted. (About 10 percent were cut because their partners earn ‘too much’ or else because they couldn’t conceal their bank savings in time. The government had expected to strike 23 percent off the rolls.) So the whole program is ending up costing more - estimates now range around four billion Euros - and we thus might see more attempts to purge people by different means.

The core of the reform is introducing so-called One-Euro-jobs, mandatory jobs the unemployed have to accept or else face benefit cuts up to 30 percent. The government’s goal is to force the unemployed, instead of signing up for unemployment benefits and working on the side, into taking any low-paid job offered to them. For now, the government says these jobs should be ‘publicly useful’ (Gemeinnützigkeit), that is more or less non-profit. In October the government gave the unemployed an opportunity to start working a One-Euro-job, first voluntarily. People were contracted for three to nine months work assignments in schools, libraries, homes for the elderly etc. But some are also working in workshops producing toys, in the transportation sector (moving services), in street cleaning, security jobs etc. And - as with other public work programs - quite a few ‘alternative’ projects (culture, child care...) also use this source of cheap-labor to function. The work agencies tried to pressure some unemployed into accepting these jobs; quite a few, tired of sitting at home bored, did so voluntarily. The income - a 345 Euro benefit plus health insurance, rent and utility subsidies, and an extra 150 Euro for the One-Euro-job - adds up to about 750 or 800 Euro cash in hand. This is almost the same income as an 1100 Euro job (before tax) on the primary labor market. And it’s also an income at or above the level of many low-paid jobs like security, cleaning, and fast-food.

Still, it remains to be seen how people having to give up more lucrative under the table work or having to work deadly boring, dirty, and unhealthy One-Euro-jobs will resist. The government still talks about introducing 600.000 One-Euro-jobs nation-wide, meaning that about one in two unemployed will at some point be forced into this kind of work. The new unemployed numbers published in early February show about 5 million registered unemployed. Out of this 5 million, 4 million are getting the reduced Alg2 benefits. One and a half million of these 4 million are getting Alg2 either as a wage supplement or because they have children etc., and the other 2,4 million are looking for work. These remaining 2,4 million could be forced to take One-Euro-jobs. Taking into account that these jobs last from three to nine months, in one year about half of the 2,4 million could be asked to do such work. But so far, this is all hypothetical. On one hand some politicians and bosses talk about further reducing the Alg2-benefit, pushing it below the wage for low-paid service work. They want to economically pressure the unemployed into accepting any shitty job on the ‘free’ labor market rather than trying to impose forced labor programs which could end up increasing competition for private capital in certain sectors like cleaning. On the other hand other capitalists talk about striking out the current paragraph on the ‘public usefulness’ (Gemeinnützigkeit) of the One-Euro-job. Instead, they want to include any private or public job, in this way setting up some kind of subsidized forced labor low-wage sector.

Most unemployed, though, are still waiting to see what happens. Of those now getting Alg2, two thirds get about the same money as before, with some getting even more. And, as mentioned before, far fewer than expected were cut off the unemployment rolls. With the One-Euro-jobs, some (for instance, the older unemployed who otherwise have no chance of finding a job) so far don’t see the One-Euro-jobs as a threat. That might change soon. On the other side there are reports that temporary agencies are getting more job applications. Many unemployed people are feeling threatened by the Alg2-bureaucracy, the snooping around in peoples’ financial affairs, and the One-Euro-jobs.

So far the resistance against the Hartz IV-attack includes growing incidences of violence in the work agencies, the Monday-demonstrations and a campaign by leftist groups. In the second half of 2004 there were many reports about the unemployed confronting public servants in the work agencies, sometimes verbally, but sometimes also with knifes and axes. The work agencies have since increased security. The Monday-demonstrations have died down, although protests still occur in some, mostly East German cities, with a few dozen or a few hundred demonstrating every week. The campaign started by leftists groups still goes on, with most people involved focusing on the feared impoverishment and degrading conditions of the One-Euro-jobs. To create problems for the work agencies, leftist activists at first asked the unemployed not to turn in their applications until the last minute. Most of the unemployed didn’t heed this call; the agencies had enough problems anyway and people were anxious to pay their bills. This call for petty sabotage too is a flawed tactic because it keeps actions confined to the individual level. A better and more collective tactic was the attempted ‘day of closure’ of the work agencies. On the 3rd of January there were demonstrations and blockades in front of work agencies in some German cities, but the participants were mostly political activists (many of them unemployed though) and it was hard to get the ‘other’ unemployed involved. In some instances the police (and private security forces) prevented people from entering the work agencies to hand out leaflets; in other instances people went in, put up banners, blocked the entrance, etc. After that day of action wasn’t as successful as hoped, there are still quite a few attempts to set up struggles against the further implementation of the reform. Most attempts concentrate on ‘scandalizing’ the reform by highlighting the impoverishment, and the degrading aspects of forced labor. These initiatives want people to use legal means against the work agencies, to rely on lobbying to force the political parties to rescind the reform (in order to get back to the former state of exploitation?) In Berlin some people are trying to focus more directly on the situation of the unemployed instead. They want to establish more links between the One-Euro-workers and other exploited workers with the aim of helping them start fighting against their conditions. Here is one of their reports:

Walks against the One-Euro-Jobs
We have renewed a joyous tradition of the Berlin unemployed and good-for-nothings. Since January 2005 we meet regularly for a collective walk where we do what alone we wouldn’t dare do: inspect public offices, canteens and restaurants, visit One-Euro-slaves at work and also stop by the bosses’ offices...

We do this to find out where One-Euro-jobs got established, who are forced to work them, and what people do about them. That’s why we walk to the contractors who are creating these jobs or already have done so for ‘volunteers’. In Berlin those are (among others) Caritas, AWO (both charities), Kubus, Lotech (both involved in employment agency job- and training-programs for the unemployed) and Pfefferberg (a cultural project). BSR (state-owned street-cleaning) and BVG (public transport) are also under discussion. We go to these places and distribute our leaflet to make contact with and talk to One-Euro-workers and the other regularly employed.

We ourselves are unemployed - or could be at any time. Therefore, we might soon find ourselves in such a One-Euro-program. That’s why we want to discover how we can act against the new attacks on our living conditions - the so-called Hartz IV-reform.

Report from one of the January 2005 walks
When we were about to start walking, two cop-cars were already waiting at the meeting-point... but we left them behind.

We first went to a couple of contractors who place One-Euro-workers. There we met some office-workers with limited work contracts who themselves had been previously unemployed. They assured us that they would only place people in One-Euro-jobs who want to do that work; the others could go home without any hassles. But they didn’t want to comment on how they would deal with the new conditions in January 2005 [when people can be forced into taking the jobs]. They didn’t like the idea that the industry could profit on all that. They said they couldn’t tell us any more ; instead we should go and visit their bosses.

That’s exactly what we did. But the women in that office said they were only responsible for placing people on social security in full one-year work contracts. So far they had nothing to do with One-Euro-jobs and they would not be supervising the contractor. So where were the bosses?

Next we went to Caritas which had several times announced they were creating One-Euro-jobs especially set-aside for the younger unemployed under 25 years old. At first we met office-workers in one Caritas welfare center. The women didn’t want to give their opinions on the planned One-Euro-jobs and refused to answer our questions, for instance, on what qualifications the One-Euro-workers would need for the care-taking jobs. And they referred us to the Caritas central management...

Earlier, visiting another Caritas facility, we had interesting discussions with ‘regularly’ employed people from different Caritas projects. Some child care and cleaning workers told us they feared that in the future Caritas could replace their already insecure, partially restricted contracts with One-Euro-jobs. They were interested in our leaflets, saying that they would hand them out to co-workers.

In the end the walk became really interesting when we suddenly walked unannounced into a workshop where about forty people - mostly women and, with one exception, all immigrants - were all sitting at sewing-machines making soft plush toys for kindergardens. Just like you imagine a sweatshop... All workers there were either ABM (another public works program) or One-Euro-workers (about half). Although the supervisor tried to stop us from talking to the workers and handing out our leaflets, we managed to converse with some of the One-Euro-workers. They told us they didn’t like the fact that they were denied holidays and that they didn’t get the usual sick rate at full pay. Taking ‘Blue Mondays’ wasn’t possible. But otherwise the job was easy and nobody had to work hard.

A group of six women who had known each other before told us how they got One-Euro-jobs. Each woman had received a letter from the employment agency offering this job. They decided as a group to sign up together to avoid getting placed on different jobs.

The One-Euro-workers were delighted that someone was interested in their in part-time, shitty work conditions. While we were talking to them the boss got angry and called the cops. So we left.

For sure, we will stop by that place again on one of our next walks.

Mandatory One-Euro-jobs have only been implemented under the Hartz IV-reform since the beginning of this year. So we assume that enforcement of the new requirement has just started. Only in the next few months will we probably meet One-Euro-workers who - threatened by the benefit-cuts - are being forced to take the jobs. It will remain difficult for us to find out in advance what we can expect at the different job-sites and who we are dealing with there. We want to carry on discussions with One-Euro-workers and the ‘regularly’ employed. Meanwhile, we should make it clear to the bosses that in the future they will run into problems and that enforcing One-Euro-jobs won’t happen without resistance. All in all the walks are great fun. They give you a chance to meet new people and talk and exchange information with them.

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

Capitalists in Germany try to force workers in the Western part to accept major pay cuts and longer working hours - in a ‘downward’ adjustment to the conditions in the Eastern part.

The VW workers are now facing another form of this adjustment. They recently learned that the union IG Metall is now prepared to extend Model Auto 5000 - used in Wolfsburg (West), which has allowed the hiring of unemployed workers outside the company’s collective agreement. On January, 31st 2005, the Financial Times Deutschland reported:
The union IG Metall abandons its resistance against an expansion of the alternative employment-scheme ‘Model Auto 5000’ at Volkswagen (VW). The ‘little Touareg’ is pulled up as an example. “We are investigating whether we can adopt certain elements of the model, for example for the production of the ‘little Touareg’ at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg,“ said Hartmut Meine, leader of the IG Metall Niedersachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt in Hannover. Meine gave “the flat hierarchies, the lived teamwork” as examples. At the VW plant in Wolfsburg 3500 employees produce the compact-van Touran using Model Auto 5000. Later, 1500 more are supposed to produce the Microbus based on the van T5 at VW’s commercial vehicle plant in Hannover. Unlike the other VW employees they are not paid according to their working hours, but have to fulfill production and quality targets agreed upon in advance. The needed working time can be up to 42 hours. Moreover, training periods get only paid half.

The Touran is one of the most profitable models
As a result, the Touran is one of the most profitable VW-models. Its production costs lie well above ten per cent under the costs for the Golf which is built in Wolfsburg under the VW company agreement. In Spring 2000 the Model Auto 5000 was introduced, at first against the IG Metall’s rancorous resistance. The union was concerned about a general extension of working hours, and it only agreed because under the model mainly unemployed were hired.

So far the IG Metall has always refused to expand the model, which hasn’t been imitated elsewhere so far, to other parts of the company. Now this position is softening. “The accompanying research showed clearly that employees at Auto 5000 are also only working an average of 35 hours per week” said Meine. 95 percent of the rework to be done due to lack of quality or not producing enough pieces is caused by the company not the workers, says the unionist. And according to the agreement on working hours, it is only in cases where the management is not responsible for any mistakes in the production process, that the workers are obliged to do unpaid overtime.

Questioning rigid structures
According to Meine the production of the little Touareg, an SUV (sport utility vehicle) based on VW Golf offers a good opportunity to take over parts of the Auto 5000 model. “At VW some rigid structures must be questioned.” From 2007 on the compact SUV with the plant code A-SUV is going to be built in Wolfsburg because during the bargaining procedure for a new company agreement the workforce was prepared to make big concessions. Otherwise, the car would have been produced in the Czech Republic or Slovakia. A different organization of work and more flexible working hours are supposed to lower the A-SUV’s production cost by about 1800 Euros.

After weeks of negotiations with the IG Metall, VW had signed a new company agreement in November. According to this agreement newly employed get paid about the same as the Auto 5000 workers. In exchange the 103,000 VW employees accepted more flexible working hours and lower overtime payments.

VW’s rivals in France, Japan and South Korea are using their significantly lower production costs to push their prices down, and to attract customers away from VW. In order to compete with this VW has to lower the labour costs within Germany.

Opel suffers from this problem, too. General Motor’s subsidiary in Germany announced that it would only keep its plant in Bochum open, if the production costs decline significantly.

The workforce is supposed to waive a large part of their extra pay above the level of the collective agreements. However, a guarantee for the further existance of the plant at that location is not given: “In todays world it is not possible to give guarantees any more,” said Carl-Peter Forster, Vice-president of GM Europe, talking to Opel employees on Friday. Opel currently is cutting 9500 jobs, that is every third job.

Before the last the collective bargaining round VW had also threatened to cut one third of all jobs if the labor costs in the German plants were not going to sink about 30 percent.

prol-position news #1, 3/2005

Citroën factory strike and others
The world car market - and, of course, the European market - is saturated. It is one of the main economic activities of the modern capitalist world, closely connected to the oil world market. Its fluctuations have for ages influenced the national economies and the social conflicts but have also involved a fierce competition in the conquest of new markets. The result is twofold; on one hand a concentration of the car companies and the disappearance of the weakest ones (the closure of the Rover factory in the UK or the difficulties of Fiat in Italy are among the most recent examples), on the other hand, the internal restructuring. This restructuring can take the brutal form of heavy staff cuts (looking at the recent past we could produce a long list of these collective dismissals in either definite factory closures as in Renault Vilvorde-Belgium in 1997 or as in downsizing, also fairly important as we could see recently in Germany with the Opel-General Motors factories). But recently we have also seen this restructuring take the form of sub-contracting important parts of the production process or of the management (often owned by the main company) with or without the transfer of workers, but without the benefits and guarantees of the main company.

Change in Work Organisation
All these transformations have been taking place for years, along with radical transformations in the work organisation of the production process, connected to what is called ‘just in time’ production, which means the total elimination of stocks i.e. of any immobilisation of capital. What was new in the extent of these new methods was that they were implemented not only on the assembly line of the main factory (they were previously often reduced to this line) but to all the sub contractors. These sub contractors not only had to provide the required parts at a regular pace ‘in time’, but also had to assemble complex sets of parts, to do the research concerning this production and to deal with the logistics concerning their production. Practically, this included being obliged to settle close to the main assembly factory, often inside the factory. From the point of view of the class struggle, the fact that most of the workers participating in this puzzle were divided in small units of production, each having a distinct legal status and different conditions of work, creates independent fragments, even if the total workforce involved in this production was effectively submitted to the pace of the assembly line i.e. to the market imperatives.

As the concept of the division of work and/or the assembly line had produced the ideological and social concept of ‘Fordism’ which meant a global vision of the workers life (with a certain level of consumption) linked to the organisation of work inside the factory (aiming at a mass production for a generalised minimal consumption), the various restructurings of the car industry we have just explained have considerably modified the living conditions of the car workers, inside and outside of the factory. On one hand, redundancies and the transfer to the subcontractors with the loss of all the guarantees of collective contracts have created a total insecurity about job employment and wages, on the other hand the new methods of production have imposed on the workers the same constraints imposed on the production of parts and raw material to be assembled on the line in a finished product: everything that had the social aims of providing mass consumption goods is still working, but is now increasingly in total contradiction with the increasing pressure on the workers to extract more and more surplus value from their work.

Zero stock of parts and raw material, zero stock of the work force. Following the example of many other industries, the cost of production has to be reduced as much as possible, not only through the classic pressure on wages but also through a perfect matching of the working time and of the market fluctuations (so as to avoid repeatedly building up stocks of finished cars and thereby the immobilisation of capital and to answer as quickly as possible to the flexibility of the customers orders for a large range of models imposed by the competition). The consequence for the workforce was the development, over the past twenty years, of a wide range of various ‘models’ of working contracts: temporary work through agencies, short time contracts and also a practice of what was called ‘technical temporary unemployment’. In a certain way all car contractors need a core of permanent trained professionals and this temporary technical lay off solved the problem of adapting as tightly as possible the required production to the need for the workers to be working without ‘dead time’. In a certain way, the balance of struggle obliged the companies to pay for these temporary days not worked but at a reduced rate. Doing so, they avoided social conflicts, got what they wanted (no stock of cars) and got a labour force ready to work with full competence and at full speed when required. Renault and PSA in France had such a system and recently these two car companies have planned such days off from March 2005, up to 2007 to reduce the cars stocks.

We could find such systems in all the industrialised countries but France had gone for another system for productivity per worker and per hour by implementing what was called the ‘Aubry laws’ (from the name of the then social democrat ministry of labour [see also the leaflet on this in this newsletter). This is a collection of complex measures known here with the name ‘Reduction du Temps de Travail’ - RTT (reduction of the working time) or with the other name ‘the 35 hours’ (weekly). Behind the ideological propaganda of the ‘35 hours of work’ these laws were profitable for the French capitalist economy because it allows all branches of the economy to adapt perfectly the effective work to the production needs, meaning an almost total flexibility of the effective working time (the average weekly working time was calculated on the year and the management had the possibility to extend or to reduce the weekly time according to its needs). The actual aim of the reform was effectively achieved, as it was recognised that French capital can be glorified to have the highest productivity per worker per hour. The ‘RTT’ was a very useful complement to the ‘technical lay off’ days. Every factory could use a wide range of different measures concerning the working time which means a high degree of flexibility in the exploitation of work in such a way as to practically eliminate the ‘dead time’. One can agree that it is this wide range of possible flexible time which, in the recent period allowed the French car companies to escape the difficulties and social conflicts having plagued their European competitors, German, Italian and British.

The Problem of Wages
But another question was connected to this question of flexibility and was part of the high rate of productivity: wages. The management had gained both ways: after some strikes and collective agreements about the ‘35 hours’, not only wages had been frozen for several years and with the annualisation of the working time, overtime had been eliminated in most cases. But, on the other hand this freezing of wages was part of a general offensive of capital to use the economic crisis and the threat of unemployment to impose a progressive decline of the standard of living. The slow but constant rise of wages ended in 1977 but the effects on the living conditions were only felt in 1982 with the rise of unemployment and a reform of the unemployment benefit system which made unemployment far less attractive than before. Furthermore, over these twenty years, the gap between gross and net wages had not stopped increasing and evidently it was the low and middle level wage earners who were the most affected: the rate of this levy on wages has gone up from 6 percent in 1950 up to 21,1 percent in 2000 (and even more today). Considering only the period 1984-1996, official figures show a 58 percent rise of prices and only a 7.2 percent rise of the average wage (according to some union figures theses rates were even more apart, a rise of 94 percent for the prices and a decline of 12.4 percent for the wages). The freeze of the wages mentioned above for the recent period 1996-2004 has only increased this gap between wages and prices, as a consequence of the ‘Aubry laws’, of the steady rise of unemployment and of illegal immigration (and legal migration too inside the EU).

Considering this matter of wages and prices, the pressure of unemployment to calm the eventual claims about wages, and the fact that the wages are presently just enough to cope for a minimal living, any measure aiming at lowering the monthly wage was somewhat explosive. Even in branches such as the car industry, where these problems had been apparently settled. It is not by chance that the most active in the Citroën strike were young workers: they are the most severely hit by financial problems, especially when looking for accommodation, considering the intense speculation in this matter. Only a small decline of a monthly more or less stable income will break the fragile balance of the family budget. Then, it will not be a direct claim for wage rises, but the warning that on this matter a kind of bottom limit has been reached and that in a certain way, workers have been driven into struggle.

Strike at Citroën plant
The Peugeot-Citroën factory in Aulnay-sous-Bois (a north-east Paris suburb) now is the only car factory in Paris or a close suburb, but does not have the same symbolic value the now disappeared Renault factory in Billancourt (also close to Paris) had. In this factory out of 5,000 workers 3,800 worked on the production of the models C2 and C3, together with 500 temporary workers. The average monthly wage for a worker is between 1,100 and 1,000 Euros, not that much more than the compulsory minimum wage (SMIC [Salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance]). The usual quota of production has been recently modified from 6,000 cars per week, or 1,200 a day in 5 working days. Management asked for 1,500 cars on 4 days with a technical day off the Friday, which means extra work for each post on the line. The company interest was evident: as it turned out, for a Friday off just 60 percent of the normal day wage are being paid, so the same production is achieved but with one day 40 percent less payment.

In 2004, the world and European car market has not improved at all. The sales of the two French car builders PSA and Renault dropped by 3.3 percent and 1.1 percent respectively. Figures already estimated that the European car factories were running at 77 percent of their capacity of production in 2003 (Renault and PSA were amongst the best, running at 83 percent and 89 percent of their capacity respectively). It is impossible in such an article to analyse the strategy and tactics of these multinationals of the car industry, which could play on quite a lot of various factors never completely disclosed (for instance what will be the function of the factory built by PSA in Slovakia or the possible transfer of the production of the C3 to the Madrid factory). All these facts could be considered to explain the decision of the management of the Aulnay-sous-Bois factory to impose 30 ‘technical days off’ in 2005, 8 in March, 4 in April, 8 in May, and more during the year and some others in 2006. As we have said above, the pay for these days off is 60 percent of the normal wage up to 150 hours and 65 percent beyond. For a worker earning a monthly average of 1.200 Euros the loss of wage, for March alone, would be 175 Euros for a day shift and 250 Euros for a night shift, which means a cut of wages between 15 and 20 percent.

The Aulnay factory, as most of the big car factories, has been organised in such a way that most of the subcontractors are producing close to the assembly line in order to provide a constant delivery of parts. Around this factory we can find quite a lot of these subcontractors, most of them owned by PSA but legally apart: Trigo (control of the parts), Valeo (electrical connections), Energie (fuel tanks), Harvin (exhaust pipes), Gifco (logistics), Magneto (drop forge), ENCI (cleaning), Tais (collecting metal refuse), Avenance (meals in the canteen), etc..

These subcontractors have to follow the same organisation of work as the assembly line factory but they do not have to give their workers the advantages of the collective contract of PSA. They are also under pressure to reduce their costs because their client (the main factory) gives its orders to the best offer. Because of this pressure, the subcontractors’ workers have to work under worse conditions for lower wages.

In the recent period quite a lot of conflicts have taken place at most of these subcontractors. In 2004-2005 we can quote:

* a strike on the 24th of May 2004 at ENCI which lasted five days, with demonstrations at the gates; the strikers got a 13th wage/year and the strike days paid (they work solely at night for 1,200 Euros a month);

* a strike at Trigo on the 7th of June 2004, and at the same time at Valeo and Avenance for wages;

* a strike at Tais on the 22th of February 2005 where 30 workers got a bonus for quality raised from 20 up to 70 Euros a month, 100 percent for the ‘technical days off’ and for the strike days;

* on the other hand there is an on-going conflict over a declaration of the management at the end of February 2005, that 268 professional workers would have to go, as there were still 500 temporary workers in the factory. More recently a group of 27 old Moroccan workers were denied the right to take early retirement and they have to go to the court to have their fate fixed.

There is no doubt that these conflicts and their result had some influence on what happened next. As soon as the plan for the ‘technical days off’ was unveiled at a factory committee on the Wednesday morning, 2nd of March, a bunch of 17 young workers (some sources say only six) started the strike. The different sources of information do not give many clues about the beginning of the strike. Some say it started on Wednesday afternoon, others the following day, Thursday, 3rd of March. They also name different locations or workshop where the strike started to spread to other departments. Some say on the line making seats, others on some section of the assembly line. What is sure anyway is that the strike started spontaneously over a claim to get full pay for the ‘technical days off’ imposed by the management. What is also sure is that they succeeded in extending their strike at first to the 250 workers of their department (out of 350), but that they failed to spread the strike to the other departments of the factory. Anyway, the changes of shift (afternoon and night) did not change the situation: within its limits, the strike was still strong. The top manager asked for a meeting with delegates of this department on strike, the strikers asked him to come and to discuss openly with all of them, what he refused to do.

Friday, 4th of March, was a day off (a managerial trick, as we have explained above). Perhaps the management hoped that the strike would be over after the long week-end. But on Monday, 7th of March, the strikers were even more numerous, even if it is difficult to give an exact number: between 400 and 700, some sources claiming up to 1,000, most of them in the same departments. It was evident that the strike was a selective strike aiming at creating a bottleneck paralysing the assembly line. Hence, there was a battle around the figures of finished cars. During the night Thursday to Friday only 50 cars may have been produced instead of the 310 planned; the management produced figures pretending that on Thursday 1,127 left the line instead of 1,530. A leaflet signed ‘Workers on strike’ dated 9th of March, said that ‘since the 3rd of March the production of the factory was at a standstill’. Even after the end of the strike it is difficult to know the actual effect of the strike as the management can use the flexibility and recuperate the loss.

On Monday, 7th of March, between 400 and 700 strikers try to demonstrate all over the factory and to push the other workers to strike. They did not succeed, even though they were welcomed with sympathy. As soon as the strike broke out, all the unions tried to jump on the band-waggon. We will further analyse the attitude of the CGT union: It could not openly take a position against this wildcat strike, but did not do anything to call for its spreading and showed a very conciliatory approach towards the management. As the strike went on and threatened to stop the production, the management started some discussions with the unions and, what is more important as a kind of recognition of the autonomy of the strike, with delegates from the strikers as early as Monday, 7th of March. The strikers then added to the original claims the full payment of the days of strike. These discussions did not produce any result. Tuesday, 8th of March, another meeting with the same people brought an agreement with full payment for the days of ‘technical unemployment’ but imposing a condition on the strikers: they have to work 12 days more during the year to repay the days of strike. This agreement was signed by four unions: SIA/GSEA (which is the remains of a boss’s more or less fascist union), CGC (a managers union not at all concerned with the strike), CFTC and FO. Three other unions, the most important ones, SUD, CFDT and CGT refused to sign. But more important, the strikers assembly refused the agreement and the strike went on.

For weeks the main unions had organised a national ‘day of action’ on Thursday, 10th of March, against the government’s social policy with demonstrations in the main towns and a big one in Paris. Numerous strikers of Aulnay were there behind a banner claiming support for the strike and distributing leaflets about their strike (signed ‘workers on strike’). 50 workers of the subcontractor GEFCO working in the factory had been on strike since the 3rd of March for claims similar to the Citroën workers’ ones (at the end of the day the 50 workers got what they wanted after hading spread the strike to other sites of the subcontractor).

On Monday, 14th of March, at 6 a.m., the day shift was welcomed by three hundred management staff all dressed in Citroën uniform who tried to stop the strikers going into their work department (the management tried to restart the assembly line with scabs - temporary workers). The managers then followed the workers as they went to demonstrate inside the factory in order to produce pressure on and to threaten the non-striking workers.

The same morning, a new meeting with the management, the unions SUD, CFDT, CGT and the delegates of the strikers did not improve anything. But at a new meeting in the afternoon, the management yielded: full pay for the ‘technical days off’, transport benefit paid; for the days of strike, they will be paid fully but the workers will have to give some days of RTT, 2 days will be considered as days of retraining and they will have to work three more days in April (these days were planned as days off). We can see this change of mind by the management as a result of the fact that the strike was still strong even after the pressures of the morning and that the risk of a line-stoppage was increasing, perhaps also of an expansion of the strike The strikers assembly voted to accept the deal and to resume work on Monday, 14th of March. The night shift worked normally. The general atmosphere in the factory is that the strike was worth while.

The Political and Social Context
Even though this strike could be seen as a minor one and did not attract much media coverage we have to place it within the general political and social context in France.

* The present intense propaganda around the referendum on the European Constitution is more and more designed as a political fight that covers up a social problem. Most of the groups and parties advocating the rejection of the European Constitution - in particlular the left of the Socialist Party, the Trotskysts, the Communist Party and the very confused neo-reformist ‘altermondialism’ (Attac) - use the deep social discontent to build their opposition. But they do not want to push too far the various current strikes: quite a lot of strikes would have a negative effect on their political ambitions. That could explain the attitude of the leftist groups during the Citroën strike.

* In this respect, the attitude of the Trotskyst group ‘Lutte Ouvrière’ is very significant. The fall of the USSR and of the French Communist Party and the the decline of their influence on the CGT union and of all unions in general has allowed all these oppositional political groups, formerly systematically evicted and barred from entering the union apparatus, to take functions in this union bureaucracy at the low and medium level. Willingly or not, tactically or not, they have to respect the union policy in order to climb the ladder because what is more important for them is not class struggle in itself but the conquest of political power using this union activity as a step in this respect. The rank and file militants however tend to act quite differently. Maybe initially attracted by the political and social offers of these competing organisations, these militants have a tendency to act more according to their immediate class interests than to the interests of the organisation. As often, concerning this relation between union apparatus and rank and file, it is difficult to know the actual dialectical process between the CGT Citroën (controlled by Lutte Ouvrière) and the rank and file action (even if the leaflets were anonymously signed by ‘workers on strike’ they could still have been inspired by Lutte Ouvrière, which did not dare to put the organisation’s name in the context of the strike).

What is more important than all these ‘diversions’ related the the present political situation, the Citroën strike has to be placed in the French context of class struggle, in what we consider the start of a new turn of class struggle.

As we have said at the beginning of this article, the ‘Aubry laws’ and the RTT have not only modified the work organisation and produced a freeze of wages, but have increased the weight of labour with the removal of any constraints (legal or illegal), changed the pace of work and greatly disturbed the workers’ daily life. The time to rest has not at all been able to make up for the new kind of physical and mental exhaustion linked to the stress (anxiety, depression, psychological and physical diseases). The new forms of work organisation apparently give workers more autonomy but at the same time impose a stronger control on them. According to some official figures the removal of the ‘grey time’ [temps gris] (working time allowing the worker to choose his own pace of work, to stop to work from time to time) produces “urgency” and forces everyone to hurry up. Even on the Taylorised assembly lines the organisation of work was modified in such a way that each ‘operator’ (worker) is constantly has a work-load up to his/her capacity, while he/she is also liable for the imposed productivity. At the same time this method of work organisation has been widely introduced, even in the service industry. In some call centres for instance, even the language is regulated. It is forbidden to use certain words such as ‘delay’ for instance. Workers in these centres have to follow various illogical orders, for instance to smile when they are answering, to end certain calls and to stop calls which are too long, while on the other hand they are required to keep a call going in order to please the customer or to sell them some products (thereby they have the feeling that they are not performing ‘good work’).

Some research shows all the disorders connected to this new organisation of work. Taylorism has not at all disappeared but, on the contrary, has invaded all industries. Instead of being imposed by the levels of management, the responsibility for the work organisation is put on the shoulders of the workers themselves, and this is particularly difficult to cope with for any worker. The only question for the workers is how to respond to these new forms of exploitation. The reactions can be individual (sabotage, absenteeism, etc..) or collective. But they can take the form of claims which are not directly linked to the original problems of conditions of work (the recent strikes in the call centres are an example). Often they take forms of resistance buried in the day to day life of exploitation and not very well known. But they are evidently part of the general discontent we can currently observe in France.

General Discontent in France
Till recently, most of the strikes in France were about the resistance against the consequences of the restructuring and of re-location of factories. The strongest often violent ones were about definite closures and were demanding not the repeal of the closure but better benefits for unemployment (the best example was the Cellatex factory strike in the North of France which for some time was a model for quite a lot of similar strikes). They were defensive strikes which did not question the competition between capitalist companies looking for the best profitable conditions of exploitation. These rather defensive struggles have not ceased, neither did the restructuring. But recently other kinds of strikes have emerged, making visible a new offensive attitude against the conditions of exploitation, wages and/or working conditions. These new conflicts about wages and working conditions appear in a situation where the 35 hour-laws (Aubry laws), the threat of re-location of production and the fear of unemployment has forced workers to accept a wage freeze.

One of the most interesting of these conflicts erupted last December within the Swedish textile company H&M, exploiting 3,000 workers in 63 shops all over France. The delivery for these shops was concentrated in a big warehouse located at Le Bourget (northern suburb of Paris). The 300 workers of this warehouse have to handle heavy parcels and are being harassed by the management for a gross wage of 1.180 Euros a month (reduced for different reasons for many of them down to 600 to 750 Euros). Numerous claims for a wage increase were pushed aside and the workers considered this attitude of the management as a kind of provocation.

On the 13th of December all these workers decided to strike. This date was well chosen because the end of the year is a very profitable period for the company. The strike was very efficient because the warehouse was blocked by a picket-line which prevented any car or lorry from entering and leaving the building. H&M did not try to break the picket-line, but to organise another distribution centre with scabs, which later on proved to be particularly inefficient. Then the management put forward a complaint at the local court in order to get a legal decision for the removal of the picket and against the strikers, forbidding the blockade of the warehouse gates.

On the 28th of December, the cops managed to dissolve the picket (this date coincided with the beginning of the sales and the need for big supplies for the shops). At the same time the management proposed a wage rise of 6.2 percent, back-dated to 2002, but it tied the wage rise to such preconditions (e.g. of seniority) that 80 percent of the workforce would not get anything. The reason is that the staff has a very considerable turnover because of the poor working conditions. The strike was continued but without the strength of the blockade. In order to compensate for that the strikers tried to spread the strike to the most important shops, mainly in Paris and the suburbs. They failed because of very different conditions of work in the shops, because of a serious turnover with limited contracts and the intervention of the cops. New proposals: wage increase of 7 percent for people who started working before the 1st of January 2002, 4 percent for others and 1,8 percent for 2005 for all of them - and a after a ballot the strikers resumed work on February, the 7th.

More recently, different strikes all over France have patchwork-like disturbed all sectors of distribution - hypermarkets and supermarkets. Often the workers used strategies similar to the ones at H&M, blocking the warehouses which supply the centres of distribution. Most of these strikes were about wages, some of them are still going on. Considering these strikes and other recent less known but similar struggles, we can again observe a new offensive character of these class conflicts. Of course, it is too early to draw a definite conclusion even if we can underline their size and potential. It is for sure that as early as last year the managers who are connected to the political world were aware of these upcoming new offensive claims. On the background of these struggles for higher wages we can understand last year’s various government attempts to have ‘voluntary’ cuts in the prices of goods sold in supermarkets and the announcement to allow workers to get money from special accounts of frozen benefits. On the other hand various reforms of social, juridical and repressive matters aimed for the reinforcement of control over possible social conflicts. We can also reconsider this fuss about the constitutional referendum and see it as a diversion of the social conflict, which is supposed to be contained in the political ‘democratic’ fight.

We think that another proof of a general discontent was given by two wildcat conflicts connected not to wages but to the working conditions. On the 1st of February 2005 at the Orly airport (one of the major Paris airports, south east of Paris) the death of a stewardess who fell off an unprotected gangway brought to light the consequences of the pressure of productivity on the security at the airports. But, of course, the driver of the lorry carrying the gangway was immediately penalised and threatened to be sacked. His immediate lay-off started an immediate wildcat strike of all the people working on the runways of the airport and the traffic was heavily disturbed for two days. Another strike happened between the 18th and 22nd of March when a disciplinary committee was supposed to meet.

A similar conflict happened at the end of January with the ticket-controllers of the SNCF [French Railways] involved. On the 15th of January in the evening a woman controller was raped by a traveller in a regional train around Toulouse (south-west of France). When this aggression became known to the public in the morning of the 26th, a wildcat strike started in the Toulouse region and quickly expanded all over France. It put the whole rail network to a standstill. Some 9,000 controllers refused to work (for security reasons a train cannot run without a controller). Immediately the top manager started negotiations with the unions about some measures to guarantee more security for the controllers. But the traffic was still deeply disturbed for the following days because most of the controllers were not that pleased with what was proposed by bosses and unions.

Apart from the fact that these wildcat strikes are expressions of a big discontent which breaks loose in such sudden actions about some ‘minor’ incident, it is remarkable that nobody cares about the compulsory notice before starting the strike, in the railways as in the airports. The political discussions about a law imposing this notice and the obligation of a ‘minimal service’ were totally swept away by the strikes.

This text was sent by a comrade from ‘Echanges et Mouvement’, Paris.

prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Right from the first day of the conflict several dozen farmers and employers from Bujalance discussed the different aspects of the strike online. They complained about the red tape of the Socialist Party, which they accused of buying votes by securing splendid dole money for the mob. They ranted on about the lack of restraint of the seasonal workers, who don’t cling on to the olive trees like themselves. They moaned about the lack of solidarity shown by other landowners, about the technological backwardness of Bujalance and about the communist/fascist terror of the union. The following is a summary of their debate. The original can be found here.

Kulak Chat-Room

* I have about 800 olive trees and there is no way that I could bring in the harvest. What does this CC.OO guy think that he is doing? Leaving the workers without a wage for a year? Who will bother to contract them after the strike?
* I often find myself amused by this village which exists for about 40 years now seperated from civilisation under the rule of the PSOE. I will bring in the harvest, even if it is side by side with the Guardia Civil, that I swear.
* This is what fucking annoys me in this web-forum, a lot of creeds, but what about the strike? No bloody clue? You buggers from Bujalance, I know that you still don’t use olive vibrators, but you must at least have computers. Just tell us what’s happening. I was told on the phone that trees which are ripe for the harvest can be picked, is that true?
* I feel shame for this village. Where are the balls that it used to have? Why do we allow such a son of a bitch to ruin the village, how long are we supposed to be trapped in the past? All the villages in the region are developing, only Bujalance isn’t. Let’s kick Manolo out of the village and his followers will go with him as well.
* Fascist!
* Red Bastard!
* Long live the strike! Hey you, who just said that you will bring in your harvest, we will cut your damned two little olives!
* Today I was trapped three quarters of an hour in the traffic jam, simply because of the fucking road block of the day labourers. They should block the fucking roads of their whore mothers.
* Manolo has a tidy wage from the CC.OO, he wants to enter politics, if he succeeds he won’t give a damn about the day labourers.
* That’s right, there are the regional CC.OO elections soon.
* How is it poossible that this fascist and his four followers are able to force a whole village to its knees? Because of the pickets and their threats. Anyone who goes to work will get his face smashed, the car demolished, the trees cut or the tractor burned. Fascism in its purest form.
* I know Mr. Ramirez [Manolo] personally, he even defends violent Basques.
* I would really like to invent an automatic harvest machine and send them all to hell.
* What about the collective contract? Did they agree yet? I don’t know what to do with my gang, they already picked in Montoro und they are supposed to go to Bujalance tomorrow.
* Most of the workers aren’t even members of the CC.OO. These are the only two month that they have to work anyway and now they use the opportunity and go on strike.
* Even the bigger companies seem to get nervous, the strike is dragging on despite their threat not to hire people for the whole rest of the year.
* They don’t get nervous. They won’t hire anyone from Bujalance for the next ten years, then you will see who will get nervous. They will eat stones with eggs.
* Today Manolo started his hunger strike, now he wants to turn himself into a victim. Also today some small peasants went to work on the fields. We have to support them.
* Manolo cannot go on hunger strike, he is diabetic.
* Bloody fascists, your whore mothers went to the fields, as well, but at night time and that’s why you came into the world. Leave Manolo alone!
* Shut up, the 40s are over.
* Who of you in this forum has got a Cirafelli? Is this machine any good? I think of getting myself one. Thanks.
* History repeats itself. In 1975 the olives from Bujalance achieved the highest prices, that was before Manolo’s friend became mayor. He brought in all gypsies from the region and everything went down the drain. In the oldern days about 24,000 people lived here, now only 8,000.
* Also Mr. Ramirez knows very well how to get the gypsies behind him and the gypsies are allowed to do what ever they want.
* The Romanians should come to Bujalance, then the day labourers in Bujalance wouldn’t be spoilt with wages like 15,000 to 20,000 Pesetas a day anymore.
* On all strike days, even during the general strike, most of the workers from Bujalance went working in other villages and we are not allowed to harvest our four olive trees which bear the income of the whole year. They should be ashamed.
* Exactly. And by the way, do you know how many of your workers have cash-in-hand jobs on construction sites while still cashing dole money?!
* And Ghandi Manolo Ramirez asks workers to renovate his house without having a planning permission. Who is talking about workers’ rights?!
* I don’t understand why you all get so wound up, here in Bujalance nothing happens at all, no one starves to death, everyone stuffs their bellies with bread and beer, with the latter in particular, most of the strikers only work two month and the rest of the year they live on the four or five unemployment benefits coming in for each family.
* That’s how they have always lived, of olives and on the dole. This year they will only have the dole money.
* The second mayor of Bujalance, Mrs. Antonia Cabanillas proposes a ‘restructuring of Bujalances agricultur’, she demands we should undertake ‘an effort like the one of the shipyard workers of Izar’, but what the hell do we know of ship-building? Phantastic ideas, qualification programs, new industries and all, but how are we supposed to make a living today and tomorrow?
* Cheers, I am 40 years old, a real Bujalancero and I still cannot understand how fucking daft one can be in this village.

Towards the end things got nastier, a lot of gypsy and communist blood was supposed to be shed, some wanted to pass the head around for a professional killer in order to shoot Manolo from the town hall’s balcony, others made appointments for duels or wanted to re-use the mass graves of the Civil War.

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Transformation towards private capitalism, which started after 1989, was at the beginning mainly affected by the struggle inside the old-new ruling class for the actual character of this change. Already in 1990 the Czech faction of bourgeoisie led by Vaclav Klaus, who was minister of finance and who later became the prime minister and who is now the present president, got the strongest position. As a head of Obcanska demokraticka strana (ODS), he was, with many others, stressing out so called Czech way of privatisation. This Czech way was mainly based on preference of the home investors, who were, not exceptionally, members of the party nomenklatura of the former regime. In several next years these people seemed to be faction of bourgeoisie that was not interested in productive valorization of capital - hence many of them gained huge property by means of the voucher privatization (project of the Vaclav Klaus´s group), and then they tunneled them and transfered their profits to foreign bank accounts.

Remarkable foreign investments appeared later in 1995, when the government sold 27 per cent stake of monopoly telecommunication company SPT Telecom - Czech Telecom how it is called at present - to Swiss-Dutch consortium TelSource (KPN and Swisscom). Although it was one of the first significant foreign investments, it was not the actual redisposition of the production itself, but only taking over already existing apparatus and production. Investment into construction of the new factories did not emerge yet. We should also point out, that these investments were not strictly classical expression of production redisposition connected with the lock outs and firing the employees in the countries, where the capital was coming from. Entrance of the Volkswagen into Skoda Mlada Boleslav car factory in 1991 was about the same character, likewise mastery of the Czech tobacco industry by Philip Morris, investments of the energetic concern E.ON into South Bohemia energy engineering, and above all, the biggest German capital investment, which was entrance of the energy company RWE into Czech monopoly gas distributor - Transgas (2002). There were also some more investments of the same rank, e.g. mastery of the Czech banking by the foreign capital. Czech banking hit rock bottom after series of bankrupts in 90s, and 95 percent of its control was also taken over by foreign banks, e.g. entrance of French Societe General into Komercni banka. The real boom of the straight foreign investments to Czech emerged in 1999; a year after Czech social democrats (CSSD) won the election. This new government introduced many advantages and encouragements, which should have attracted new investors. These encouragements involved production the same as services, IT, research and development, and included 10 years long taxation free period for newly established firms, possibility of getting the land estates for very low price, support of infrastructure building, special advantages for investments into high unemployment regions (north of Czech and Moravia). While in 1998 2,64 billion USD flowed into Czech, it was already 4,88 billion USD a year later. Amount of the straight foreign investments reached its top in 2002 with 9,3 billion USD. Czech took the second place behind Poland with the total of investments among the countries of the former eastern block. With 2500 USD per person, Czech was even at the first place in central and Eastern Europe. In order to fully satisfy our survey, let us mention, that in years from 1999 to 2001 foreign investments took 10 percent of Czech GDP.

Most of the biggest investors in Czech are firms residing in Germany (25 percent) and in Japan (20 percent) followed by firms from USA and Netherlands. In general, firms from EU participate on the total amount of investments from three quarters. We should also point out the trend of rising investments of firms from Thai-wan or India, that by means of investments in Czech try to reach easier access to EU countries trade after the entrance of Czech to EU. Foreign capital is mostly concentrated on car industry in Czech: 46 percent. Let us mention construction of the new car factory of TPCA consortium (Toyota Peugeot Citroen Automobile) in Kolin for 1,5 billion Euro, where about 300.000 cars should be produced every year. Electrical engineering industry follows with 18 percent proportion of the total of investments. The rise of investments into Research and Development and strategically services appeared in 2003. The biggest amount of capital in this sector entered to Czech when German logistic firm DHL started to build up its European centre of services and information technology in Prague. The world cliental centre of Air France was also built in Prague and Honeywell Corporation builds up its global development centre in Brno (on the same place where Flextronics used to be settled). We can also see the similar trend in Slovakia, where, besides the biggest investments of VW, PSA and Hyundai/KIA, Samsung is constructing its new factory for digital technology products; it should also contain logistic centre for central Europe. Investments into development centers and strategically services mostly stay limitedly targeted on Prague and Brno. There are both technical colleges and relatively enough of high - qualified labour power in these cities. But the limits of investments into these spheres in Czech are already visible on problems with gaining the proper labour power (mainly in Prague), which capital needs for this type of investments - Czech belongs among countries with the lowest number of university educated people in Europe (12 per cent in Czech, 20 per cent in EU countries). That is why the government tries to get high qualified people from different countries of Eastern Europe (e.g. Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Bulgaria) interested in Czech. Representatives of car and electro technical sectors, to which flows most investments in Czech at all, already asked government to accomplish education system reform, which would provide enough of qualified labour power - they warn, that the present condition could lead to end of further investment flow and could even cause interruption of production, that is already functional. Despite of massive flow of foreign investments into Czech over years from 1999 to 2002 and despite of partial reversal towards strategically services development in 2003, there have been discovered limits of these trends in Czech. Right year 2003 meant radical slump of total amount of investments - its flow was the lowest since 1997. The total amount actually only corresponded to the total of reinvested profits (profits, which firms controlled from abroad, leave in Czech). Even these profits have decreased if compared to the previous year. While the foreign capital left 64,3 billion Czech Crowns in Czech in 2002, it was only 62,2 billion in next year. It was the first decrease at all between two following years. Czech bureau of statistics has to admit, that: “world records in amount of the straight foreign investments held by Czech in several past years are over now.” Reinvested profits have decreased for the first time in Czech over the last year. In: http://www.czso.cz (Czech bureau of statistics) official institutions claim, that this decrease is caused by two huge transactions - purchase of 49 percent share in mobile phone company Eurotel from American investor to Cesky Telecom, Buying back that share should increase the possibility of selling the total share of the state in Cesky Telecom, this is planned by the government in 2005. The government is expecting regeneration of the global telecommunication sector and is also hoping, that profits are coming from massively advanced mobile phone trade (nine in ten people in Czech own mobile phone - Eurotel is the most important part of value of Cesky Telecom) and the sale of 27 per cent share of Swiss-Dutch consortium TelSource right in Cesky Telecom to the Czech financial investors. That can be only part of the truth. New study of the German Fraunhofer Institute claims, that many of the German metallurgy and electronics firms, which transferred production from home to east, are now coming back to Germany. Lower wage expenses are not everything for capital - there is much lower productivity of labour in Czech, which compensates advantages of the cheap labour power. It is also the mentioned lack of qualified labour power what causes some problems. While in 1997 it was one in 6,5 firms coming back to Germany, it is one in three at present. Despite of these facts, considering the central and Eastern Europe, the foreign investments made Czech economy being the most connected one with the world in past years. Even the German economy is more enclosed than the Czech one. Czech economy has the tightest relations with Germany - about 40 percent of Czech export is to Germany, and due to statements of the Czech national bank, the one percent point deceleration of German GDP causes half percent point deceleration of the Czech one.

Car industry
As we said, most of investments are going into the car industry, and thanks to this fact, it became the most important sector in Czech. 85 percent of its production is exported, which is 21 percent of the total Czech export. There are 130.000 workers employed in the car industry in Czech. There are regions (Liberec, south Czech), where it makes 75 percent of all investments (91 in 100 invested Czech Crowns goes into car industry in Liberec), which makes them very vulnerable considering possibly rising crises of this sector.

Despite of the importance of this sector, there are no significant struggles in it (as in Czech in general). There were some strike alerts in Skoda Mlada Boleslav (and also in its branches in Moravian Kvasiny and in Vrchlabí) connected with collective unions negotiation, which were promoted and led by union bosses, so that no open strike ever broke out. Several times there was a situation, when workers stopped working for a while because of the high speed of the specific line (in 2001), and workers also refused going to work over irregular night shifts (beginning in 2003). But mainly the later example was rather part of the union strategy during the negotiation, than result of an autonomous workers struggle, as we can say considering reachable information. Breaking out of the open conflict in Skoda is, among others, prevented by effective cushion tactics of the management and unions. When workers periodically are being fired, the first ones are the ones, who were employed through job agencies - mainly from Slovakia. Also the threat of moving the production to Ukraine is playing its strong role - VW Group has already built factory near Uzhorod (Ukraine), and there are coming not only Volkswagens but also Skodas from its lines.

There was no strike in Tatra Koprivnice (production of lorries, firm is owned by American Terex Corporation). When huge firing was announced at the beginning of the last year, workers from this factory were affected in very bad way, because of the location - north Moravia, a region with 20 percent unemployment. There was a demonstration, attended by many citizens of Koprivnice showed their solidarity and even some workers from Skoda, plant near Kvasiny, participated. Workers booed out the union boss, as he was trying to convince them, that firing would improve factory situation. There were even voices calling for more radical action against the management, but the workers’ rage did not break out into open fight after all. All these conflicts took place in firms, which were taken over as already existing factories and where the union voice is traditionally stronger - unions always had full control over these events so far. There are mostly no unions in the new car factories. At one respect, that means, that all the potential conflicts taking place in these factories have no publicity and can remain hidden, but, on the other hand, this situation can also mean, that absence of the intermediary institutions provides space for possible autonomous struggles, which would not be caught in its webs.

Electrical engineering industry
Electrical engineering sector is the second biggest one behind the car industry in Czech having the flow of foreign investments (18 percent of the total of investments). This flow began already in 1997, which was both connected to global rise of electrical engineering and IT industry and to fake expectations of capital about this sector in general. It has appeared soon in Czech too - Flectronics left Czech for Hungary and China, further investments of Phillips were stopped. Flextronics is an ideal illustration of exaggerated hopes in electronically engineering sector (not only) in Czech. Flextronics came to Brno in 2000, firm gained 10 years long tax - free period, duty advantages, land estates for symbolic 1 Czech Crown, new infrastructure built up by city hall, interests - free loan for prequalification. Flextronics promised to employ 3000 workers in the next five years. Firm invested 400 million Czech Crowns into building new production lines and there were 2400 workers employed in 2001- that was the height of its career in Brno. Summer 2002 - management announced the end of the factory and its replacement to Hungary and China. Only a tiny design-center remained in Brno. Capital’s empty expectations of electronics industry were also demonstrated, when Philips stopped further investments - it had built up a factory for 240 million Euros in Moravian, town Hranice, but canceled it’s planned 400 million Euro investments. Philips firstly stated, that it will employ 3250 people, but there are only 1270 people working in the factory now, while Czech government has approved massive advantages for this firm - importing duty-free technologies, 10 years long tax-free period and government has invested thousands of millions Czech Crowns into industrial zone, where the factory lies. Philips still rebuts the imputations of lock out, but the Flextronics experience shows that such a decision might come totally unexpectedly without any previous warning. There was also another similar example, when American battery producer Energizer decided to leave Czech this year. Fears are getting even stronger, if one realise, that, likewise the car industry, also electrical engineering industry caused dependence of some regions on the actual investments, e.g. investments of Panasonic, Matshushita, Celestica or above mentioned Philips. For Example Pilsen belongs among such regions, where 73 percent of all investments are concentrated to electro-techniques.

We do not have any information about important struggles in this sector either. Moreover, there are no old firms taken by new foreign capital in this sector like in the case of the car industry, where the unions have quite strong influence (Skoda, Tatra). Anyway, we will see whether these conditions of institutionalized structures absence will be rather advantage or not.

Boom or fall
Bourgeois media and government are trying to set up a feeling, that last year’s decrease of investments was only a temporary deviation and that the leaving of firms like Flextronics or Energizer is only an exception. This impression is also encouraged by statements, that Czech will be one of ten most attractive countries for investments in the next years. If so, that would only mean further “globalization” of the Czech economy. Economy interconnection of itself, is only one part of the problem - it is much more important, that there are such conditions being created, which might provide very special space for potential class struggle with no respect to the state borders.

From Wildcat no.70, Summer 2004
Taken from prol-position news #2, 5/2005

France, February 2005

France saw an early spring of various mobilisations: the school student protests, the big demonstrations of public workers on the 10th of March, various smaller strikes such as the one at Citroen. All these mobilisations happen on the background of a general populist campagne of the left-wing of social democracy which promotes the ‘No’ to the European constitution, trying to chanel the general feeling of discontent. At the same time in Germany a so-called ‘capitalism-debate’ is launched by the left wing of the SPD, criticizing the anti-patriotism of multinational corporations and the greed of the high management. We think the following leaflet shows quite clearly how the left in France prepared the legal ground for the reforms of the right under Raffarin.

35 hours: the Right unmask the Aubry laws
The government of Raffarin is carrying out painful changes to the Aubry law on work time reduction. Do we have to understand this as a radical questioning of the work time reductions which were introduced by the Socialist Party?

Not at all. The “reforms” of the right-wing government only change some particular points of the Aubry laws, which were seen as restrictive by certain factions of the French employers. The “reform” stands in clear continuity with the Socialist Parties’ law which provided companies applying the law with a legal framework for wage decreases, acute flexibilisation of working time and the hunting down of idle time at work. But let’s go back to the Aubry laws. What are they about?

There was never a strike demanding this working time reduction, instead there was a government pleading for our approval. That was suspicious. Any conscious worker understood what was going on very quickly:

* The law laid down the legal working time of 35 hours per week, but on the basis of an annual average. In this way working time became more flexible, given the shift to an annual rather than weekly calculation.

* Breaks were not counted as work time anymore.

* Different minimum wages (SMIC) were introduced.

* The employers got even more freedom to negotiate specific agreements.

* The hours previously counted and paid as overtime diminished.

* The employers were now allowed to allocate holiday time according to the needs of production.

Credited by the more optimistic with having created 350,000 jobs, the reality is that the two Aubry laws of 1998 and 2000 didn’t even lower the unemployment rate, which is still around 10% of the active population. Behind the myth created by the bourgeois left, the 35 hours law served above all to submit the work force even more to the imperatives of capital, and at lower costs.

If the representatives of the left-wing of capital trumpeted all these measures from the start, some unions (not the CFDT which was one of the prime movers behind the law) found it hard to remain so passive in the face of workers’ concerns. In reply the unions put forward the only positive argument, the reduction of time actually spent in the work place, and had an easy time of it. In addition the law multiplied their opportunities for negotiation (their true raison d’être) and the extension of their presence within the companies.

That’s why there hasn’t been a general movement against these laws, but rather struggles on a company level for its “better implementation”. A multitude of agreements have be signed by the unions. The CFDT has come out the winner, followed closely by the CGT and FO, almost neck-and-neck.

On the employer’s side only the small traders and small and medium-sized companies dragged their feet, successfully as it turned out. In these sectors the Aubry 35 hours were never put into practice.

As soon as they understood the spirit and words of the law and the wonderful advantages it offered them on a silver plate, the management of the big companies (except for Edouard Michelin, worthy son of his father) rushed to sign company agreements. The state subsidies and the possibility of passing the costs of the eventual cut in hours onto the workers added the proverbial icing on the cake.

While the right is starting to whinge about the 35 hours again, the majority of big companies that count in this country, such as Renault and Peugeot, say that the measures put in place by existing company agreements are more than enough. Proof that the law is anything but favourable for the workers…

Many big companies have introduced a wide range of work schedules and reintegrated Saturday working into the normal hours, like at Citroen and Renault. Over all, after a close look, it becomes clear that in most cases the effective weekly working hours are higher than before the introduction of the law signed by Aubry. The more tiring and repetitive the work is, the more we can see the negative impact of this legal regulation. According to surveys, factory workers are more discontented with the work time reduction than office workers, technicians and managers.

New gifts for the small and medium-sized companies…
The right-wing government now wants to cash in the meagre advantages of the law using the moronic sophism: “You have to work more to earn more”. As if in capitalist society those who have the most dosh are the ones who work the most! Now the unions and left-wing parties play their institutional role as His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition by intervening and shouting like fools, but quickly forgetting that it was they who initially worked out and approved this attack on the conditions of the workers.

What are the changes enforced by the right-wing government?
* On a “voluntary” basis, the employees are allowed to work longer than the quota of extra hours. But what does “voluntary” mean for a worker? On top of that the bonuses for these hours are regulated on two different levels, according to the company or sectoral collective contract. This results in different bonus levels varying from company to company and depending on the particular balance of forces.

* Now it is possible for a worker to give up holidays and days off due to work time reduction in exchange for additional payments. The amount is not defined, it has to be negotiated with the unions. Also there is no legal limit to the number of days that can be given up per year, as long as it’s within the European law (four weeks of paid holidays per year).

* The clause that small and medium sized companies only have to pay a minimum of 10% extra for overtime, instead of 25%, is extended for three years. In this category of companies days off due to work time reduction can be bought back without having to negotiate with the unions. A so-called voluntary agreement between an individual employee and the boss is sufficient.

With these changes only the negative aspects of the law are left for the workers, namely the relaxation of the Labour Code and flexibility. All this is a perfectdemonstration of how the left and right wings of capital divide up the task of worsening the conditions of exploitation.

With the Aubry law the left has created the best legal and regulatory conditions for reinforcing the regime of exploitation in this country. Their specific approach was to worsen the conditions for the workers by means of the application their traditional ideological ointment. Today the unions, including the ones who kept quiet about the introduction of this anti-worker law, mobilise “for the defence of this social gain against the attacks of the right”. But the right wing come-back has only taken some of the rouge off the Aubry law’s cheeks. Those who believed and still believe that capitalists would fulfil the demands of workers, even the most elementary ones, without being put under pressure by autonomous workers’ struggles, are dangerously naive. In this case they share responsibility for opening up the path which has been taken by the right.

Mouvement Communiste
Brussels-Paris, 5 February 2005
Contact (without mentioning the name):
BP 1666, Centre Monnaie 1000, Bruxelles 1, Belgium

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

“Then I will leave and go to the east!”
What some decades ago might have been a defiant outcry of desillusioned lefty teachers, under the threat of dismissal due to their CP membership, is now taken up again and realised by the ‘class enemy’.

Within the context of the actual extension of the EU eastward, the debate on re-location of production and jobs heated up once more. The famous quote of chancellor Schroeder denouncing the employers as ‘anti-patriotic’ was meant to convey as sence of urgency to everyone. The debate is everything but new, the phrase ‘if you don’t work for less money, then I will go east’ is part of each employer’s standard repertoire. This verse is accompanied melodically by the bosses’ blues: the workers here in Germany earn too much compared to global standards, they have more leisure time than anywhere else, they become ever more stupid and uneducated, they don’t want to work weekends and at the end of the day let themselves be subsidised by the state. In new German, ‘subsidies’ do not refer to state’s financial presents for employers anymore, but are synonymous with minor tax returns on costs for long journeys to work or on bonuses for night shifts. Funny how all employers sing this blues, be it in the Czech Republic, in Romania, in Italy, or in France...

If all this were really true then there wouldn’t be a single smoking chimney left anywhere in Germany. This is not the case and therefore we had a look at which concrete statistics the ruling economisists provide concerning re-location of production towards the east. The statistical data serve only as an indication in order to formulate political questions, which we will do in the second part of this article.

The surprising thing about statistics is that even in supposedly easy cases they have difficulties coming to clear conclusions. This is also true for the question of re-location of production. There are no clear figures about how many jobs were cut in Germany during the last decade, in order to then be re-created in other countries. The figures only serve as parameters from which one can derive indirect conclusions. Such parameters are above all numbers concerning German direct foreign investments, employment statistics refering to the German labour market and to companies with German share-holders in the respective countries and import/export statistics. The kind of conclusions which are finally drawn mainly depends on the intended political statements. Other enquieries are based on representative surveys amongst German entrepreneurs. Direct foreign investments are recorded by the Federal Bank. Its statistics have been used, e.g. by the Eastern Europe Institute in Munich for an analisis in July 2002 (‘German direct investment in eastern Europe continue to recede - job re-locations fewer than expected feared’). According to this analisis there was a wave of direct investments in the mid 90s whose peak was reached in 1999. Since then direct investments have been decreasing. This is explained by the privatisation policy of the eastern European countries. When the former state property was sold a lot of German companies made sure that they got a piece of the cake. After the cake was more or less shared out it became clear ‘that the catch up process after the opening of the markets at the beginning of the 90s is largely completed and that in future capital will only flow according to the economic potentials of the MOE-countries’ (MOE, middle-eastern european). Only a small part of this cake consisted of production units, it was mainly the infrastructures (national grid, telecommunications) that were sold. To put it another way: future direct investments will be aiming at supplying the local markets there, rather than at replacing production here. Additionally the example of the ‘most mature economy’ of eastern Europe, Hungary, shows that during recent years so much capital has been accumulated that capital is only partly reinvested in Hungary itself, the rest is invested abroad. The influx of capital is now countered by its outflow.

In order to calculate the numbers of created and maintained jobs of German companies, the Eastern Europe Institute uses figures of MOE-countries about employment of companies with German share-holders. Cleared from several factors, the maximum number of export relevant jobs is estimated with 300,000 in MOE and the former Eastern Bloc countries for the year 2000. This supposed maximum loss of jobs would have to be contrasted with the actual development of the numbers of industrial jobs in Germany. In Germany the general statement is that the numbers of jobs in industry is decreasing while they are increasing in the service sector and that in total there are more jobs than ten years ago. One of the most often quoted studies in management literature, the study ‘System Technologies and Innovation Reasearch: foreign production - chance or risk for the production location Germany?’ (Systemtechnik und Innovationsforschung) by the Fraunhofer-Institute, estimates that between 1998 and 2000 there were only 10,000 jobs (!) net lost in manufacturing, numbers decreased from 6.267 to 6.257 million. With the aim of investigating the practice of German employers and its consequence for the economy in general, the Fraunhofer Institute undertook a representative survey amongst 1,600 companies in the manufacturing sector.

In the findings the Fraunhofer Institute notes that mostly big companies with 500 employees or more, and those which are engaged in serial production with a high output of numbers of pieces, have production locations abroad. However, for these companies eastern Europe isn’t a central location, the western industrial nations and Asia are the focus of attention. Labour intensive production with a high dependency on the knowledge of skilled workers, e.g. in machine construction remains located in Germany. The choice of where to produce is strongly determined by the market they aim to open up. This market is not (yet) in eastern Europe. Eastern Europe is more interesting for capital intensive production which relies on mass output. This is confirmed by another study of the same institute on the policy of German car parts suppliers concerning production abroad[1]. The study says that the so-called ‘first tier supplier’, the ones that directly cooperate with the assembling automobile companies, tend to follow them, i.e. the suppliers follow the main car plants. Their foreign engagement mainly aims at conquering new markets, whereas the second tier suppliers are less internationally active. If they decide to produce abroad, they mainly do it because of lower costs.

There are several big companies that have developed production capacities in eastern Europe: How does this fit together with the fact that today the car industry in Germany employs about 20 percent more people than ten years ago[2]? Apart from a conjunctural boom this is due to formerly re-located production coming back to Germany. Both studies of the Fraunhofer Institute come to the conclusion that the companies which dispose of global production capacities are able to use them flexibly and therefore also able to play the various site’s staff off against each other. The studies claim that so-called ‘potentials for modernisation’ are still waiting to be used which would help to create and secure jobs in Germany. ‘Progresses’ in terms of flexibilisation and wage levels have already been achieved which accounts for an increasing number of companies which brought production from their foreign locations back to Germany during the last years. In 2001 about 12 percent of all car suppliers have returned production to Germany, which is contrasted by 25 percent which re-located it to other countries in the same year. It is obvious that in the MOE-countries costs per work place are on the rise due to increased use of machinery.

In addition to that the study reveals that companies which have created production capacities in Germany as well as abroad have created more jobs in Germany than the average company. In this context they talk about ‘refinery effects’, meaning that simple work is re-located to foreign countries leading to rising profits of the company which are then used to create higher paid jobs in Germany.

Apart from the lower wages speaking in favour of re-location there are also reasons against such a move. In a survey by the Institute for Economy [Institut für Wirtschaft] in Cologne undertaken for the employers association of the metal sector, the participating companies name as advantages of the German production location: good infrastructure, logistics, professional qualification, safe supply of energy, water etc.[3]. Of course they also whine about the ‘welfare mentality’, the unflexibility, the workers’ detereorating level of education and the state’s burocratic nature (labour law, environmental norms, high taxes). All these factors still don’t seem to be too troubling for the bosses, at least they don’t counterweight the advantages mentioned above.

So much for the statistics. What kind of conclusions can we draw from them? First of all we can say that the equasion of ‘direct foreign investments’ with ‘re-location of production’ is wrong, an essential part of direct investments after the opening of the markets consisted of buying strategic infrastructure. Without a doubt there is a trend towards re-location of production, but this is confined to certain sectors and isn’t necessaraly on the scale that the general propaganda implies it is. This is contrasted by a trend of re-re-location to Germany, which doesn’t mean that companies are completely retreating from the new EU-countries, but rather indicates a flexible use of production capacities on both sides of the former ‘iron curtain’. The general statistics only give a limited answer to the question of which sectors actually re-locate jobs on a long term basis. Probably sectors like machine construction are less affected than for example chemical, print and electronic industries. Companies in these sectors where mainly semi-skilled workers are employed, seem to keep on moving, but where to? Further east? Ukraine, Russia, south east Europe, China?

How did the working class in the east European countries react to globalisation and the entering of big multinationals? An answer could be deducted from figures about wage developments, working time, strikes, migration etc.. An increasing expense of constant capital per work place in middle east Europe could be interpreted as an indication of workers’ struggle. [...] The following articles on the class situation in Czech Republic, Poland and Romania are only a first step towards a debate on class struggle from an at least European perspective.

Footnotes
[1] ‘Car part suppliers in a fix. On the splits between strategic alignment and orientation towards abroad’.

[2] Financial Times Germany, 16th of April 2004.

[3] IW-Consult, 2004.

From Wildcat no.70, Summer 2004
Taken from prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Between Repression and the Mafia
With the re-structuring of capital in the Czech Republic following the revolution of 1989, class composition also changed. A big influx of immigrant workers has been part of this process. Immigrant workers work in all kinds of sectors: in construction for example, in the automobile industry, in retail, in health and cleaning sector, in tourism. Today about 162,000 ‘legal’ immigrant workers live in the Czech Republic[1], at least double that amount stay ‘illegally’. It is estimated that there are 480,000 foreign workers in the Czech Republic, or about nine per cent of the total work force. And the total number of immigrant workers has been increasing slowly since 1999. This increase is paralleled by huge inflows of foreign investment[2], which is no coincidence given that nearly 60 per cent of all immigrants work in factories or on construction sites. About 10 per cent of all immigrants live in Prague where construction activities have boomed in the last year. About 74 per cent of the immigrant workers are men aged between 20 and 39 years[3]. Compared to the ‘native working class’ the immigrants work under even more precarious conditions (short-term contracts, low wages, contracted only as formally self-employed workers, etc.). The immigrant workers are used by capital to put more pressure on the local work force and establish class divisions along the lines of origin, language and ethnical categories.

Escaping Economic Misery in Slovakia
The majority of all foreign workers - over 40 per cent - in the Czech Republic come from Slovakia. Work migration to the Czech Republic is anything but new for Slovakians: this was already common during the so-called First Republic (1918-1938) and didn’t change under state capitalism (1948-1989). Their employment in the Czech Republic was considerably facilitated even before the EU extension. Unlike people from countries that are not members of the EU (‘non-member countries’), Slovakians are not protected by employment legislation[4]. The employer only has to announce the employment of a Slovakian worker to the employment agency, and the agency is then obliged to formally register the worker[5]. Hence Slovakian workers are mostly employed legally and not pushed into the arms of the various mafias, like for example the workers from Ukraine are. A lot of Slovakians work for temp agencies, often on construction sites, but also in the car industry (e.g. Skoda, VW), the electronic industry (e.g. in the former production of Flextronics) or in retail trade (e.g. Tesco, Ahold, Billa). The health sector is another area where a lot of Slovakians are employed, both as middle-ranking medical personnel and as doctors.

In the Net of the ‘Clients’
Things are slightly different for migrant workers from Ukraine (and from non-member countries in general). Ukrainian workers account for 25 per cent of all foreign workers in the Czech Republic. They are put under more pressure than the Slovakians as they need a work permit from the employment agency, which is dependent on their work visa. They have to pay health and social insurance, but if they lose their job they have to leave the country within one week and are excluded from all social benefits. These workers are supposed to fulfil their function as a mere labour force without claiming the ‘achievements’ of the welfare state. Since October 2004 the cops have been allowed to raid construction sites and companies in order to check the legal status of these workers. At the same time, legal changes make it more difficult to get a work visa and the valid time of these visas has been shortened.

About 79 per cent of all Ukrainian workers are men who regularly return to their home country and/or send money to their families back home. Most of them have a working class background, and only a few have a university education. About 60 per cent work in construction, others in agriculture and in the cleaning sector; in a word, everywhere where the term ‘unqualified workers’ is supposed to justify meagre wages. Usually these workers live in specially built ‘asylums’, where they sometimes have to share a bed. These are so bad that some Ukrainian workers have built their own settlements in forests near Prague or squat empty buildings. And although they often work a twelve-hour day, they earn less than 10,000 Crowns (about 320 Euros) per month[6]. In the end the real wage of many workers will be only half of that, given that the Ukrainian workers are not only exploited through direct capital relations, but also ripped off via the so-called ‘client-system’. In the ‘client-system’, a client (usually a man from the Ukraine) who has a long-term legal residence permit for the Czech Republic and good connections to the state administrations and various mafias organises work visas for workers, for which the ‘client’ charges three times the normal fee. If workers haven’t got the necessary money, the ‘client’ gives them credit: for the work visa, but also for travel expenses, accommodation and food. Workers then have to pay the client back through one or two monthly wage cheques. The business of the ‘client’ is a mafia-like version of a temp agency; they find people jobs and pay out their wages. A third of the wages the client keeps, as ‘protection money’. The client allegedly protects workers against the mafias and administrations, but often workers have to face the mafia’s and administrative repression on their own.

From Poland into the Mines, from North Korea behind the Sewing Machines
The third biggest group of migrant workers are the Polish (about five per cent). Unlike people from Slovakia and Ukraine, Polish workers all work in one specific region and sector: the Ostrau region, which is characterised by mining and some steel works. They are also employed by temp agencies, which means that they are the first to go when there are job cuts. In the sensitive sectors like mining and steel industry, this policy unfortunately works rather effectively so far. Workers from Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland are the most important groups of foreign workers in the Czech Republic. We can only guess at the number of immigrants from other countries given that they often only work behind closed factory gates with very little contact with the outside world. This is the case for perhaps hundreds of North Korean workers[7] grafting in the Italian textile company Kreata, for example, or for the Chinese immigrants in plants producing un-taxed cigarettes.

Regrettably we we have nothing to report on the struggles of migrant workers in the Czech Republic. There aren’t any or we haven’t heard of them yet. The relation between the absence of struggles in this sector and the general social peace is obvious. That we haven’t heard of struggles might also be down to the fact that we are having to rely on media reports, so it would be helpful to establish direct links! There are fears in some circles that open unrest among migrant workers could break out soon. At least that was the stated view published in the Czech newspaper Hospodarske Noviny in September the 30th 2004: ‘We are not talking about a dramatic social conflict. This conflict would only break out if the migrant workers stopped working and were only interested in the amount of social benefits.’ We are up for it!

Footnotes
[1] All numbers if not indicated otherwise: http://www.migraceonline.cz

[2] More about re-location of production and foreign investment see: ‘Investments in the Czech Republic: Boom or Fall?’ (wildcat no. 70/2004; see article in this newsletter).

[3] About 27.3 per cent are aged between 20 and 29 years, about 32.4 per cent between 30 and 39.

[4] About 51 per cent of all migrant workers in the Czech Republic come from non-member countries. Most of them are from Ukraine (48 percent) and from Vietnam (25 percent), who mainly work as small traders.

[5] Workers from Slovakia account for 89 per cent of all migrant workers from EU-countries in the Czech Republic, the other 11 per cent are from Poland.

[6] These numbers were raised in an anonymous survey amongst Ukrainian workers in 2001. About 68 per cent answered that they earn less than 10,000 Crowns (320 Euros), about 33 per cent said that they get less than 8,000 Crowns (258 Euros).

[7] The work regime at Kreata, which the Korean workers are subjected to, takes on militaristic forms: after they have worked for at least eight hours at the sowing machines they are brought to the nearby workers’ asylums where they are under surveillance till the next morning. They are said to earn about 6,000 Crowns (193 Euros).

From Wildcat no.72, January 2005
Taken from prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Behind the Border
It is only a one hour journey from Berlin to the German-Polish border, the supermarkets in Berlin offer Polish food, immigrants from Poland are part of daily life in the German capital - nevertheless there are not many direct contacts (apart from perhaps the punk scene). The ‘iron curtain’ is slow to dissolve, due to languages and the geographical location.

Poland is by far the largest of the new EU countries - with 39 million people (about 14 million of them are ‘economically active’) and a size of 312,680 square kilometres. In the history of this country, the workers’ struggles contributed directly to the collapse of ‘real socialism’. We begin with a short review of the recent history.

In June 1956, parallel to the uprising in Hungary, demonstrations and strikes emerged which would become known as the ‘Polish Summer’. The trigger for these protests were the state order to raise the official targets for work performance in industry and agriculture, along with an increase in prices. Initially the government suppressed the protests with violence, but in a surprise moment of concession it accepted nearly all the demands, announced an end to the collectivisation of the agriculture and established workers’ councils.

In 1968 the international student movement also reached Poland. In order to drive a wedge between workers and students, the government instigated an anti-Semitic campaign against left wing intellectuals. As a consequence about 15,000 Jewish people were forced into emigration. The student protests petered out in isolation, but by 1970 there was already a new strike wave emerging of miners and shipyard workers, in response to another government attempt to increase prices. Again, after initial violent oppression the government accepted most of the demands. In the 70s the government took out huge loans from the west (from Germany amongst other countries) in order to achieve their own ambitious accumulation targets and to satisfy the demands for consumption of the workers. Despite these loans, the real wages decreased. 1976 saw new workers unrest in the Ursus plant in Warsaw and in Radom. Illegal opposition structures were formed, such as strike committees and political groups like the ‘Committee to Defend the Workers’ (KOR), which was influenced by Trotskyism. The Catholic church also functioned more and more as a mouthpiece to announce social needs.

After another strike wave in 1980, during which the ‘Strike Committee’ (MSK, a cross company group) was formed, the government did not take violent measures but negotiated with the MSK, which later on became the independent union Solidarnosc. The strikes continued and the economic crisis aggravated. In 1981, under the pressure of the Soviet Union, the government declared a state of marshal law and criminalised the Solidarnosc, which by that point had over 10 million members. These measures put an end to the strikes but politically they deeply divided the society. The drastic reduction of commodities on offer resulted in empty shelves in the shops and forced the consumption of the working class into small agricultural subsistence and a booming black market.

With a new generation of workers the strikes reappeared in the mining regions in 1988, which were joined by 76,000 people all over the country. The government asked the illegal Solidarnosc to come back to the negotiating table, knowing that the union was the only power capable of getting the situation under control. The famous Round Table lead directly to the participation of Solidarnosc-officials and church-friendly intellectuals in the government. New strikes erupted against the 300-500 percent price increases, but the political demands were abandoned after the state party PVAP left the government.

The shift in internal politics was accompanied by a change in foreign policy, an opening towards the west. The economic growth slowed down, the foreign debts grew and the lack of confidence in the productivity of Polish workers hampered the attempt to re-orientate foreign trading away from the Soviet Bloc and towards the west. There on increasing problems supplying necessary goods. The wage increases gained through the struggle were eaten up by galloping inflation.

An IMF-dictated ‘shock therapy’ targeted the wage-price-spiral and was later copied in other countries. The deregulation of all prices resulted in a hyperinflation und therefore effectively wiped out any private savings. The cuts of all state subsidies lead to self-management of the companies (‘wild privatisation’) and to re-distribution of peasant property. By 1992 the industrial production was half what it had been in 1988. The foreign debts did not shrink - something the shock therapy had allegedly aimed at. By 2001 it had increased by a further 72 billion US-Dollars.

The acceptance of the Solidarnosc prevented large scale workers struggles in the first half of the 90s, which resulted in inflation and decreasing wages pushing people into small trading businesses or black market structures, which appeared in the 80s, and work migration.

Like in all the other eastern bloc countries after 1989, the core of the ‘transformation’ was the sell-off of state owned companies to western investors. Huge concerns in the metal sector, banks, telecommunication and the state owned airline LOT were on offer for potential buyers. By 1997 the privatisation was more or less completed. Investors were attracted by the state’s previous input and tax free development zones. A tax on wage increases was meant to push wage increases in the state owned companies below the inflation rate.

In a first step the mines were squeezed dry (in order be able to provide cheap energy to the major companies, so that they could be renovated and would appear profitable when they were sold on the market). Then the power of the miners was crushed (by today 300,000 miners of state owned companies have been sacked).

Migration
A hundred years ago a Polish labour force was already being exploited en masse in the mines and factories of western Europe and North America, and the Prussian Junker preferred Polish seasonal workers on their plantations, workers, who were regularly deported by the royal foreign police. Seasonal workers still work in Western Europe, but after 1989 there were also a lot of skilled workers going abroad. At the moment the work migration in the high skilled sectors is receding again, mainly due to rising wages in Poland, but overall work migration continues. While Polish workers go to work abroad, e.g. on the construction site in Berlin or on the fields in the Pfalz, where nothing would work without them, they are at the same time being substituted by workers from the Ukraine working for even less money on sites and fields in Poland. People from Asia are beginning to enter the small trade market, mainly in the eastern parts of Poland.

Industry
The dead-lock situation of class struggle (from the failed increase of set work standards in 1956 to the side step into foreign debts in the 70s) slowed down the development of productivity, as in other socialist countries; for decades the Polish economy was only able to compete on the world market within certain limitations. Before the fall of the Soviet Bloc, the steels works in Stalowa Wola, Nowa Huta and Warsaw, the mines in Katowice and Jastrzebie, the ship engine factory in Poznan, the Ursus-tractor factory in Warsaw and the ship yards in Gedansk und Szczecin (only to name the biggest), provided the Soviet Bloc with capital intensive and manufactured goods and the west with raw materials and semi-finished products.

Today the main sectors are food production, metal- and machine construction, finance and insurances, media and telecommunication, construction and transport. They mainly supply the EU-market. Similar to the situation in the Ruhr region of German 40 years ago, in the Polish mining region of Upper Silesia the mining- and heavy industries are downsizing and the car industry is expanding. About 100,000 miners serve as a reserve labour force for the automobile industry and its suppliers.

After 1989 the main foreign investments were limited to investments in final assembly plants, in order to evade the import taxes on western cars, for example Deawoo took over the FSO car plant in Warsaw. This strategy seems to have found its limits. Meanwhile, other companies have followed the successful example of FIAT, which since 1992 produced the Panda and the Seicento in Poland for the international market, or of Opel, which have produced the Agila and the Astra in Polish factories since 1998. The FIAT and Opel plants, both situated in the Upper Silesian industrial region are brand new. In the same area near Bielsko-Biala a joint-venture of FIAT and GM produces engines for FIAT, Lancia, Opel and Suzuki.

Opel could select its 1,200 required workers out of 32,000 job applicants. During the late 90s the unemployment rate in Poland increased about 8 percent, today unemployment run to about 20 percent and the average monthly wage is about 500 Euros. The automobile companies state that the quality and productivity in the Polish plants are comparable to western European standard. The question will be if these plants will remain isolated islands worth 100 million Euros or if capital also manages to establish a compact productive network in Poland, as it has done in the developed in the region around Bratislava, Slovakia, about 30 km from Vienna.

The admittance of Poland into the EU in 2004 did not fundamentally change the conditions for investment, rather cemented the institutional framework and confirmed certain developments that had already been going on for a while. The flux of commodities between the countries shifts gradually. The positive trade balance that Germany could demonstrate in the trade relations with Poland about six or seven years ago, is shrinking at the same pace as the importance of separate markets.

Agriculture
About 60 percent of Polish land is used for agriculture. Like in all the other Soviet Bloc countries the large private estates were redistributed during the land and agricultural reforms after 1945. In Poland the collectivisation into production cooperatives could not be enforced against the will of the small peasants. A small peasantry remained throughout the socialist era. Even in 2004 about a quarter of all employees in Poland are working on one of the 2.1 million farms. These farms are mainly family businesses which work with large varieties of different crop and animals, partly due to the lowest usage of chemicals in Europe. A lot of these farms produce for their own subsistence or the local market. If production for subsistence is taken into account, about half of the Polish population makes a living from agriculture. Due to the large increase in unemployment over the last five or six years, the number of people working in agriculture is actually rising, whereas the number of those who have an additional income independent from farming shrinks. A lot of people only live on what they produce on their small farms.

As well as the big businesses, which have grown bit by bit to sizes of up to 1000 hectares, the number of big companies producing ‘organically’ is also increasing considerably. With an average land ownership of 45 Hectars they are bigger than the usual Polish farm and they are becoming more and more important for the supermarket chains.

Soon certain mono-cultures could have a devastating effect on the land. The huge size of usable land provides enormous potential for a capitalisation of agriculture. And not only because half of the German Christmas geese already speak their last words in Polish before ending up in the oven.

Struggles
In the remaining state owned companies and big plants there still exists a combinative tradition and a collective memory of the struggles over the last decades, and the various unions are still present. Nation-wide strike waves doesn’t happen anymore. In contrast, so far the new and privatised sectors have been practically strike-free. Reports about the conditions in these sectors tell of intensive work, long working hours, unpunctual payment of wages, bullying and arbitrary dismissals. It will be important to see if struggles against these conditions emerge and what kind of practical answers the (young) workers find.

In some of the state owned companies the workers were able enforce, often against the big unions, that instead of the closure of the plant, production continued under their own control. As far as we know, e.g. in the case of companies in Szczecin, Poznan or Lodz, the hierarchical relations within the plants did not seem to have been overcome as, as for example, they did at Zanon in Argentina.

In 2002 we saw a series of waves of protests against the closures of state owned companies, against planned reforms of the labour laws and the welfare system. We don’t know much about the organisation of these struggles, if they were organised from below etc. One fact is that the unions and organisations such as the right-wing populist ‘peasant organisation’ Samoobrona (self-defence) managed to place themselves at the head of the protest. The party in power, the neoliberal orientated social democratic government, reacted with the retreat of some of the reform measures and with massive subsidies for the big companies threatened with closure. Like the former socialist governments their answer to the struggles is to pour money at them and thereby taking the wind out of their sails for the time being. This way of reacting will be difficult to maintain in the future, given that Poland’s entry into the EU also means that regulations to limit deficit spending will apply.

From Wildcat no. 72, January 2005
Taken from prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Romania after the Transition
Promised Land and Class Struggle
The restructuring of production and society which happened in Romania also sheds new light on the changes in all the EU-countries. With its new and old forms of work and workers’ struggles, Romania is an integral part of wider Europe. The integration of Romania in the European employment system made possible a continuous exchange of experience between Romanian and foreign enterprises, but also between Romanian and foreign workers. This is due to the changes in Romanian companies and changes in migration, which both form part of this integration. Several political and social phenomena have changed Romania in the last few years:

a) the investment of foreign capital, whose main aim was purely the exploitation of the local labour force,

b) the steady increase in workers’ struggles, some of which were partly connected to the official unions and some of which completely independent of them,

c) the beginning of free migration, esp. of women,

d) the increasing impoverishment, which mainly affects elderly people and women.

Ruralisation as an expression of increasing unemployment
The economic and political process of re-structuring since 1990 has intensified the material differences between regions. Especially during the first years the flow of foreign investments was directed towards the regions which could provide the politically most favourable conditions. Partly the influx of foreign capital enforced already existing models of migration in these regions, which, compared to the past, appear to be freer and more numerous and overcome the previous bureaucratic barriers to internal migration. One of the most remarkable phenomena of the Romanian new development is the increasing migration of people back to the countryside (ruralisation). Reasons for the return back to the countryside are the loss of work places, the increasing living costs, an atmosphere of insecurity and the lack career possibilities. The escape from the cities contradicts the desire of many young people who would prefer the big city lights to country life, but who cannot earn enough to be able to live there. Another reason for the movement back to the countryside are the land privatisation laws of the 90s, which lead to thousands of people receiving small patches of land, practically as a present.[1] In the countryside people survive by working on the fields, by rearing cattle and by exchanging daily necessities.

Initially, the foreign investments in Middle- and East Europe were mainly concentrated around Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Only since 1997, after the total sum of investments topped 1.215 billion Dollars[2], has the investment flow become increasingly directed towards Romania. The acceleration of foreign investments continued during the following years. These investments mainly came from the Netherlands (17.3 percent), from France (10.5 percent), from Germany (8.5 percent), from the US (6.7 percent) and Italy (6 percent). Germany and Italy have similar characteristics: a lot of individual investors (nearly 11,000 from Germany, over 14,000 from Italy) and a relatively low volume of investment. Invested was mainly in industry (54.4 percent), in professional services (15.8 percent) and trade (16.6 percent).[3] It was mainly international capital that constructed new green field factories, but also invested in recently privatised former state owned companies.[4] The investments in green field factories were mainly flowing towards areas which up to then were used for agriculture or mining and the investors were making use of the establishment of ‘ Special Export Zones’. In these zones special rules apply, such as tax breaks for set up costs and the possibility for the company to draw up work contracts with favourable conditions (for them!). At the moment foreign capital mainly flows to the capital Bucharest, to the north-east of the country (Timisoara and Arad) and to its centre (Brasov, Sibiu, Cluj).

Green Field Factories
Production has changed fundamentally, especially in the work intensive sectors with huge investment sums of international capital and strong orientation towards export: Nearly the half of Romania’s import and export is controlled by companies in Bucharest or in the regions of Timisoara, Arad, Sibiu and Bihor, companies which are entirely or partly owned by foreign proprietors. In this way the economic integration has de facto already taken place: the main economic partners are Italy, followed by Germany, Russia and France.[5]

In contrast to neighbouring Hungary, the various Romanian governments have mainly supported the outsourcing of parts of the manufacturing process, meaning that in order to evade import taxes, raw material and half manufactured goods are imported and finished products are exported. The customs duty is only paid on the difference between these two values. This lowers production costs both at the time and in the long term, but at the same time the Romanian state’s sovereignty over their own territory diminishes.[6]

Production in Romania is essentially based on imported raw materials and machinery from abroad. The medium sized and big international companies raise or lower production according to workers’ protests and to what extent the local work force is dependent on a wage.

Due to the intensive re-structuring process of production, the number of wage workers dropped from about 8.3 million in 1989 to about little more than 4.7 million in 1999. This drop was particularly marked in certain sectors such as the industrial sector (from 4 million to 2 million), in construction (from 706,000 to 338,000) and in the transport sector (from 667,000 to 310,000). Within the industrial sector the impact of the re-structuring process varied a lot: the sectors with a high proportion of fixed capital, such as textile industry and machine construction, shrank considerably, whereas the garment industry did not even loose a quarter of its employees during the re-structuring in the mid 90s and today represents the industrial sector with the highest employment numbers. Now the number of those in the industry working for private companies has nearly reached two thirds of all those employed. The big differences between the various sectors also indicate the respective advancement of international capital: the 97 percent private companies in the garment sector and the 80.6 percent in the textile industry are contrasted by 25.3 percent in machine construction and 24.2 percent in the metal industry. Private capital kept away from these sectors.[7]

Workers’ Protests
In the 90s workers in Romania were able to stage their protests with less fear than in the previous decades. The different governments tried in various ways to defuse the social confrontations and regulate them in legal terms: now, before an industrial dispute takes place, arbitration proceedings have to be undertaken.[8] The governments uses these kind of legal instruments to try to take the sting out of the unions’ power. This is necessary partly because the workers seem to be looking for such a unifying factor, e.g. the unions, after having not wanted to deal with unions during the first years after the fall of the regime. At first glance the new labour law which was passed in 2003 seems to be favourable for the working class and the bosses were up in arms against it.[9] The number of union industrial actions increased during the period from 1990 to 1999 by 235 percent to 653 conflicts in 1999, with over one million workers engaged in them. These workers’ struggles mainly took place in the public sector (mining, gas, water, refineries, transport, post and telecommunication, health and social care), but the sectors with a strong presence of private and international capital were also partly affected (textile, garment, shoe industry). These struggles increasingly evolved around the issue of wages, work conditions, re-structuring and redundancies, but also around questions such as new shift regulations or an increase in work intensity. The regions where most of the struggles originate are the province Hunedoara in the south, which is characterised by mining and the provinces Sibiu in the centre and Timis in the northwest, where industry and international capital are concentrated. One example is the well-known strike of 60,000 workers of the national brown coal corporation Oltenia. In February 2004 the strike completely shut down the coal extraction for about a week.

Wages and Working Hours
The biggest social conflicts are triggered by the low wage level and by the working conditions in the factories. The minimum wage, which was raised to 2.8 million Lei per month (about 70 Euros) at the beginning of 2004, is regularly adjusted to inflation. In addition to that, there are bonuses and food vouchers, which are widespread in Romania. The average wage is about 100 to 150 Euros, although given the increasingly extreem wage differences it becomes more and more difficult to talk meaningfully about an average at all. The employees in the finance and banking sector, in post and telecommunications and in the public sectors are doing comparably better. The highest wages can be found in the state owned companies, particularly in the mining sector, where wages are about 50 percent above average.[10] It is particularly amongst industrial workers that the differences have become more acute. In the manufacturing sector (textile, garment, shoes, leather and wood) the wages are considerably lower than in mining or the energy sector: in the time from 1990 to 1999 the wage difference increased from 28 percent to 42 percent. Major inequalities can also be seen between the wages of factory workers and those of tradesman like electricians or plumbers. Although there are more union struggles in the state owned sector than in the private one, under international capital numbers of struggles also increased. At the Italian textile company Radici, production came to a halt for several days after it became known that, due to the bad situation on international markets, the management wanted to sack 200 people. Most widespread is still the silent and individual struggle: absenteeism has risen from about 5 percent to 10 percent and the turnover of staff is accelerating due to people trying to find better paid employment and therefore changing jobs as soon as possible. During the ten years after the transition (1989-1999) about 40 percent of all people employed have changed jobs and/or profession. This mainly applies to the unqualified workers. Of those people in work immediately after the revolution in 1989, about a quarter have become unemployed, about 10 percent have been dismissed due to re-structuring and another 10 percent, especially those who moved, retreated from the job market. In general, job mobility and the process of marginalisation are more marked in towns than on the countryside. The means by which they try to prevent strikes from happen are the same as in former days: disconnecting telephone lines, dis-information, sacking of union leaders.[11]

Factories owned by foreign capital are affected by struggles, not at least because in companies with foreign management work intensity has increased considerably: in a kind of Neo-Taylorism a precise work rhythm is dictated, without leaving the workers any breathing spaces. The introduction of new work methods encounters more intensive resistance in the old Romanian factories, while in green field plants they can be enforced more easily, given that there exists no historical memory or practical alternative. On the other hand the working class in Romania today has to deal with a type of machinery which is not in use any longer in more industrialised countries, machinery which had previously been the battleground for workers - and bosses - from other countries.

The Women Migrate
The young people find it hard to get used to faster work rhythms and low wages, for them it is a good reason to leave the country. The real number of Romanian emigrants is closer to an estimated 1.7 million than the official number of 300,000. Mostly people emigrate to Italy, Spain, Germany, Israel, Hungary, Greece, Belgium and Austria. About 72 percent of them have work permits, but a lot of them also work without papers.[12] Emigration is an answer to investment of foreign capital in work intensive and low wage sectors as well as to increasing impoverishment. The fact that it is mainly women who leave the country indicates that emigration is also an answer to the re-emergence of forms of patriarchy and the de-valuation of female labour in the process of neo-accumulation, which is at the same time relying on the invisible female labour. The more women are pushed out off public sphere, the more individual emigration increases.

The situation in Romania is very complicated and some of the foreign companies are already preparing to re-locate their production to other countries, e.g. nearby Ukraine where wages are lower and labour laws certainly less strict. Many foreign capitalists think that they can re-locate production to Romania and enforce there what they are not politically able to enforce in their home countries anymore. But nevertheless and despite their difficult wage situation, the working class in Romania doesn’t seem willing to play the games of foreign capitalists much longer.

Devi Sacchetto

Footnotes
Unless indicated otherwise all figures are from the Romanian Statistical Yearbook, National Institute of Statistics (2000), Bucharest (CD-Rom).

[1] The law of 1990 initiated the reconveyance of land up to a maximum size of 10 hectares of arable land and 1 hectare of forest land. With the reform of 2000 this maximum size changed to 50 hectare and 10 hectare respectively.

[2] Measured by the share values at the end of year the foreign investments in Romania developed as follows: 1990: 87 million, 1991: 217 million, 1993: 621 million, 1994: 1. 271 billion, 1995: 1.595 billion, 1996: 2.209 billion US-Dollars.

[3] Compared to countries like Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary these are nevertheless comparably little sums.

[4] For example Renault took over Dacia in 1999 and negotiated the purchase directly with the state Administration for Privatisation. ‘Renault redecouvre Billancourt dans les Carpartes’, Le Monde 13.07.2001.

[5] In 2001 about 67.8 percent of all Romanian exports went to EU-countries: 24.9 percent to Italy, 15.6 percent to Germany, 8.1 percent to France, 5.2 percent to Great Britain, 3.4 percent to the Netherlands and 3 percent to Austria. The exported goods are mainly textile and garment products (26.2 percent) mainly of outward processing, mechanical machinery, electrical machines and devices. With regards to import, the countries are essentially the same (Italy 20 percent, Germany 15.5 percent). The important position of Russia is due to its supply of oil and oil related products; Ice (ed.), Congiuntura economica 2001, Bucharest 2002.

[6] The passive refinement can mainly be found in textile, garment, and shoe production, but affects other sectors, too, such as wood industry or machine construction.

[7] Machine construction was the biggest sector, employing 600,000 people. To date, employment numbers have practically halved. Textile industry shrank by two thirds and employed about 98,000 workers in 1999.

[8] An investigation undertaken by the Ministry of Work concerning 1507 workers’ struggles in the period between 1992 and 1996 and with about 3 million workers involved, came to the conclusion that about 35 percent of these conflicts ended during the arbitration process (the conflicting parties being union reps, representatives of the employers and in some cases the government). The Settlement of Labour Disputes in Central and Eastern Europe, ILO-CEET Report Nr. 22, Geneva, 1997, p.17.

[9] Above other things the new labour law abolishes temporary work contracts. Temporary contracts can only be implemented in exceptional cases which are defined by the law. There were protests by the employers about the new regulation of the work contracts, about the protection against dismissal, about the missing flexibility in the negotiation process about new job schemes. The chairman of the Romanian Employers Association (AOAR) stated that “increasingly social security is shifted from the state to the employer”. Il Gazettino romeno, n.79 (4th of December 2002) p.11.

[10] OECD (ed.), Economic Surveys Romania, OECD, Paris, 1998, p.129.

[11] After protests of the ILO the management of the railways re-hired the dismissed union leaders. There were more protests at the railways in 1998 and 1999 with workers demanding a 70 percent wage rise. The struggles lead to a 25 percent increase in April 2000, 15 percent in September 2000 and 20 percent in June 2001.

[12] Martin P., (2004), Migration News, vol. 1, no. 11, (January). www.migration.ucdavis.edu

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005
From Wildcat no.70, Summer 2004

An assembly plant, 15 km in the north-east suburbs of Paris, France, 3rd of March 2005. In the factory 4,500 people are employed (plus 500 temp workers). Their average monthly wage is about 1,200 Euros.

The management tried with various measures to cut extra-payment and reduce break-time, which is made easier for them by the legal changes (see the 35-hours law). The strike kicked off when the management announced not to pay the days off which were imposed by the management itself. For 2005 40 days off were planned, the eight days in March would mean a wage loss of 177 Euros. The struggle started on the shop-floor level.

On Wednesday, 2nd of March, during an information meeting the management announced that the year 2005 will include 40 days off, some of which will not be paid. At the beginning of the afternoon, 17 workers from the ‚sellerie‘ department [saddlery], where the car interior is equipped with seats etc., put down their tools and demanded a 100 percent payment for the days in question. (This department is due to hard work conditions mainly composed of young, low-qualified workers). These workers went around the department getting other colleagues to come out on strike. At the change of shifts (1:00 p.m.) about 150 strikers welcomed the next shift.

Later on 250 workers were engaged in the conflict and when the night shift arrived (8:00 p.m.), production in the ‚sellerie‘ department had been brought to a stand-still. However, due to the production process and the stocks available, not the whole factory was blocked. The following Thursday (3rd of March) the three shifts of the ‚sellerie‘ (250 out of 350 workers) were on strike and tried to spread the strike to the ‚Talerie‘ (car bodies making [forging press department]) but without clear success. Surprised at the beginning, the unions quickly arrived (the CGT is lead by Trotskyist members of Lutte Ouvrière and some of them were among those who initated the strike) and tried to cool down things. As Friday, 4th of March, was already a day off, everybody was looking to the following Monday, 7th of March.

On the 7th of March somewhere between 400 and 700 workers marched through the factory (we do not exactly know which part of the factory was crossed by the demo) in order to convince others to stop working. But all they received was some sympathy, and not an all out strike. The management was forced to negotiate on one hand, but on the other hand they reorganized the production in the ‚sellerie‘ by regrouping workers as follows: one shift completely on strike, one completely at work and the third half and half.

A first agreement signed by the unions on Wednesday 9th (except by the CGT, for the above mentioned reasons) did not result in the end of strike at the ‚sellerie‘, but the strikers remained isolated. The production of cars was not blocked (to be more accurate we are looking for production figures for March to see what really was the percentage of drop in the production, but management seems not to be eager to display them openly). Tuesday 10th was a national day of action called by the unions. There were no banners from the strikers of Aulnay, but alongside the demo the workers distributed a short leaflet (signed ‚striking workers from Aulnay‘ and inspired by Lutte Ouvrière explaining the strike reasons and objectives).

After that, the strike slowly decreased. The management proposed that 30 days off will be paid during 2005, the 20 remaining during 2006 and even possibly 2007, plus some compensations for transport costs and shifting of some bonus delivery in order to reduce the cost of the strike for the strikers. Isolation of the strikers, adamant management and a not so bad agreement lead the remaining strikers to cease their movement on the 14th of March. As far as we know, striking workers do not have the feeling that the movement was defeated. Perhaps a first step in a longer fight.

Additional comment (sent later)
What we have heard about the strike:
1) Before the strike broke out on Wednesday, Lutte Ouvrière militants with other fellow workers had created a committee for the strike organization. During the strike it was this commitee which was promoted as the organizer of the strike by all those in struggle.
2) The workers of the ‘sellerie’ remained isolated not because of the union’s strategy, but because other workers did not want to go on strike.
3) Nevertheless the strikers remained united and perceived their strike as being successfull and the mood was high. After trying to continue the strike as long as possible they organised a big "fiesta" to celebrate their strike.

This is a comment on the Citroën strike, sent to us by a comrade from ‘Mouvement Communiste’.

prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Thirty per cent more wage! Michelin Workers in Romania on Strike
On the 7th of February, the workers of the Michelin plant Silvana in Zalau, northeast of Romania went on an unlimited strike. They used that method after the management kept on ignoring their demand for 30 per cent more wage, even after a warning strike in the end of January. Roughly, 1400 people are working at the plant; almost the whole staff participated in the strike. The Michelin plant is the most important company in the region. Last year they produced 234.000 tires, this year they want almost to double the production. The strikers demand an immediate higher payment of 30 per cent related to last years’ salaries, whereas the management is willing to pay only 3,5 per cent more, possible would be another 2,5 per cent in May. Depending on the economic situation, they could pay another 11 per cent in installments. If considered, that the workers would have a monthly salary of 10 million Lei (ca. 250 Euros [40000 Lei = 1 Euro]), the managements offer is enough, said the management. According to the press, the strike proceeded peaceful. The workers stayed at their work place und simply stopped working. After a week, the strike expanded. At the factory, some vociferous meetings and manifestations took place. They demanded the withdrawal of the management. A writing of the workers demands were sent to the personnel manager, the Romanian CIO of Michelin and to the highest CIO of the company, Eduard Michelin. After a few days, the strike caused big damages for the company. A number of trucks could not been loaded with extraditable goods, so they were obliged to wait. The daily loss of the company was about some hundred million Lei. After two weeks, at the February 18th, the union, which had supported the strike, signed a record, in which they agreed that the workers would resume to work. At the same time they wanted to go on with negotiations. With it, the strike ended. So far, there are no results of the negotiations.

Additional information
According to their own website, Michelin produces truck tires in Zalau. There is another plant in Romania, in Victoria, area Brasov. In Victoria, they produce tires for motor cars. Another plant in Eastern Europe is in a polish city called Olszytn, they produce both tires for trucks and motor cars. There are another plants in Germany, France and Spain.

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Inspiration from Mlada Boleslav?
The biggest class conflict in the history of Skoda Mlada Boleslav took place at the end of March and the beginning of April 2005. It was not that exciting but only one demonstration that was organized and fully controlled by the unions and production was stopped for only three hours in total. It is still worth to pay attention to this particular event as it might mean the beginning of a new round of class struggle in the Czech Republic.

Skoda Mlada Boleslav has reached, unlike its mother corporation Volkswagen, a record total profit of about 3.5 billion Czech Crowns last year [1 Euro = 30 Czech Crowns]. While there was a strike about to happen in the German factories of Volkswagen in autumn 2004 because of massive firing, the atmosphere in Skoda was getting difficult due to different reasons: The enterprise is doing well and the workers want ‘their share of the profit.’

Whistles instead of an autonomous struggle
The wage was about 20,000 Crowns (about 667 Euro) so far, which meant that the workers from Skoda were constantly told they have nothing to complain of because their wages were even higher than the average wage (about 18,000 Crowns, 600 Euro) and more than 65 percent of workers can only dream of such an income. The company management had originally offered to increase the wages by three percent, which would equal inflation. The unions asked for ten percent. Long collective negotiation followed and some started talking about a possible strike. The strike really happened after all but it lasted for only three hours as we have already mentioned. Three shifts took part and 240 cars less were produced. The strike was accompanied by a demonstration that took place in front of the firm’s headquarters. About 12,000 workers took part. The union people suffocated their voices with blowing whistles and kept their hands busy with hitting small drums. In advance, they were all said to follow the instructions of the organizers and to leave peacefully after the end of the event. (A few days before the unions had a meeting with townhall people who feared an escalation of the conflict into the streets of town.) During the demonstration the unions also pulled the usual nationalistic strings: Some shouted ‘We are not a German colony’ and likewise. Demonstrations did take place not only in Mlada Boleslav but also in Kvasiny and Vrchlabi. The meeting in Vrchlabi happened on factory ground and not even the press was allowed in. (We have no information how the demonstration in Kvasiny looked like).

On the other hand, there were some hints showing that the workers’ dissatisfaction is not strictly bound to union demands. The most visible fact is that the work rate was far too slow in comparison with Europe’s average. Now it is increasing rapidly. Workers will also be under growing pressure because of the competition with a new plant of TPCA in Kolin: While a worker in Skoda produces 18 cars a year, one worker in TPCA should produce 100 cars.

Workers vs. Management 1:0
Soon after the end of the strike unions and management made an agreement on increasing wages by seven percent. Bonus payments will also increase by seven percent. All workers will be given a special payment in April (3,500 Crowns, 117 Euro) and the 13th wage will remain, too. The bonus’ for afternoon and night shifts will also increase a bit. The firm will then ‘loose’ about 1.5 billion Crowns (about 43 million Euro).

The management had to face a difficult situation. On one hand it had reached exceptional profits last year but the goal for this year was to ‘save’ (in other words: to squeeze out of the workers) about six billion Crowns. There is also a plan to start production of a new model (Roomster) in Kvasiny. However, the car industry in the Czech Republic is in a situation where it has to deal with a lack of qualified workers. (TPCA has started its production in February and had problems with getting enough workers for only one shift even though it had started a massive campaign in the north of Bohemia, Moravia and even in Slovakia where unemployment is extremely high.) The management has lost the advantage it used to have by threatening to lay off workers in the case of a strike: There are simply no workers to substitute the fired ones. Workers could now take advantage of such a situation. The press, being aware of this workers’ superiority, gave evidence of that by bitterly complaining about the management’s inability to deal with and fuck up the workers as it had been able to many times in the Czech Republic after 1989. The position of workers was much stronger than the one of the employees of Ispat Nova Hut in Ostrava (Mittal Steel at present) who was also threatened with a strike last year. The management of Skoda had only a minimal chance for concessions, so that much more could have been won. If such a situation remains, we might witness much more interesting events than a demonstration controlled by unions.

A Beginning?
As we have said earlier, it was the biggest class conflict in the history of Skoda. Before there were only a few strike alerts connected to the unions and collective negotiations. Everything was fully controlled by the union bosses and it never became an open strike. Production was stopped for a while several times on only one assembly line because of high speed (2001) and some workers refused to go to work for extra night shifts (2003). As far as we can say, the latter was rather the result of a union strategy during collective negotiations than it was a result of an autonomous workers’ struggle. The belief in the union does not seem to be weakened so far (60 percent of the workers are members). The question is to what extend the wage increase has satisfied the workers and to what extend their expectations were compatible with the demands of the union. So far it is also not clear whether the conflict line between the workers and the union will be around the question of the work rate, that has not been addressed by the union so far.

The management of Skoda has also an effective strategy of deviding workers into ‘stable employees’ and ‘part time employees’. There were about 24,561 people working in Skoda by the end of last year and 20,897 were ‘stable ones’. Always when the management had to fire some workers, the first ones were workers who were employed through ‘job agencies’, mostly the workers from Slovakia. Unfortunately, there is no information on the attitude of these workers during the last conflict. Did they take part in stopping the production? Are they also included in the wage increase? Or will the inner split become even more drastic?

The threat of moving production to Ukraine also plays its role. VW has already built a factory near Ushorod and its assembly lines produce VWs as well as some Skoda cars. There are also speculations to move production to China and India. But this production is primarily concentrated in local markets and Mlada Boleslav is a far too crucial part of production to be simply moved somewhere else.

We cannot say whether the workers of Skoda managed to break through the vicious circle that consists of outer (the threats of moving the production) and inner (devisions between employees, union’s control) factors if we just look at the result of the last conflict. However, as we mentioned earlier, under the present circumstances it is possible to imagine such a breakthrough.

As soon as this conflict had finished some unease was felt in the press. What if the other workers in new factories like TPCA (Kolin), Bosch (Jihlava), Denso (Liberec), Panasonic (Pilsen), Philips (Hranice na Morave) etc. get inspired? It would destroy the basis on which investments in the Czech Republic take place so far: the absence of class struggle and a politically atomized working class. The fact that there are no unions in these new factories - and if there are, they openly cooperate with employers - may provide some possibility for an autonomous struggle in which any union structures would be left behind. We will see what this inspiration from Skoda will cause and whether it will be able to get over the fence of the Skoda factory. And we will also see where and how this inspiration will have effects on everyday life.

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

There are plenty of conflicts and strikes in Italy these days. Many workers are fighting against the continuing attacks on and the deterioration in their conditions. Like the struggle of the bus drivers, who since late 2003 have also organized wildcat-strikes, workers regularly turn against the unions, too, which help organize and manage the deterioration. The struggles are sparked by low wages and flexible work contracts, like for instance, the mobilization of social service workers right now in Rome. Other struggles resist the tearing-down and re-locating of (parts of) enterprises, like the struggle at the ThyssenKrupp-plant in Terni/Umbria. But despite the high number of struggles on the company level - and the mobilization against “precarity” [precariousness] - the struggles rarely grow beyond the individual company or sector. To better understand the background and development of the struggle in Terni a comrade went and interviewed a group of workers there. This is the report:

Released into freedom

On February 27th, 2005 the struggle of the ThyssenKrupp workers in Terni ended. It all started in January 2004 when the multinational trust announced the re-location of the factory’s production of electrical steel to Germany. The workers reacted with week-long strikes and blockades of the company gates. After 22 days a preliminary contract was signed. ThyssenKrupp promised to keep producing electrical steel there. In return for continued investment, the company asked the regional government for cheap electricity and infrastructure improvements. Without an explicit industrial plan it would not sign any final contract. Different plans were presented, but no contract was signed. So in December 2004 the workers found themselves in the same situation as at the beginning of the year. ThyssenKrupp stayed away from the negotiations and announced: “The production of electrical steel will be re-located, the 360 workers in the department will be put on the Cassa Integrazione[1] - no more negotiations.”

After ThyssenKrupp refused any further negotiations with the union, on February 2nd, the 360 workers from the electrical steel-department went on indefinite strike. They blocked not only the railroad and highway but also the company gates, thus preventing the delivery of products for more than two weeks. ThyssenKrupp talked about combined losses of around 25 million Euros that workers had inflicted on the company since the start of the year. Co-workers from other departments started a solidarity strike and were sent on mandatory vacation or “released into freedom” - as it is euphemistically called when workers are locked out without pay. One worker told me that in the course of the conflict the number of lay-offs and lock outs grew to about 1300.

Terni is an industrial city in Umbria, one hundred kilometres north of Rome. Here is Italy’s oldest steel mill, founded 1885 as the country’s munitions plant. The men worked in the steel mill, the women in the textile factories. Later the fascist state also built factories for electrical and chemical goods.

Those employed by ThyssenKrupp nowadays are fourth generation metal workers. Previously their great-grandfathers had worked in the mill. For over a century there have been workers’ struggles in Terni. In 1953, with the start of a wave of lay-offs, the workers brought out weapons hidden in their basements from Resistance days and visited the bosses at home. In 1974 they occupied the factories. Sixty years ago 40000 people worked in steel production in Terni; now there are only about 4000 steelworkers. Until 1993 the steel mills were state-owned. The state then sold the mills to three Italian companies which later sold them to ThyssenKrupp for twice the price. Since 1994 ThyssenKrupp has been the biggest employer in Terni. Eight to nine thousand workers work for smaller companies in the whole region that supply ThyssenKrupp with services and spare parts. The ThyssenKrupp-plant produces stainless and electrical steels in different departments and supplies the automobile industry among others.

The Trip to Terni
On February 21st, 2005 other comrades and I drive to a demonstration in Terni so we can talk to striking workers. Ten thousand people are in the street protesting the closure of the electrical steel department, among them many students and workers from other factories in the region.

The mayor and other dignitaries from the city are present, so the slogans are not aimed against the “padroni” (bosses) but against “the Germans”. Many feel thrown back to the times of partisan struggle and make those kind of allusions. The most shouted slogan is: “The mother of the Germans is a whore!” Asked why these (racist) slogans have replaced the class struggle ones, the workers point to the arrogance the German management has shown during their operations here. Besides leaving the negotiating table without responding to the union’s propositions, the management distributed leaflets in English and German asking the workers to stop the strike because it would harm the company, provoking further lay-offs. For years the company has published similar requests in their company-bulletin “Focus”. “It’s as if we were under military occupation,” says Tiziano, a representative of the Fiom[2] union who has been working for ThyssenKrupp since 1997. Simone, member of Cisl[3] tells us: “During the negotiations Herr Henning from the company’s management assured us: ‘Believe me, I have already laid off 80.000 workers in my life.’” The nicest banner on the demo says: “Now you just need to release the people from Sabiona into freedom too!” (Sabiona is the local prison.)

Many young people work for ThyssenKrupp, all with precarious or training contracts[4] or through temporary work agencies. Until two weeks ago, Manuele also had a training contract in producing electrical steel. He started off working through a temporary work agency, then had short-term labor contracts, for one, two, sometimes four months. His supervisors used that against him: “Pay attention what you are doing! You don’t have a fixed labor contract, you can be sacked any time...!” With last year’s struggles, the workers won the right for limited contracts to change into unlimited ones. Manuele had never intended to work in the factory, but three years ago he couldn’t find a job as an architectural draftsman. The steel industry seemed to offer the only possibility for a regular, secure job in Terni. Already his grandfather had told him: “Nobody will sack you from the steel mill!” At first he couldn’t make his way around the factory: “It is like a city inside. My cousin and other colleagues helped me. At first, I wasn’t interested in politics and union activity and many other young people weren’t either, but now we are among the most active. The struggles over the last few weeks have changed us a lot.” He traveled to Strassburg with his small group of ThyssenKrupp-workers to protest in front of the European parliament. They call themselves “Movimento spontaneo operaio” (spontaneous workers’ movement), organizing themselves independently from the union. The money for the trip was collected during the demonstration and the soccer team provided the bus. He is active in the Fiom but thinks it’s important to have an independent organization outside the union.

His buddy Simone works in the bar instead. He is the only one at the table who has a fixed labor contract. He is pissed off with the workers from ThyssenKrupp: “You’re always struggling as if you were employed by a state-owned company. You allow the mayor to lull you in his paternalistic way by saying: ‘We will deal with that for you!’ You think it’s enough to have a union membership card to protect yourself against lay-offs. When will you understand that you’re working for a multinational company and that you need to change your strategy of struggle?! Globalization, that is a powerful factor. Come on, Manuele, you still haven’t caught on?!” Manuele shrugs his shoulders: “So what? Now I should struggle against globalization, or what?” I ask him if during the blockades he had the impression that the workers have power and can change things, or instead whether he had hoped that in the end the government would deal with the conflict. “Yes, I felt that we have power. By blocking the delivery of goods we really hurt Thyssen, but in the end the government will have the decisive role.” He hopes that the conflicts at ThyssenKrupp might be the beginning of a regulation of the multinationals.

We drive to the pipe mill. The workers there have been blocking deliveries since 200 colleagues got a letter saying that their work wasn’t needed because of the blockades and strikes. ThyssenKrupp tried playing the workers off against each other by treating them differently. Some were locked out, others forced into vacation or put on the Cassa Integrazione. It didn’t work out. The pipe mill workers block the gates while solidarity strikes take place in other departments. The atmosphere outside the strike tent is tense: “This year nobody is interested in our struggle. What is happening here in Terni is an expression of the crisis of industry all over Italy. The government stays quiet because it doesn’t know how to get the situation under control.” “We have occupied the highway, the railway line. What else shall we do? Kidnap someone?” a worker shouts.

They talk about last year’s storming of a collective bargaining meeting by some Thyssen-workers in which the cops only in the last moment prevented the workers from beating up the managing directors. “The struggle has its good side,” says Tiziano, “we finally have a class consciousness again. Or maybe I should call it a workers’ consciousness because not all in here are comrades. We are conscious of the fact that we keep the country running and that we should be treated with respect.” He and his colleagues don’t agree that they would be nothing but a drop in the ocean. “We aren’t powerless. Our company supplies 35 percent of the exhaust pipes for the European car industry.” He thinks that in the end ThyssenKrupp will shift the whole production from Terni to China[5] and India.

Already ThyssenKrupp has some plants, for instance, in Nashik (India) with a production of 200.000 tons of steel per year, three quarters of which is electrical steel.[6] Asked what they will do next they answer, laughing: “Drop our lovers. We don’t have any money anymore!” One tells us that he is really worried: “I have two kids, my wife doesn’t work... in these weeks on strike alone, I’ve lost a whole months wage.”

ThyssenKrupp isn’t the only company re-locating its production. A young worker working in the chemical department of the Alcantara textile factory, (a Japanese multinational) comes and talks to us. For many months, he and his colleagues have already on the Cassa Integrazione. Nobody talks about that. One reason is that there were no reactions from the side of his colleagues after the lay-offs. “That is the shocking thing: Nobody protested!” Half of the workers in his company are young people, the others have already worked there for twenty to thirty years. They often had problems. “The old ones told us youngsters we wouldn’t have any say because we had no experience. Many had this scab-mentality...” He isn’t in the union. He thinks there should be a base union in Terni. In the manufacturing industry the Cobas[7] aren’t that strong; in Terni they’re non-existent. The fact that he isn’t a union-member has often brought him disadvantages. “When you start an argument with them the union gives you a hard time.”

Two days later, on February 23rd, during a big assembly outside the company-gates the workers decide to keep the blockades up. The union leadership stands behind the striking workers; the government expresses its sympathy for ThyssenKrupp. Four days later ThyssenKrupp and the unions negotiate a contract saying that the production of electrical steel will definitely be shifted from Terni to Germany and France. The 360 workers will be sent to different other departments; employment levels will be kept the same till 2009. Manuele now works in the department where the steel is shipped. His colleagues are all over the place. It seems that in the end the company wanted to exercise its power by deliberately sending people to departments where they didn’t want to work.

During an assembly, thirty percent of the workers vote against the contract. Some weeks later, Manuele tells me about the last days of the conflict. “I ask myself: Where have these 690 workers been who voted against the contract during the last few days? Sometimes we had to keep up the blockade with five people during the night, and, while the negotiations went on, there were just 350 outside protesting. And after several hours only ten people were left.” During the vote he abstained: “I could see that we weren’t strong enough anymore. If we had continued we would have lost anyway. In the end the workers were exhausted. ThyssenKrupp had counted on that. Even now most workers shrug their shoulders.” But the whole conflict has completely changed him. “When it became clear that ThyssenKrupp would close the electrical steel department I expected an outbreak of protest. I expected the workers would realize that this was only the opening shot, that soon maybe everything would close here. But my colleagues didn’t look ahead that far. They were afraid that through the strike they would loose even more money. They wanted a deal.” There haven’t been any strikes at ThyssenKrupp in Terni for ten years and many had counted on the support of the government. But there was no such support, nor from the (Social Democratic) opposition either. Manuele still doubts that if majority of his co-workers have really understood that the times have changed and that they are dealing with a multinational company now.

“They union has made mistakes too,” says Manuele, “because there were moments when hundreds of workers came together to occupy the railway lines. And the union blocked that saying strategically that it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.” Much energy was wasted. The small group of workers from the “Movimento spontaneo operaio” are drawing the lessons from these experiences. They are discussing how in the future they - as an independent group - can confront the expected further attacks by ThyssenKrupp, together with their work mates. For they know that the company’s promises to maintain current employment levels till 2009 can’t be trusted and more attempts to aggravate conditions can be expected. And in the Centro Sociale[8] in Terni they are talking with workers from other sectors and work places about how they can stay active despite threats by union officials.

Footnotes
[1] Cassa Integrazione: A state-run program that compensates for the wage payments; big companies can ask for short-time work with zero hours and the state pays for a limited time a part of the wage.

[2] FIOM: Federazione impiegati operai metallurgici, metal workers union, part of the biggest union federation CGIL, Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, that stands near the social democrats.

[3] CISL: Confederazione Italiana Sindacati dei Lavo-ratori, another smaller social democratic union federation.

[4] Training contracts: CFL, Contratti di Formazione Lavoro, allow the temporary hiring of young workers for low wages. In most cases the “training” just happens on paper. Some workers have worked with successive CFLs for the same company for up to 10 years.

[5] The plant in Shanghai is still in construction, with the participation of workers from Terni. Allegedly in one and a half years it will produce 320.000 tons of steel per year.

[6] An article in the Italian newspaper “Il Manifesto” from March, 22nd, 2005 describes the conditions in the ThyssenKrupp-plant in the district of Nashik in the state of Maharashtra/India. There is only a comparably small steel mill with just one computerized and automated production line. The plant was built in the mid-nineties and produces about 200.000 tons of steel, two thirds of which is electrical steel. It employs 720 people, 320 production workers and 280 technicians. Ninety per cent of the workforce are from the region. The average wage is about 9500 Rupies (about 175 Euros). Most workers come from peasant families and still have their lot for growing food. Many workers have working in the plant for years because the wage is relatively high for the region and they have the chance to get a pension when they are old.

[7] Cobas: Confederazione dei Comitati di Base, one of the associations of the Italian base unions.

[8] Centro Sociale: In Italy the name for independent centers, where groups from the left hold meetings, organize events etc.

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Here is an update on recent struggles in and around Poland. More information in English can be found on a website run by the base-unionist ‘workers’ initiative’ from Poland: http://paspartoo.w.interia.pl/index.htm

Polish seamen on strike for eleven days in the docklands of Travemünde/Germany
In mid-March 2005 about 40 polish seamen went on strike after the management of the Norwegian shipping company Barber International had announced to cut their wages by 60 percent, not willing to pay the wages according to the German collective contract. Barber International organises the ferry traffic for the Finnish company Finnline Germany. The Polish workers struck for eleven days until the German industrial tribunal declared the strike as illegal. According to media reports the strikers were sacked after the dispute. The conflict has affected the ferry traffic between Finnland and Germany due to the ships of barber International blocking the container terminal. The dockers of Travemünde refused to unload the ships in solidarity with the Polish seamen. After about one week of industrial action Barber International announced to abandon the demand of wage cuts but refused to sign a Letter of Indemnity which would have guaranteed that no legal and disciplinary measures would be undertaken against the striking workers. After the decision of the German industrial tribunal, the wohle issue was resolved by placing the ships under the Finnish flag, and replacing the Polish crews with Finnish seamen. The Finnish Seamen’ s Union nevertheless denies that it helped break the Polish strike.

Protest at Isuzu Motors Poland
About 150 workers participated in the picket in front of the Isuzu factory in Tychy. On the 4th of February 2005 Isuzu Motors management Poland announced to fire 350 people, which would amount to over one-third of the total staff of the factory.

Polish telecom workers on strike after announcement of mass lay-offs
The management of the polish telecommunication company TPSA, a subsidiary of France Telecom, announced to sack 3,500 workers, which is around one worker out of ten. Since privatisation nearly 40,000 jobs had been cut. The polish unions called for a strike on the 11th of April 2005. The base union SUD in France expressed their solidarity in the usual union like fasion: ‘ SUD PTT Federation brings total support to the Polish colleagues. It asks the management of France Telecom Group to stop redundancies’ . TPSA declares that the planned strike will be illegal and strikers will be fired.

Warning strikes at Polish railways
In January 2005 several warning strikes took place at regional railway companies, protesting against the cuts in subsidies. The regional companies were founded after the dismantling of the state-owned Polish Railways (PKP). The PKP is still one of the biggest railway companies in Europe, only the French SNCF transports more people per year. The result of the re-structuring process is the reduction of tracks and staff, from formerly 300,000 employees to 200,000 today. In 1998 there was an attempt to fight back, but the nationwide strike ended without results.

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Olive Vibrators, Road Blocks and Striking Gypsies
January 2005. It has been five years since the racist uprisings against the Moroccan workers in the harvest in El Ejido. Since then there has been loads of stuff written about the shitty working and living conditions of the immigrant work force in the food industry in south Spain. In this article therefore, there is only a short overview of the situation today, in order to then report on how one village in the olive region was shaken by a month long strike of day labourers in January 2005. This year many more immigrants have come to this region to work, even though the harvest has been smaller compared to previous years due to the colder weather. At the same time there has been confrontations and strikes by the permanently resident workers because of the increased use of harvest machinery, that undermines their piece work rate and puts their seasonal workplaces in danger. Unions, the state and the bosses try to make these conflicts merely economic, e.g. by getting in writing a minimum price for one kilo harvested using machines in the work contract. At the same time two laws are planned which would change the conditions for the workers: the agricultural subsidies will be reformed, which would also affect the unemployment benefits of the seasonal workers, and the immigration laws will be reformed and only some of the migrants had been promised leave to remain, thereby creating a new level of hierarchy within the labour market. At the end of January there were some large demonstrations by migrants against these reforms.

The Industrial Agricultural Production
The two main sectors in south Spain that characterise the whole society are tourism and agriculture. The distribution of the sparse water reserves, the planned water restrictions and diversions are the basis of a great number of conflicts. In the 2004/05 olive harvest it was clear that the sector itself was a drain on the water supply; the harvest dropped by about a quarter due to the water shortage. The agricultural production is a driving factor in the rapid urbanisation of the land. In the last ten years the amount of land concreted or tarred over has risen by 20 percent - more than double as fast as in the rest of Europe, made up of the hotels and holiday complexes and above all the migration to the cities.

What agriculture there is becoming increasingly mono-cultural. In the region around Jaen one cannot see the ground for all the olive trees, about 50 million of them supply 20 percent of the world’s olive oil. The Region around Huelva is, after the USA, the second largest strawberry producer in the world and in 2001 employed about 55,000 people, amongst them about 10,000 immigrant workers. The sector is strongly monopolised, about 95 percent of the companies belong to the group ‘Freshhuelva’. The Andalusian branch of the agricultural workers union, the SOC, claims that half the total farmed land belongs to about two percent of the land owners and they refer to conditions similar to those in Latin American. As well as the production, the trade is also very monopolised: about three quarters of the harvest is traded by the European large traders; the seedlings come mostly from the Californian agricultural industry; pesticides and the plastic sheets are supplied by a few large firms. One also finds the tendency towards relocation and outsourcing in the agricultural industry: about 80 percent of the 800 strawberry plantations in Morocco are owned by companies from Huelva. In the region around Huelva the size of land taken up with strawberries has shrunk by around 30 percent in the last five years, which does not mean that 30 percent less strawberries were harvested. One main reason for this shift in location are the wage costs; in the strawberry harvest this counts for about 70 percent of the costs.

The plastic sheeting of the green houses or poly tunnels stretch over hundreds of square kilometres, interrupted here and there by factories for packing and further preparation, by workshops for the farming machinery and by the large distribution stations of the freight transport. The olive trees are planted in rows for the use of harvest tractors and vibrating machines, every ten kilometres there are large building complexes of the olive presses. As in every industry the use of machines is dependant on the product, but even more than this on the price of the labour force. But we can say that in the olive harvest the use of harvest machines (the so-called vibrators) is increasing and putting the workers under pressure.

The Immigrants
The last olive harvest would not have been possible with the work of about 8000 migrants. The Spanish officials are constantly playing this off against the fact that there are 22,000 Spanish people registered as unemployed in this region and using this as a reason for Agrarian reform (see below). It is hard to say how many migrants really work in the Spanish agricultural sector. Many are working without official contracts, the CC.OO union says about 30 percent. The figures usually only refer to a specific harvest, but the workers often move with the harvests. The composition has changed in the last two or three years. After the conflicts and strikes by the workers from Maghreb there have been more people employed from eastern Europe. According to the figures published by the SOC for the Huelva region (strawberries) there were 7000 people from eastern Europe working with contracts in 2002 and by 2004 this figure had risen to 20,000. The SOC talk of an average of 15 paid work days every month. Because of this the queues at the NGO food distribution centres grow ever longer. The SOC also register that fact that the many migrants in the area have lead to an acute rise in the prices of daily necessities and rent, which also affects the permanently resident population. The bosses get around the law forbidding piece work contracts by, for example, setting 200 kg of strawberries per day as a standard amount and threatening dismissal for those who drop below this. The Rumanian workers tell of random harassment: during the hiring process the boss selected 200 of the 500 applicants, took away all their papers (work permits, visas, medical certificates), which they had paid about 300 Euros for, mostly on credit, forbid contact between men and women on the farm, controlled the alcohol and regulated bedtimes.

By the beginning of December 2004, i.e. before the beginning of the olive harvest, there were about 5000 migrants in the region. Many were homeless, living in derelict houses or on the street. The hostels were only permitted to open at the beginning of the harvest, so as to avoid strengthening the ‘attraction effect’. Under pressure by the charity organisations and the unions they began to take people in during December. But there were in any case only 650 places. In the press there were reports of many evictions of ‘illegal flats [settlements]’ of Romanian workers.

Many of those looking for work came from Sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana and Senegal. Even if they do get the minimum wage they can only hope for two months work, about 6 or 7 hours a day, 39 Euros a day. The SOC reports many cases of 12 hour days for 20 Euros a day.

The Immigrant Laws
On particular statistic published in January 2005 shows the growing significance of migrants, no only in agriculture, but in the whole Spanish labour market: around 34 percent of all new workplaces in the first nine months of 2003 were filled by migrants, in totally they make up 4.9 percent of the total workforce. Most of these workplaces were temporary and/or through employment agencies. The migrants mainly come from Morocco and Latin America. Since the ‘regulation of residency’ in January 2005, those where were registered with the authorities before August 2004 and can produce a work contract of over six months become legalised. In the agriculture, gastronomy and hotel sectors a three month contact is more normal. The workers do not apply for their own work and residents permits, the companies do it for them. The government starts from a figure of about 800,000 migrants whose residency could be ‘legalised’ - from a figure of a total of 1.1 million ‘irregular’ residences (which does not include the illegal immigrants). On the 17 January the press published pictures of ‘thousands of migrants’ who slept outside the consulate to apply for the necessary papers (including the criminal record register). On the 7 February 2005, the first day of the ‘regulation’, the companies had submitted requests for residents permits for about 1500 migrants, most of which were disallowed due to missing documents, in Malaga 80 percent!

On the 23 of January there was an amazing demonstration in Almeria against the rehashed migrant laws and for papers for everyone. About 3000 to 4000 people were at the demo, two thirds of them sub-Saharan African (and a handful of Spanish), the rest from north Africa, about 99.9 percent young men. There was an umbrella organisation ‘for unity’, the SOC and the CGT, but apart from usual sticker and placard distribution there did not really have anything to say. The demand was clear and was presented in various slogans and chants: ‘papers for everyone, without limitations or preconditions!’. The demo passed without incident, there was a lot of emphasis on forming chains, and every two hundred meters we sat down on the road. One precondition for the papers seemed to remain, or at least there was the slogan that a passport should be sufficient.

The Agrarian Reforms
The agrarian reforms operate within the subsidies rules of the EU and attempt to solve an astounding contradiction: The rural population is declining, the number of registered unemployed agricultural workers is growing rapidly, at the same time it is getting harder to find Spanish workers for the harvest. Additionally, the period of payments of unemployment benefits is supposed to be linked to the number of days worked per year (previously one received six months money regardless of whether one had worked 35 days or 180 days in the year).

Under the Conservative government, the Socialist Party had taken part in the protests in 2002 against the reform, possibly because many of their strongholds had lost their subsidies. Then in January 2003 the CC.OO and the UGT joined with the government with a proposal that made the preconditions for receiving unemployment benefits even stricter and made it almost impossible for workers under 25 to actually receive it.

The Socialist Party, who came to power in March 2004, only made a few negligible changes to the reforms and did not retract the entire reform, as they had promised. According to SOC the young workers have the most problems to get the number of required work days together and so are often reliant on social aid. At the moment this lies somewhere between 75 and 100 percent of the minimum wage, about 400 to 500 Euros per month. The companies estimate the number of people receiving this social aid at about 120,000 in Andalusia. The SOC says it is 65,000, of whom about 40,000 work in other regions during the harvest.

Although SOC is seen as ‘immigrant friendly’ compared to the ‘anti-immigrant-approach’ of the majority unions (CC.OO and UGT), their official politics looks a bit different. In November 2004 the SOC general secretary suggested the establishment of a so-called ‘local employment commission’ that would then regulate the work force requirements. In this only registered workers would be able to get work, which would exclude thousands of illegal proletarians. He also explained himself clearly as being in agreement that “a worker who refused an offer of work in his region would loose his unemployment benefit”. (from: ABC Sevilla, 25/11/2004). Who ever promises to protect their members from having their work conditions undermined by migrants, of course has to also insure that these members will go to work for those same bad work conditions. Furthermore is the open threat against the many southern Spaniards who work in the harvests and the industries of the north, while claiming unemployment benefit in the South! On the other hand the SOC are giving the call-out for the action on the 28 January 2005 against the reform…

The Strike
Bujalance is a village with 8000 inhabitants on the county road between Jaen and Cordobra. There is no tourism, no sight-seeing attractions, but there are a great many olives. In the main square hang two banners; one saying “keep going, Manolo! Bujalance loves you!”. The day labourers of the olive harvest are on strike, Manolo is the local boss of the CC.OO union and at the moment on hunger strike. The other banner is from the companies and calls for the protection of the only source of tax revenue of the village, the olives. Since 21 December 2004 there have been about 600 to 1000 strikers meeting daily in order to get up to date with the current situation and decide on further courses of action. They are on strike for two main reasons: the increasing mechanisations is destroying their piece work rate and because 200 of them have been sacked due to new subcontracting rules. According to the work contract the rate for a hand picked kilo of olives should be more than the rate for a kilo shaken off by a vibrator, but in practice that is seldom adhered to. The CC.OO demand in writing a minimum price for the vibrator harvested olives. The fact that they are striking in the middle of a world market oil production region, that they are the target of one of the EU wide agricultural reforms and that according to the media are surrounded by thousands of roaming and job-seeking migrants does not seem to be making a big impression on the striking Bujalancers.

Chronology
21 December 2004: The strike began after a gathering of about 600 seasonal workers, which was called for by the CC.OO and the UGT. The bosses declared the strike illegal, because the work contract was still valid until January 2005.

8 January 2005: The press report an increasingly heated atmosphere in the village. The CC.OO threaten a general strike in Bujalance. About 800 Seasonal workers take part in an assembly.

12 January 2005: There is a general strike in Bujalance. The bosses say that 20 percent took part, the CC.OO say 40 percent and some newspapers say 70 percent. The CC.OO emphasised the participation of the construction sector, particularly the bricklayers. Many of the supermarkets stayed open, teachers went to school, but only half the school children. At this point the companies declared that only 10 percent of the harvest would be gathered in Bujalance.

15 January 2005: Manolo Ramirez starts his hunger strike.

16 January 2005: In many fields, about 50 percent of the harvest was already going off. The trees were not pruned, which would also reduce the total for the following harvest. According to El Pais about 700 bosses, owners of large olive farms and business people demonstrated. The local press puts the count at 400. The claim that they have been threatened by the strikers, that those willing to work are being stopped from doing so, etc. Where there is work going on the olive trees are being ripped out of the ground and the local small firms and businesses have to fear boycotts if they open their businesses. The unionists deny, but some strikers confirm, that they would take their children out of school, if the companies do not give in. The newspapers report that there were leaflets circulated after the general strike in the village denouncing the strikebreaking shops.

17 January 2005: About 100 to 150 young striking Bajalancers occupy the church and churchyard night and day, with the agreement of the priest, in solidarity with the hunger striking unionist.

18 January 2005: The amount of Guardia Civil (military police) in the village has increased three-fold. They protect the small farmers who have decided to continue working on the fields. They leave the village together from the largest co-operative Jesus Nazarero. The large employers declare that they are looking for workers from other regions where the harvest has already ended, The mayor however, demands that they should look for their labour force from within the region, as it states in the work contracts. The union leader threatens intensified actions if a workforce is drafted in from outside.

19 January 2005: About 1000 strikers come to the assembly, where there was no voting or debate. Ramirez declared the end of the church occupation and called for an assembly the next day to be held at the market place, rather than outside the strike breaking co-operative. After the assembly the nearby county road was occupied for about an hour.

21 January 2005: Manolo Ramierz lets it be known that the CC.OO has negotiated a contract: “This is a positive conclusion, not the one that we wanted, but one that can end this conflict”. Part of this contact is a minimum price for the use of the shaking machine of 13 or 14 cents per kilo. He also emphasised the common work contact, in which the labour force should be employed from the village where possible. Manolo called for the workers to vote for the end to the strike, “so that there is once again peace in the village”.

22 January 2005: About 1000 day labourers vote for the end of the strike. There are still some unqualified questions about the contract and it is not stated whether the 200 sacked workers will be reinstated.

Personal Impressions from the 19 and 20 January 2005
On the country roads for a 15 km stretch around Bujalance one sees only one tractor and four people working on the fields. Apart from that one sees quite a few small trucks with three or four passengers inside - seeming to be on the lookout. Actually one does not need to keep an eye out for scabs in all the fields, it is enough to watch the olive presses, industrial plants for the production of olive oil. The work begins and ends there. Of the six presses that I saw in the region, only the smallest was operating. The largest was being watched by the Guardia Civil. It was from here that the small farmers left for work on the 18 January.

In the evening around 1000 people, all Spanish or Gitanos (Spanish Gypsies), many older people and pushchairs, about as many women as men, they seemed to be rather subproletarian than small farmers, many tracksuit bottoms and body warmers, amazingly small people, the atmosphere is familiar and neighbourly. One bloke explained to me that the work contract, i.e. the piece work rate agreement was only valid for this district, in Cordoba, 20 km away a there is a different contract. Then Manolo, the hunger striking CC.OO functionary, spoke. He spoke from the first floor of the town hall and you could not see him. Perhaps this was for some technical reason, but in any case it was a bit weird. First of all he thanked the young people for their role in holding out in the church and churchyard for a few days and nights. The young people themselves came out and received applause. In his second sentence he declared the church action over, but it is not clear why and how it was decided. He thanked everyone for the disciplined and pacifist behaviour during the protests and emphasised, three times, that it should stay pacifist. He said that he would go to Cordoba the next day to negotiate, and he hoped there would be a resolution, although he felt week because of the hunger strike. As a sign of his willingness to negotiate he also changed the location of the next morning’s assembly: not in front of the large co-operative from where the scabs have been leaving for work, as planed, but in front of the town hall again. There was no reaction to this news. At the end his voice became once again militant and forceful and he called on us to hold a demo with him to the main country road and block it. He came out of the town hall and spoke with the only two Guardia Civil police there. On the way to the main road there we no police in sight. All 1000 people went onto the road and every HGV stuck in the resulting traffic jam got an ‘Olé’. This went on for about an hour, nothing really remarkable happened, it got louder at one point when a tractor and trailer appeared at the end of the traffic jam. On the following morning the people met as decreed, not in front of the scabbing Co-operative, but in front of the town hall. So in from the Co-operative loads of jeeps and tractors drove away unhindered, while about 500 people stood around in the cold outside the town hall at nine am, even though the negotiations in Cordoba were not due to start until ten o’clock. Most of them passed the time by reading the paper, there was a double page spread about the street blockade of the day before. There was nothing new in the article, apart from the information that the bosses were convinced that the demo would be going to the Co-operative and had themselves gathered on the site of the oil presses. On bloke said that although it was officially about the piece work rate, actually the real problem was the use of machines, eventually half of the workforce would be disbanded. Along with this came the migrant question. In Bujalance there were hardly any migrants working, in Jaen or Cordoba however, there are quite a lot, and for half the wages. By eleven there was still no statement or news from Cordoba and the first people began to leave.

I found it interesting that ‘Spaniards’ and ‘Gypsies’ had gone on strike together. Otherwise and under different circumstances the situation is quite tense: On the 16 January 2005, i.e. during the strike, there was a demo in Cortagana (5000 inhabitants, further south-west into Andalusia) ‘for security’, after the arrest of two gypsies accused of the murder of a disabled person. About 2000 people took part. At the end of the Demo about 1000 people marched to the gypsy quarter of the town and smashed up cars and houses and threatened people.

Note
More reports on violence during strikes in Spain from January 2005:

* The public prosecutor demands a total of eight years prison for four bus drivers who in March 2003 in the Vizcaya region shot with catapults at busses that were empty except for the driver during a strike.

* Despite the sentencing of a few Basque bus drivers for damage to property they continued with their acts of sabotage: The large company Arriva stated that during a strike near Corunia about 25 busses could not drive due to flat tires.

* At the beginning of February the roadside recovery services for abandoned or crashed vehicles were on strike. In Valencia a scabbing tow crane was dismantled.

See also a contemporary online discussion about the strike

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Slovakia: Fourth student protest this year
17th of March. For the fourth time this academic year, hundreds of students gathered in the streets to protest the proposed law requiring university students to pay tuition fees. Last time they gathered in front of the Government Office, while this time they protested in front of the Slovak parliament. Students showed their dissent by chanting slogans, carrying banners and demanding, once again, Education Minister Martin Fronc’s resignation. The rally was organised by the ad hoc created Student’s Strike Committee, which describes itself as an independent body struggling for the rights of students and high-quality university education. The students asked the deputies to come out and support them. However, only the communist party representatives and one independent deputy did so. The protesters argued that the reform doesn’t guarantee an increase in quality and that paying for university would start a scheme that can be described as “I am paying, so give me my diploma”. According to some recent studies, over 30 percent of students plan to leave to study abroad, if the tuition fees are indeed introduced.

20th of April (SMI). Thousands of secondary school students across Slovakia called for Education Minister Martin Fronc to resign in a national protest on April 20. The demonstrations came as a result of problems in this year’s school leaving examinations as well as because of the new system of leaving exams as a whole.

Italy: Don’t Work, Be Happy...
18th of March. ...slogan of school students on the demonstration of public sector workers. On the 18th of March over 200,000 public sector workers marched in Rome protesting against the fact that the government hadn’t prolonged their work contracts. The social workers demanded to be employed by the council. Home care and work in youth centres is often organised by so-called cooperatives. The workers employed by cooperatives have limited contracts, don’t get paid holiday and sick pay.

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

Comrades from Wildcat have just published the German translation of Beverly Silver’s book ‘Forces of Labor’. (See special dossier on wildcat-website for more.) The book analyzes the development of workers’ struggles on a world-wide scale in the past 140 years, its relation to the expansion and re-location of industries, the political intervention of states and war, and develops concepts for a better understanding of struggles, e.g. the material basis of workers’ power in certain industries and the political impact on capitalist strategies. So if you haven’t read the book yet, get a copy and join the discussion! [Beverly J. Silver, Forces of Labor. Worker’s movements and Globalization since 1870, Cambridge University Press, 2002]

Why we have translated ‘Forces of Labor’ ...
When the book was published in summer 2003 we emphasized its importance in a first enthusiastic review saying that it “provides a new basis for the discussions about the future of historical capitalism” (wildcat 67, October 2003). We knew that a translation into German could promote the debate on the book’s theses. The book’s “grand narrative” and its many small narratives are excitingly written workers’ and world history that will produce interest far beyond academic circles. At the same time this new vision on history provides new impetus for the - in the past few years newly inflamed - debates on war, globalization, capitalism and class struggle.

The book’s particular strength is telling the (hi)story from the perspective of workers in struggle. Not literally because the description and summary of 150 years of global (working) class history inevitably relies on a bird’s eye view. But Forces of Labor elaborates on the connection between struggles from below and their effects on ruling class actions and, therefore, capitalism’s development as a world system. Workers’ struggles chase capital around the globe and from one industrial product to the next. And with every new cycle of hegemonial power, pressure from below had more impact on the shape of the world order (Beverly J. Silver presented this long-term finding in Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System, a book she published together with Giovanni Arrighi in 1999).

This approach in Forces of Labor shows many parallels with an unorthodox Marxist current in Italy that later became known as “operaism” (workerism). Its early texts strongly influenced the formation of our own theory. The label “operaism” gained some new fame through the political bestseller “Empire” by Hardt and Negri but this theoretical renewal of the sixties has already become ideology again. The early sixties’ texts and inquiries written and conducted from around the magazine “Quaderni Rossi” were a critique of bourgeois industrial sociology and to the same extent, a critique of an orthodox Marxism that had lost sight of the workers.[1] Their aim was to renew Marx’s critique, long forgotten within Marxism, of the despotism of capitalist production by starting concrete projects of inquiry.

Instead of using a schematic and identity-based concept of working class, “Quaderni Rossi” focused on certain forms of production and how they lead to historically specific forms of “class composition” and associated “forms of rebellion”. The organization of production and technology was decoded as “petrified class struggle”, as the reactions of capital to open and often hidden resistance against work (Silver calls that fixes). At the same time they worked out the dialectic of capital encountering workers’ resistance only by a further socialization of labor through division of work and new machinery - sooner or later the basis of new workers’ power.

In Forces of Labor we find again what Mario Tronti at that time had called a “strategic turn” within Marxism: Instead of assuming a “determination by inner laws” of capital, capital’s new movements are understood as a constant confrontation with class struggle. Instead of mystifying capital as a thing or the world system as a predetermined structure, the driving force is seen in society’s contradictions: the “endemic” class relations, the insurmountable antagonism in the sphere of production. Tronti called this the “workers’ standpoint”.

On a microcosmic as well as a macrocosmic level Forces of Labor provides us with important impetuses for a renewal of the “operaist” perspective - or in Steve Wright’s terms let’s call it the “school of class composition” to avoid confusions with the ideological “multitude-operaism”. In Forces of Labor the way in which some capitalist sectors are investigated in order to grasp their importance for workers’ power sharply contrasts with the reckless triumphalism Hardt, Negri and others show while conjuring new subjects out of a hat.

Silver does not use new capitalist ideologies like the “information society” and its “immaterial labor” but critically and carefully examines the several new “post-fordisms” and takes a close look at the production process and the changes within. She does not come up with definite answers on the presumable development of workers’ power - and in a world-historical turning-point phase like today that is probably not possible either. As long as new central sectors and workers’ figures fail to show up either within the accumulation of capital or within the class struggles, any choice of “new” sectors carries a certain arbitrariness. But Silver shows us how further inquiries can be developed, what they have to look for, which comprehensive connections have to be taken into account. The book gives plenty of detailed hints and suggestions, asking for more collective efforts.

The macrocosmic suggestions for an expanding and updating of the workers’ position are apparent: the historical extension to here 150 years, in ‘Chaos and Governance’ even 500 years and an associated world-historical perspective. That this approach and the consideration of class struggle and workers’ subjectivity in history just originates in the “world-system school” might surprise some people, for this school has legitimately been criticized for its structuralism. In the first chapter Silver discusses this problem, arguing that the whole research-project emerged from a critique of a certain world-system school “steamroller”-structuralism.

This emergence of the project has the great advantage in that from the very beginning the relation between workers’ struggles and the world-system of capitalist and state power is taken into account. In many discussions about “imperialism” the social antagonisms between the classes and the political-military antagonisms between states are being treated as exclusionary perspectives - the “anti-imperialist position sacrifices social emancipation for “national liberation”, the “social-revolutionary” position vice versa tends to ignore the antagonisms within the global system of states. In Forces of Labor the connections and inter-relation of both levels are analyzed. War and, above all, world wars are seen as integral parts of the - on a world-scale politically effective - class antagonism of capitalism.

This constitutes the book’s distinctiveness. The view over several centuries allows identification of the general character as well as the historical novelty of the situation we find ourselves in today. The question is not what happens again and again but what kind of shifts occur during historical cycles. Where does the systems’ development leave previous, apparently established pathways, where are they blown apart? This concerns the dialectic of war and class struggle in particular: Will it be possible once again to cover up - at least temporarily - the social contradictions through world-war or a world-wide “war against terror” and block emancipatory struggles? Or does the world-wide power of the proletarianized - for the first time in history - open up a new possibility. Can it already influence the decay of the prevailing world-order in a way preventing another decades-long period of war and mass murder - characteristic of any global change in governance and hegemony so far? Forces of Labor is a stimulus and an invitation to tackle these topics theoretically and practically.

wildcat & friends - March 2005

[1] On the history of this current see “Renaissance des Operaismus” in Wildcat no. 64, 1995 (see the website www.wildcat-www.de [English translation of that article available soon]) and more detailed in: Steve Wright. Storming Heaven. Class composition and struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism. 2002. London/Sterling: Pluto Press. [German translation: Steve Wright. Den Himmel stürmen. Eine Theoriegeschichte des Operaismus. 2005. Berlin: Assoziation A.]

From prol-position news #2, 5/2005

There have been strikes against the relocation of call centres at Timing and Wanadoo in late summer 2004. In October 2004 workers at Teleperformance, a sub-contractor of France Telecom and Wanadoo went out. About 70 percent of the employees have temp-contracts which are prolonged each week, or not. Despite this significant number of temp workers, the strike participation was surprisingly high. The base union SUD estimates it at 90 percent. One of the main reasons for the conflict were the long working hours of 44 hours per week. Teleperformance has relocated parts of the service to Tunisia. Apart from Tunisia, Morocco is the other main country for French call centres to be shifted to. Timing relocated their night and weekend shifts to Morocco. It is said to be 40 percent cheaper to open a call centre in Morocco, where the average wage is about 400 Euros, compared to 1,100 in France. There are 60 call centres in Morocco phoning for the French market, employing 7,000 workers. In France 205,000 people graft in call centres. In 2003 there was an increase of 10,000 jobs in French tele-companies of which only 5 percent were created abroad. Last December 300 agents of Wanadoo struck against the consequences of a rashly introduced telephone-internet service: excessive extra stress because of annoyed clients which the management tried to burden the staff with.

The Strike at Ceritex
The following chronology is based on information of the base union SUD. Although the different positions amongst the workers are more or less excluded, it provides an good general overview.
24 January 2005: The strike kicks off at four different locations of the call centre service company Ceritex B2S, the second biggest in France. After three years without any wage increase the base union SUD now demands a 5 percent pay rise. In leaflets distributed amongst the workers the SUD admits that the economic situation of Ceritex is not a booming one, but due to sales of company owned real estate the management has got the money to grant the pay rise. They also admit that the demand for a wage increase of 5 percent won’t cover the real wage loss of the previous three years. The SUD announces that the strike participation ranges according to location between 60 and 85 percent and that mainly management people, people with temp contracts and from temp agencies are scabbing. At a general assembly on 24th of January the workers decide not to start work again on the same day, which was planned, but to continue the strike until the assembly on the following day.
25 January 2005: The call centre in Strasbourg starts working again. In Chalon the assembly decides to carry on striking, but the division between strikers and workers with temp contracts becomes ever more clear. According to SUD sources the management declared on various occasions that the strike would endanger contracts with the clients and that therefore work contracts might not be prolonged. This has allegedly lead to a situation where managers and temp workers together shouted slogans against the strikers. The FO union is accused of having taken part in the denunciation of the strikers as well. In Maison Alfort the staff votes for a strike too, and a delegation is sent to the management. The bosses refuse to talk to the elected delegation but finally agree to receive two officials from the SUD. The management’s response concerning the demands was negative, as was expected.
26 January 2005: The call centre in Chalon is receiving calls again. The remaining strikers hand out leaflets to the temps in order to undermine management propaganda. In Maison Alfort the strike is still on and the management is still spreading rumours, without any strong impact. The strikers try to make the dispute known to the public, e.g. by distributing leaflets in the neighbouring shopping malls. In Le Mans the conflict continues as well. The management calls the bailiff because the picket is allegedly using the reception area to warm themselves up and to use the toilets. Other workers spread the news in shopping streets and on access roads next to the call centre.
27 January 2005: The workers in Maison Alfort decide to stop the strike and to continue the struggle by other means which do not result in loss of wages. Despite, or maybe because of, the bosses’ repressive policy the assembly in Le Mans votes for the continuation of the walk out till next Monday.
28 January 2005: The strike in Le Mans continues, supporters deliver wood and meat for barbecues. Continuous visits by bailiffs do not spoil the good atmosphere.
29 January 2005: The bosses send security guards to the picket-line in Le Mans and the Ceritex chairman blathers in an interview that all strikers can look for new jobs if they are unhappy with their present ones.
31 January 2005: People in Le Mans and Maison Alfort are pissed off by the comments of the companies’ chairman. In Le Mans about half of the staff vote for going back to work. There are supposed to be ‘sudden and surprising strikes’ in the future. A company-wide assembly is meant to be organised in order to decide about the future of the conflict.
During the following week there are various spontaneous walk-outs in Le Mans, Maison Alfort and Strasbourg. The FO officially announces that it doesn’t support the actions. The SUD accuses the FO of negotiating behind the back of the workers about preferential treatment and privileges for the strike-breakers. The national assembly of all Ceritex workers is planned for the 7th of February. Workers who were active in the strike have to put up with severe disciplinary measures at work, e.g. their phone conversations are monitored much more frequently than usual.
7 February 2005: About a hundred workers gather in front of the company’s headquarters in Gennevilliers and demand negotiations. The bosses refuse and call the cops. Three lines of riot cops block the entrance of the building and the workers form chains and try to push the cops out of the way. The management agrees to receive six delegates. Six workers from different locations are elected. The management asks the cops to provide a list of names of the delegates. Two workers on the list are not accepted and the scuffle continues. Finally the delegation is accepted, but the bosses have nothing more to say than that a pay rise is out of the question. Parallel to these actions the workers in Maison Alfort and Le Mans start a spontaneous strike in order to put more pressure on the bosses. In the late afternoon the assembly in Gennevilliers is declared over, people have a long way back home. Some waste bins are emptied in front of the building. A union rep claims that the action in Gennevilliers helped to facilitate the communication between workers from different locations and that the attitude of the bosses only strengthened the combativeness for the disputes which followed.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

The strike at the banks lasted for 24 days, from the 7th until the 30th of June. The participation was not low, however the bank clerks who took part at the two rallies organized by OTOE (Federation of Bank Clerk Unions of Greece) - during the general strikes called by GSEE (General Confederation of Workers of Greece) on the 16th and 24th of June - were too few. On the other hand, the public sector’s employees’ participation in those GSEE strikes was also low, as it was the case with the dockers’ demos, although their participation in the strike reached 100 percent. The major weaknesses of the banks strike were as follows:

* No general assemblies took place; the struggle was organized by an unreliable union leadership that just three years ago had agreed with the bankers to a pension reform law.
* There were no pickets, especially on a workplace where bosses’ violence is high (this is the case particularly at private banks: Eurobank, Alpha Bank - at the latter there is a union set up by the bosses). The Initiative for a Common Action of Bank Workers and Pensioners against the Pension Reform in Athens was an exception. They managed to shut off some big bank branches downtown and turned scabs away - but that was all they were able to do.
* The leadership of OTOE called strikers to work, although they had agreed with the bankers for less bank clerks to work as security personnel. So, the cost of the strike for the bankers was not high.
* There was a certain reluctance to coordinate actions with other strikers, such as the dockers.
* There was a lack of imagination and propagandist activities on the strikers’ side about the consequences the new pensions law would have on the proletarians in general. By that we mean that the pensions reform of the bank clerks paves the way for a generalised attack on the pensions status. By placing the up to now independent but deficit supplementary bank insurance funds under the auspices of IKA (the main Social Security Foundation), the government is trying to make it bankrupt. Then “reconsidering” an all-out pension reform will appear as a “logical” step.

However, we should note that the battle is not over yet, as far as the banks are concerned. On the 12th and 13th of July the bank clerk union at the Bank of Attica called a 2-day strike that blocked temporarily the management resolution to make use of the new law and abolish the employees’ Pension Account.

The dockers’ strike coincided with the bank clerks’ strike. On the 5th of July, after a month’s strike, their case was brought to an arbitration court, to the relief of the union leadership: all the workers took part in the strike but they refused to take part in the mock demos organized by the leadership. It is a closed union not easily manipulated by political parties. Their point of reference is IDF (International Dockers Federation) rather than GSEE. They are all permanent workers. There has not been any new hiring since 1988 and the last temporary worker was hired in the beginning of the 70s!

Their high wages are due to a combination of reasons: it’s a closed shop where the union still has the exclusive right to negotiate over tariffs on merchandise loaded and unloaded at the port of Piraeus; the union is very well organised; if we consider that the only container relocation station in Greece is at the port of Piraeus, then we may understand their excellent negotiation position which has also allowed them to get paid for fictitious overtime work all these years. Besides, the surlplus value created at sea trade is very big and so are the ship owners’ profits, thus the dockers’ good negotiation position is very profitable, too.
The management effort to employ temp workers sparked off the strike, which was managed by a small team of unionists. There was no rank-and-file mobilization, no propaganda of their positions to the people of Piraeus, no leaflets. The union leadership had the only say. The strike had no effect whatsoever because the government aims at the devaluation of the port. In the years to come things will change as there is a restructuring process going on at big ports in Greece and a new container relocation station on the island of Gavdos is under plan.

In recent years a method undertaken by the neoliberal state officials (with ELTA -Greek Post Office- and Olympic Airways being the most recent examples) has become very usual: let state companies run with swollen debts and then, under the debt pressure, we will come to “restructure” them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, at least not immediately. In this concrete case, the OLP (Port of Piraeus Company) management and, by extension, the Ministry of Merchant Marine, didn’t hurry to stop the strike (which they could do, if they, i.e., had called the riot police, the public prosecutor, declaring quickly the strike to be illegal and undue) precisely to let the OLP deficits inflate. Then they could appear as the “saviours of the port”.

What we should take into consideration is why the government is giving battles on all fronts at the same time. Are they compelled to do that? Certainly, the competitiveness of the Greek economy is very low and they have to take emergency measures, even if they risk bringing different sections of the working class together against the same attack they are under, after having realized how common their interests are! The reactions of the DAKE members (Right Wing Union Organization) point to this possibility. They verbally condemn the measures, because “they will lead us to extreme social conditions”.
TPTG and friends

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

Locusts, ‘Anticapitalism’, Kirgisian Lessons and Governmental Crisis
Germany, spring/summer 2005: The German social-democratic government is finished, or at least that’s what it looks like in July 2005. After years of restructuring the welfare state, the government is caught between two frontlines: an increasing discontent among its traditional membership on the one hand, and the lack of employment creating investments of the employers on the other. The enormous defeat of the SPD (Social Democrats) in its remaining strong-hold, North-Rhein-Westfalia, during the federal elections in May 2005 was the final straw: the government declared early national elections for the coming autumn and all surveys are sure that the SPD will lose them. The decadence accelerated in July: The ‘social democratic’ car-maker VW (Schroeder was a member of the supervisory board, his main economic consultant Hartz was the leading VW manager) was involved in a major corruption scandal, shadow companies have been set up and the works council has been bribed with expensive trips and prostitutes. Manager Hartz, strategist of the main welfare-state reform of the SPD government, has to go.
A reaction to the governmental crisis has been the re-emergence of the populist wing of social-democracy: the left-wing of the SPD started the so-called ‘anti-capitalism debate’ in early spring, comparing (mainly foreign) investors with locusts, and after the elections in North-Rhein-Westfalia the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) and the WASG (Election Alternative for Social Justice) joined under the re-emerged leaders Oscar Lafontaine, who recently left the SPD, and Gregor Gysi. The (probably) future governmental party CDU (Christ Democrats) seems everything but united and prepared for the reigning position it will be pushed in.
The ‘anti-capitalist’-debate instigated by the left-wing of the SPD is not only mere populism. The state has the real problem that although it pushes the limits of possible welfare and wage cuts the investment climat didn’t change. We would have to analyse the actual re-composition of capital and the different strategies of the (political) management to attract and encourage more productive investments, e.g. lower taxation for companies, the new German-Chinese links, the outsourcing towards the east, the tendency to create Franco-German ‘european’ companies etc.. The official focus when trying to explain the dilema was on only one of these different developments: The SPD government’s strategy to attract foreign capital, mainly from the US, failed. US companies did invest, but only on a short-term basis, often dismantling the existing companies and selling the profitable parts. As a powerless reaction the left-wing of the SPD set up a so-called black-list of investors, such as Blackstone, KKR, Carlyle, Lone Star, Terra Firma, Apax, Cinven, Investcorp, Permira. ‘Capitalist’ in the social-democratic sense means that the profits of these companies are not combined with creation of durable jobs, rather result in vast redundancies at ‘German companies’, e.g. Siemens-Nixdorf, Telenorma, MTU, Gerresheimer Glas, Dynamit Nobel, Rodenstock, Celanese, Minimax, Demag, ATU Autoteile Unger, Debitel, Tank & Rast, Duales System.
The reaction to the ‘anti-capitalism’-debate isn’t surprising. The liberal forces and official spokes-persons of the employers use ‘lefty’ arguements in order to defend their market ideology: they state that the comparison of ‘capitalists’ with ‘locusts’ resembles anti-semitic propaganda, is truely anti-american and will isolate Germany further from possible investors. The official left (within the unions, in the various communist parties and splinter groups) seems to be trapped given that they more or less share the ‘vulgar anti-capitalism’ which demands employment from investments.
We want to summarise some recent conflicts that were kicked off by the redundancies, closures and re-locations. In May/June 2005 there were several companies affected at the same time. We can’t statistically say if there is an upturn in actual re-locations and closures (see the article Going East in ppnews #2, 5/2005), but the social atmosphere at least seems to be more and more characterised by these kinds of conflicts. In July 2005 the media publishs that the total number of ‘regular jobs’ (social security, pension contribution etc.) shrank by 10 percent during the last twelve years, by 25 percent in the east. So far, the workers involved rarely go beyond the usual symbolic reactions of demonstrations, petitions and united fronts against the redundancies, although there have been a few strike actions as well. In this aspect, the critique of ‘solidarity initiatives’ in the text of Mouvement Communiste (see article in this issue) is adequate. We think that two factors could become more interesting in the future: in most cases, initiatives against the threat of closure develop on the shop-floor level, with workers often organsing their own websites, meetings, etc. There are also attempts to coordinate these initiatives, although this hasn’t really happened yet. The other factor is the international dimension. Different from e.g. the closures of the coal mines, ship yards and steel works in the 70s and 80s this time the closures happen in a tighter net of international production. Often the bosses threat with re-locations to the Czech Republic or Poland, which isn’t actually that far away, and often several locations are effected at the same time, e.g. Alsthom in France and Germany, Samsung in Germany, Spain and the UK. Let’s bear in mind that this economic and political situation isn’t confined to Germany: under the crisis the EU as a whole seems to be desintigrating politically, unable to fullfill it’s stability pacts or to agree on a common way out of the dilema (symbolic expression: the constitution debacle).
That the situation are potentially explosive isn’t only an illusive product of our communist principle of hope. In May 2005, in the inofficial German organ of capital, the daily FAZ, the SPD-strategist Glotz asked an interesting question: ‘What kind of means of mediation can Germany count on in case of wider social unrest?’ Following a quotation:
‘A fact is: German discipline and peace could turn out to be deceptive. A new RAF (Red Army Faction) is not within view. But if 200 workers, sacked even though their company was profitable, went on a rampage and destroyed everything, this single violent erruption could lead to an extensive fire like the unpolitical attempt to kill Rudi Dutschke on Easter 1968. This is the ‘Kirgisian Lesson’. The resistance in Kirgisia is the reaction to the resistance in Ukraine, which will be the trigger of several more revolutions in Eastern Europe. Germany is not Kirgisia, Germany is a constitutional state with a functioning state machinery and a good police force. But will all this be sufficient?’
Below, we look at some of these potential Kirgisian sparks. We have to admit that most of the information we have is taken from the media and union sources and we only managed to visit the protest at Kone. The following short summaries remain therefore somewhat superficial, but nevertheless they should give an impression of the recent atmosphere. At the moment we can only state the absolute non-existence of any international debate or practice arising from these attacks from a revolutionary/communist perspective, something which will surely turn out to be a fatal mistake.

Alsthom/Mannheim
The French multi-national company is officially in crisis, and made a 400 million euro loss in the financial year 2004/2005, which adds to its total debt of 3.9 billion euros. A year ago the company would have had to declare bancruptcy if the French state hadn’t jumped in with a 3.2 billion euro financial aid package. The European Union only agreed to that inofficial subsidy under the condition that Alsthom sells certain branches of the company. Siemens is one of the potential buyers. The whole deal would result in severe job losses, and not just in France. There are rumours of relocations to China, India and Mexico.
In May 2005, workers in Mannheim/Germany started their protests against the 900 planned job cuts -- the whole plant (generators, turbines) employs 2,000 people. In Stuttgart another 150 to 200 jobs are at stake. The reaction in Mannheim was to organise a series of ‘company assemblies’ or ‘information meetings’. Given that strikes would be illegal, the works council called instead for such info-meetings. On the 29th of May, after five days of ‘strike’, the management succeeded in banning the ‘information meeting’ via a labour court. The works council gave in and agreed to reduce the numbers of ‘meetings’ to one for the whole next six months. Demonstrations in the town centre continued after the declaration of the labour court. On the 30th of May delegations from Alsthom Kassel, Stuttgart and Berlin took part in the demonstrations, making a total of about 2,000 workers. In the leaflets the union IG Metal argues against job cuts, basing its arguments on local know-how, the quality, the profitability and the formerly signed job security contracts. The French CGT distributed similar leaflets at Areva (former Alsthom) in Le Petit Quevilly. On the 29th of June the demonstrations and short walk-out continued. [Solidarity website: www.alstom.resistance-online.com]

Bosch-Siemens/Berlin
The plant in Berlin mainly produces washing machines and other household devices. Officially this branch of Bosch/Siemens was able to increase revenue by 8.4 percent in 2004. Shortly after the announcement of these numbers, the management made public that the plant in Berlin will be shut by the end of 2006. About 700 workers will lose their jobs, with only 400 jobs in the research and development department remaining. The main arguement of the management is that most of the devices are sold abroad and that sales in Germany shrank by 3.6 percent. In 2004 the number of people employed by Bosch/Siemens Hausgeräte in Germany decreased by 500 to 14,000. Out of the 42 factories, only seven remain in Germany.
At the end of May 2005, about 2,000 workers from various factories in Berlin/Siemensstadt (Osram, DaimlerChrysler, BMW, CNH, Schleicher and Alstom Power) organised a demonstration in solidarity with the workers from Bosch/Siemens. As at Alsthom, there have been ‘info-meetings’ at Bosch/Siemens as well. The management promised to invest 90 million euros for a new washing machine model produced in the nearby plant in Nauen. Nauen was always the plant which the management used to put the Berlin staff under pressure. The staff in Berlin was known to be combative as a lot of Turkish left organisations are/were present within the factory, and there are more or less well-established links to staff in factories abroad. Nauen was opened after the re-unification, and thanks to high local unemployment, the management managed to enforce much lower standards and working conditions. 600 people lost their jobs in Nauen during 2004, as well, which somehow shed a different light on the management’s investment promises. In the summer-edition of ‘wildcat’ there is a longer analysis of the factories history and an interview with an active worker, which we will try to translate for the next prol-position news. [Solidarity contact: [email protected]]

AEG-Electrolux/Nürnberg
Another washing-machine producing factory was supposed to be closed. On the 12th of July 750 workers of two shifts walk out and protest against the announced job cuts. At the same time the assembly-lines at the plant in Rothenburg were also laid idle. The closure in Nürnberg would effect 1750 workers plus thousands in the supplying industries. The Minister for Economy Clement traveled to the Electrolux headquarter in Sweden in order to ‘intervene for the jobs in Germany’.

Siemens/Kamp-Lintfort
During the last five years a rapid process of centralisation and internationalisation within the mobile phone sector took place. Productivity increased, valorisation shrank, few medium-size factories supply the global market with cell phones, often producing for different brands (see interview with ‘Solectron’ worker in ppnews #2, 5/2005). In Germany the Siemens mobile phone plant in Kamp-Lintfort became the symbol of the big break-through of the bosses in 2004, after the workers agreed on longer working hours and wage reduction in exchange for job security. How ‘secure’ the jobs actually are shows only a year later: in early June 2005 the Taiwanese company BenQ was given 350 million euros by Siemens for the take-over of the factory. BenQ won’t accept the negotiated job deal, the job guarantee for the 6,000 Siemens mobile-phone workers world-wide will run out in 2006. A short look at the recent development of this plant proves that ‘social-partnership’ and ‘wage abstention’ won’t secure jobs.
* 10th of April 2001: Siemens announces 2,000 job cuts in the mobile phone branch, production in Bocholt and Leipzig will cease and the mobile phone branch will be concentrated in Kamp-Lintfort. In 2000/2001 Siemens wanted to produce 50 Million phones, but sales are difficult.
* 10th of December 2002: Siemens announces 1,000 job cuts in Kamp-Lintfort, 320 permanent staff and 700 temps are supposed to go; Siemens threatens to re-re-locate some of the jobs back to Leipzig; in Kamp-Lintfort about 2,700 workers are employed; the Siemens management negates plans to sell the branch.
* 2nd of April 2004: Protests against management plans to re-locate production to Hungary; the management demands 30 percent wage reduction and return to the 40 hour week.
* 26th of June 2004: The union IG Metal proudly announces that it agreed on the demanded wage reductions and longer working hours and that in exchange the re-location to Hungary is postponed for at least two years.
* 7th of June 2005: Siemens sells the branch to BenQ and the negotiated job security for the remaining 2,000 workers remains valid till 2006.
After all this, the union and works council still have the guts to blame ‘management failure’ for the current situation, and they’ve already started moaning about BenQ ‘share-holder’ capitalism. A more combative response to management plans and against the official union strategy was given by Siemens workers in Milano/Italy.[1]

Kone/Hattingen
Kone in Hattingen produces escalators. The Finnish headquarters decided to shut the plant in Hattingen and to shift production to China and to Keighley in the UK. 325 jobs would be cut, a Kone plant in Italy might be affected, too. On the 17th of May 2005, the union organised a demonstration with about 500 workers and supporters in the local town centre. Nothing really surprising happened: there were some delegations from other factories, a unionist from Italy and Finnland, speeches from local politicians. It was interesting that the big boss of IG Metall made his way to this minor event, so did some bigger fish of the SPD, which was due to the still ongoing election campaign. At least the SPD guy didn’t get any applause. The most radical speech was performed by the local protestant priest. It was astonishing how often the word ‘capitalism’ was used, something that reflects the public debate. The whole event reveals its symbolic nature even more if we take into account that the work in the plant still continues. At the beginning of June some people of the Kone-Solidarity-Initiative called for a meeting of various effected companies in the ‘protest tent’ on the Kone premise. The union and works council drew-up an ‘alternative’- concept, which would result in 22 percent cost cuts and would only keep some of the more specialised production in Hattingen. The management refused the ‘alternative’. On the 14th of July it became public that the factory will actually be closed. The workers reacted with a spontaneous walk out, due to holiday and a high sick rate only half of the staff was actually at work anyway. [Solidarity Website: www.solikreis-kone.de]

Grohe/Hemer, Lahr and Herzberg
Grohe produces bathroom fittings and employs about 5,800 people in Germany. In 2004 the US investors Texas Pacific Group and CSFB Private Equity took over the total shares. In early 2005 the management announced that in the course of cost reduction measures 1,500 to 3,000 jobs would be made redundant. There is already a production unit in Shanghai, but about 80 percent of the output is still produced in Germany (although only a fifth of the products are sold there). The plant in Herzberg/East Germany is supposed to close down completely, which would slash 300 jobs and increase the local unemployment rate from 23 to 30 percent. The staff organised two demos at the other factories in West Germany. A planned protest demonstration in Hemer was cancelled by the works council and IG Metall, which pissed off some of the more active workers. The main site of the company is in Hemer and the local works council and union want to secure the jobs for ‘their’ locations, at least that is the explaination by some. Some workers then went to the demo in Lahr, where 3,000 protested on the 21st of May 2005. On the 3rd of June a ‘Solidarity Initiative’ was founded by active unionists in Hemer. About 30 people came to the first meeting, which consisted mainly of debating the situation within the company. Another topic was the question of why the solidarity web-site was taken off the net. There were rumors that the management and works council put pressure on the internet provider claiming that there were ‘death threats’ on the site. The organisers of the web-site said that within three days the site became very popular, that about 580 people posted stuff and that someone might have called for ‘hanging the managers’. Another debate was if the staff would have to accept the economic condition of the company, given that even the works council proposed a ‘rescue package’ which would ‘only’ cut 1,000 jobs. Finally works council and management agreed on a plan to cut 1240 jobs within the next three years. On the 12th of June there was another demo with 2,000 people in Lahr. A report on indymedia describes the demonstration as ‘a collective election campaign of all political parties’, all trying to flatter the workers by refering to the quality of their products and by condemning the US turbo-capitalists. On the 25th of June the management announces 360 job cuts for the plant in Lahr. [Defunct Solidarity Web-Site: www.rettet-grohe.de ]

Siemens-VDO/Würzburg
Most of the Siemens plants are threatened by redundancies and/or relocations, being it the cell phone production in Kamp-Lintfort or the semi-conductor plant near Hamburg. In Würzburg, a car parts producing unit, the protests against announced cuts of 1,600 workers started in April 2005, with about 1,000 people organising some symbolic activities like encircling the factory with a human chain, etc. Siemens wants to shift production to Ostrava in the Czech Republic. In mid June 2005 the workers reps made a deal with the management: longer working hours and less money in exchange for a job guarantee for 1,400 workers till 2010. The relocation to Ostrava will still take place.

Danaher-Neff/Wolfschlugen, Waldenbuch
The US company Danaher announced that it will shut the plant in Waldenbuch at the end of 2005. The factory, which formerly belonged to Neff, produces automation and driving technology. The production was meant to be shifted to Brno in the Czech Republic. Danaher planned the same thing at the other location in Wolfschlugen, formerly Warner Electric, employing 100 workers, but, following the works council, the production unit in Brno ‘is not ready yet’. Nevertheless, the works council and union agreed to longer working hours (5 hours per week), wage reductions and job cuts in exchange for three years of guaranteed employment for the rest of the staff. This ‘success’ has as a consequence that the location in Waldenbuch will now definitely be shut and 100 jobs slashed. A solidarity party is planned for the 4th of June, but the call repeats the usual defensive moaning: we identify with the jobs and the company, etc. [Solidarity website: www.arbeitnehmer-danaher.de]

Denison Hydraulics/Hilden
In mid 2003, the US company Parker-Hannifin bought Denison Hydraulics for about 200 million euros. The economic situation of Denison was said to be stable. About 200 people were employed and were even awarded a bonus in 2004 for a successful year. In February 2005, the management announced the closure of the plant for 2006. They claimed the plant was unproductive and unprofitable. So far we have only heard of the usual petition and demonstrations against this closure (some workers visited the Kone demo in Hattingen, some local school students re-located their lessons to the factory, etc), but most of these actions are organised by active workers from the shop-floor rather than the regional union office. [Solidarity website: www.Denison-lebt.de]

Mahle/Stuttgart
The car supplier in Stuttgart announced in May 2005 that it was to cut 600 jobs and demanded additional wage cuts of 15 percent. About 600 workers took part in some union-organised protests.

Schefenacker/Geislingen
The car supplier wanted to relocate production, which would have threatened the 1,350 jobs in Germany. The unions reacted with some limited actions: in February 2005 the production in Geislingen stopped for several days. Audi, BMW, Daimler and Opel sent managers to the site, because the car plants started to lack rear lights, which Schefenacker produces. After negotiations the union succeeded in postponing this decision. In May 2005 the company had to admit that it bought an area within an industrial estate in Serbia and obtained a permission for building a factory there. In July the union announced that ‘the jobs are safe’ in exchange for cuts in holiday pay etc.

Agfa/Leverkusen
Early in June 2005, the photo-film producer Agfa in Leverkusen had to announce insolvency. Production had already stopped due to lack of material from the suppliers. About 870 jobs are at stake in Leverkusen, about 1,800 in the whole company. After a rapid financial aid package of 50 million euros, production was taken up again in order to fullfill outstanding orders.Solidarity website: [www.mitarbeiternetzwerkbeiagfaphoto.de/soli.htm]

Linde/Mainz, Cologne
The Linde branch for refrigerating technologies was sold to the US company UTC in 2004. A year after the take-over the management announced 1,300 job cuts, half of the total staff. A return to the 42 hours week without wage compensation plus cut of the holiday pay which was offered by the unions, but this wasn’t enough to convince UTC to stop its re-location to the Czech Republic and France.

Owens/Düsseldorf
After years of down-sizing, the glass manufacturer in Düsseldorf is finally closing, with the remaining 260 jobs being lost. The US company Owens, which took over the traditional glass manufacturer, announced the closure due to unprofitablity. Last demonstrations in June 2005.

Footnote
[1] Strike at Siemens mobile phone plant in Milano/Italy: This strike is a quite unknown conflict, although it’s already been going on for about seven months now. The workers of the mobile phone plant Cassina dei Pecchi refuse to work from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., fighting against the management’s plan to enforce an extension of night shifts. The factory employs 900 workers, 300 of them in mobile phone production, of which 120 would immediately be affected by the night shift schedule. The workers claim that night shifts are unhealthy and destroy social life. Although they don’t get strike money, they are keeping up the struggle, supported by other workers of the plant who are not affected and employees of other companies. In September 2004, 181 workers voted against the night shift schedule, 114 decided in favour. 305 of 361 workers took part in the ballot. At that time the big unions FIM, FIOM and UILM supported the management plan. The striking workers organised their own strike funds (Cassa di resistenza), something that the unions often talk about but haven’t accomplished yet. On April the 28th the management offers a ‘harmonisation’ of the working time in all Siemens plants in Italy, based on a 37.3 hours week, but still demands a flexibilisation of the shift system. [Solidarity-Phone-Line: 0039 / 3386083973]

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

1) Intro
2) The situation in countries of origin: USA, UK, Australia
3) General situation in destination countries: India
4) Same procedure as everywhere: wage pressure and turnover
5) Short stay in India: relocating further
6) Sex and violence: last, but not least some good news

Intro
The following should provide a general overview of the global re-location of call centre jobs. So far most of the (union) initiatives and answers to the question of re-location were constrained to protectionist and/or nationalist campaigns for the ‘defence of our jobs’. We can recall the ‘Pink Elephant’ campaign of the English CWU (Communication Workers’ Union) when British Telecom made an announcement to slash jobs in the UK in order to shift them to India. There are several racist campaigns in the USA calling for abusive behaviour when talking to an Indian or Philippine call centre agent. We don’t criticise the fact that workers fight against redundancies and threats of relocation, like at Wanadoo in France, when the management planned to shift work to Morocco (see article on call centre struggles in France). But it is all together a different thing if unions try to conjure up nationalist sentiments, talk about ‘British quality’ and similar stuff, as part of a populist campaign which didn’t hurt the bosses at all. There have only been a few campaigns where activists tried to break down the national perspective of their unions, e.g. when a US-delegation of unionists visited colleagues in India or campaigns of Spanish and Argentinean activists, when Telefonica tried to play workers off against each other.
The rapid development of the call centre relocations means that they also serve as proletarian case studies on how the conditions change in the country of origin and in the destination country, how capital adapts to different situations, and how workers find new ways to struggle as well. As we will see, within a short period capital had to face up to the same basic problems in Indian call centres as it had to in the UK: a high turnover of staff, increasing pressure on wages from below, first (violent) reactions of workers against the undignified working conditions. Capital’s reaction shows its intrinsic limitations, as it further migrates from the big cities to smaller ones, from India to Pakistan and the Philippines, in order to start the same cycle again, but at a higher pace.

The situation in the countries of origin: USA, UK, Australia
Since the late 90s, as a result of the crisis in the IT and financial sector, a lot of companies cut jobs and/or relocated them abroad. This process still continues. Following some recent examples of companies who shifted their call centre work to India or the Philippines:
* Datamonitor predicts that more firms are set to follow the likes of British Airways, Citibank, General Electric and HSBC, all of which have spun off a part or all of their operations to India. [Datamonitor - 21st of March 2005]
* 350 call center jobs to go at British Gas: British Gas workers in Oldham have been told 350 of them will lose their jobs because a new £430 million computer system can do their work better. The clerical, administrative and data processing jobs at the Higginshaw Lane site will be shed in the next 12 – 18 months because workers have been made obsolete by the new technology. The company is considering transferring any remaining clerical work that cannot be done by the computer to workers in India. [www.oldhamadvertiser.co.uk - 21st of July 2005]
* British Gas goes India: Recent reports that British Gas (BG) plans to axe 2,000 jobs in the Kingdom, out of which about a 1,000 including “back office” jobs, would move to India, have spread panic among workers, especially in Manchester, where four BG offices are located, according to newspaper reports there. Interestingly, in their anger against offshoring jobs to India, trade unions are making much ado over the data protection issue. Though not overt, the reference surely is to the recent Indian call centre case where a British reporter was said to have got hold of classified data by offering money to an Indian employee. According to Unison, British Gas plans to move backroom work to India where the company claims they can make a 400% saving in operation costs. [www.financialexpress.com - 21st of July 2005]
* IBM shifts jobs from USA to India: Even as it proceeds with layoffs of up to 13,000 workers in Europe and the United States, IBM plans to increase its payroll in India this year by more than 14,000 workers, according to an internal company document. [The New York Times - 8th of July 2005]
* NAB shifts call center jobs: NAB outlined the plans to axe 4,200 jobs from its Australian and UK operations as it revealed its half-year financial results. This would affect 10 per cent of its global workforce. Yesterday, Abbey’s new Spanish owner said it would cut 4,000 UK jobs following its acquisition of the bank, rather than 3,000 as first envisaged. It said the staff affected by today’s job losses were “victims of offshoring by proxy”. The claim was denied by Lloyds TSB, which announced last year it intended to have 2,500 staff in India by the end of this year. [The Times - 12th of May 2005]
* Dell adds 2,000 more staff in India: Dell plans to increase the number of staff at its Indian call centre and software development operations to 10,000 by the end of the year, the company’s president and chief executive officer (CEO) said Friday. Dell currently employs about 7,000 to 8,000 staff in India, Dell President and CEO Kevin Rollins told reporters during a visit to Bangalore. [IDG News Service - 2nd of May 2005]
* Call centre operator Sykes Enterprises shrank its U.S. operations and last year added close to 10,000 call centre workstations in Costa Rica and the Philippines. [Times Business - 2nd of May 2005]

It’s obvious how capital uses and creates patches of regional (under-)development, in order to recompose the conditions of exploitation. The call centres in the USA, the UK or other western countries had been praised as the alternative mass employment for de-industrialised regions, such as Leeds, the Ruhr area, the mining regions in the US. Low wages due to high unemployment and a work-force shaken by years of crisis attracted the call centre companies. The following summary of a Los Angeles Times article shows clearly the political content of capitalist (under-)development:

Clintwood, Va. - This remote Appalachian town doesn’t get many visitors, but every day it sends thousands of travellers on their way. If you buy an airline ticket off the Travelocity website and need to call with a change or a question, the phone rings here. The Travelocity call centre brought 250 jobs to a community wounded by the decline of coal mining, its mainstay for a century. It plugged the town’s 1,500 residents into the global high-tech economy, offering the prospect of a secure future. That illusion crumbled last month when Travelocity fired Clintwood, saying it would close the call centre by year-end and move all the jobs to India. (...) Opened fewer than three years ago, the centre is the largest private employer in the county. (...) The call centre clerks in Clintwood start at $8 an hour. In India, their replacements will earn less than a quarter of that. (...). More than a quarter of the 2.25 million call-centre jobs in the U.S. are expected to go offshore. (...) Until recently, Appalachian towns such as Clintwood were an outsourcing destination, not a victim. Companies that wanted to cut costs could hardly find a cheaper place in America. With that salary of $8 an hour plus benefits - something almost unknown in these parts for entry-level jobs - Travelocity had no trouble attracting employees. (...). In a financial document announcing the call centre’s closing, the company said it had been trying to cut costs but “attrition levels” were a big reason it wasn’t successful. “It was $4,000 in training every time we hired someone new,” Peluso said. “Many people made the economics tougher by choosing not to stay with Travelocity.” Did Clintwood, then, fail Travelocity? The call-centre workers acknowledge that many new hires worked briefly and quit, unable to endure the cranky customers and strict regimen. Suddenly, $8 an hour didn’t look that good. (...) The joke among the town’s citizens is that the only secure jobs are at the new state prison, because they’re not going to be shipping the convicts to India anytime soon. There are several new lockups around the county, which a lot of people have mixed feelings about. “It’s not quite as bad as being a nuclear waste dump site,” said John Clay Stanley, director of the Dickenson County Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites). (...) Fifteen years ago, the primary employer in Dickenson County was Pittston Coal. Like Travelocity, it was losing money. So Pittston cut benefits for retired miners and their widows. The miners responded by walking out. Hundreds were arrested for civil disobedience. Violence flared as the strikers punctured tires on coal trucks. The strike lasted nearly a year, the bitterness far longer. “The situation with Pittston was physical,” said Will Mullins, 22, a Travelocity operations manager. “We could block the roads and block the trucks, and there was no way they could get the coal out. But there’s no way to block the Internet. If we tried to do a strike, they’d just ignore us. [Los Angeles Times - 28th of March 2004]

That the practical difficulties of fighting company closures and the nationalist perspective of most of the unions result in the ugliest forms of workers’ response is documented in the following note from the net:

I made an Indian woman cry and promise to quit her job in 60 seconds. You can do it too! I have inside knowledge of call centres, having worked in several. It’s crucial that the agents be efficient. Barraging them with 60-second calls will ruin their stats and also lower their morale. Eventually, they’ll start thinking ‘another damn rude American a******’ every time a call comes up. All of this will have a cumulative effect. If 100 people across the US would commit to spending 10 minutes a day, we could cripple them, and bring those jobs back to the US.

This is only a random (and printable) selection from the thousands of messages in cyberspace calling for a campaign to harass Indian call centre operators, to put an end to the offshoring of jobs. In the last few months, and particularly since the US presidential elections, people working in call centres in the country say that they are receiving more abusive and racist phone calls than ever before.

‘Earlier, people would get abusive if we didn’t answer their questions satisfactorily. Now, I get calls-on some days up to five a shift-from people who are calling only to abuse,” says Shalini J, a 22-year-old engineering graduate who works in a major call centre in Malad.’ [www.callcentres.net]

Facing that kind of response it is wonderful to know that even working class racism can be turned into profitable business. Advert on the net:

American English Accent. Hello, we specialize in training in American English accents. We are based in San Francisco, USA. Our trainers are licensed speech pathologists with a Master’s Degree or Ph.D. Our trainers will come to your call centre! Over 20 years of experience, with companies and call centres in the Philippines, Korea, and South America.

Examples of cross-border activities are rare, but even high up in the union bureaucracy the more clever functionaries can see the necessity of understanding the situation in the destination countries. Although we can expect that the union rep’s comments on the situation in Indian call centres is partly due to the selective policies of the Indian companies inviting him and the populist attitude of union officials, it nevertheless indicates a global standardisation of working conditions:

Call centre professionals in India are well taken care of by the employers, compared to the US, where the workers were treated as a “commodity”, said an official of Communication Workers of America (CWA), the largest workers union in the US. “The call centre environment in India is much better. In the US, the employers are not considerate about the workers. They treat people as a commodity,” Steve Tirza, President, CWA, who was in Chennai along with other members to have a first-hand understanding of the call centre and IT industry in India, said. In the US, about 8 per cent of the people in call centres report sick, per day, Hicks said. [The Hindu - 23rd of June 2004]

Another, probably rather symbolic cross-border action took place during the recent strike at the HSBC-bank. Nevertheless the action has got some significance given that HSBC has been in the news due to it’s plans to relocate work to India:

Thousands of HSBC workers will stage a nationwide 24-hour strike tomorrow in a dispute over pay, the biggest industrial action against a leading bank for more than eight years. The bank said around 10,500 of its 55,000 workers belonged to Amicus so it expected most of its employees to be in work. The union claimed that 10% of staff will receive no pay rise this year and a further 45% will be given an increase below the rate of inflation. Amicus claimed that HSBC workers in India staged a protest today in support of the UK workers. [news.scotsman.com - 27th of May 2005]

Situation in the countries of destination: Canada, India
A main destination of outsourcing US-companies is Canada, where the call centre sector was still booming during recent years, unlike in the US or Europe.
The StasCan report’s main finding is that Canadian business support services registered “unparalleled growth” between 1987 and 2004, driven by the adoption of new information and telecommunications technologies during the past two decades. Business support services workers, who mostly work in call centres, numbered 112,000 in 2004, up from 20,000 in 1987, according to the report, entitled, “Who’s calling at dinner time?” The sub-sector’s growth rate of 447 per cent well outstripped that of the service sector (37 per cent) and the overall rise in employment in Canada (29 per cent), over the period studied. Wages in the industry were also lower than in comparable service industries, contributing to above-average turnover. In 2004, the average pay was $12.45 an hour, compared with the service sector average of $18.10, and the overall average of $18.50, the study found. Some 85 per cent of workers left their jobs after five years or less, compared with 55 per cent for all service industries and 53 per cent for all industries combined. [www.cbc.ca - 25th of May 2005]
The other main target country for US call centre services is India. In India call centre work and work in the IT sector in general is done by a comparatively tiny fraction of the total work force; to be exact, by about 0.2 percent. In most cases the people working in these jobs have a middleclass background and they went to university. In a country with half of the population still malnourished and illiterate, and with only about four per cent of its households with telephones, these jobs can be sold as a privilege, as a present from the developed world. The call centre companies praise the advantages of India for the international outsourcing process:
* India is the largest English-speaking population after the USA, has a vast educated workforce, the manpower cost is approximately one-tenth of what it is overseas. Per agent cost in USA is approximately $40,000 while in India it is only $5,000. [‘Outsourcing’ - 7th of February 2004]
* Average call centre salaries in the UK are about £12,500 ($22,000) a year, compared with £1,200 ($2,100) in India. [BBC - 11th of December 2003]
* In India, the influx of jobs has produced a community of young, single Indians who have traded the frugal lifestyle of their parents for extravagance. Sadhana Pasricha, a business and sociology professor at Goldey-Beacom College in Pike Creek, Del., recently visited India and said she was surprised by the trendy shops and bars in big cities, as well as the young people she met. Leaving home for a better life is no longer necessary. “In one generation, they’ve become a global generation,” Pasricha said. [www.tucsoncitizen.com - 14th of June 2005]
We haven’t found much material on the actual working conditions in Indian call centres. The following study is likely to be very biased, given the particular interests of the client, the British bosses and unions. Both are eager to show the ‘special quality’ of the British call centre performance. Nevertheless the survey might provide some hints:

The research carried out by ContactBabel on behalf of the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) found that UK workers answered 25 per cent more calls than Indian staff and resolved 17 per cent more queries first time. While Indian workers answer the phones more quickly, researchers found their calls last longer, possibly because of language or cultural difficulties. Moreover staff turnover at Indian call centres is worse than at UK operations, with Indian graduates only willing to stay in a job for an average of 11 months, compared with three years in the UK. But the report also revealed that overseas call centres are cheaper to run as Indian workers are paid less than 12pc of a typical salary of their UK counterparts. The report said the average starting salary for a worker in India is just £1,500 a year, compared with £13,000 a year in the UK. Steve Morrell, author of the report, said the difference was a “shock,” especially as Indian staff typically worked six hours a week longer than those in Britain’. “We already know the answer to any survey that the government has commissioned and so do the British consumers,” said David Fleming, the national secretary of Amicus. “Services will suffer, cost savings will not be transferred to the consumer, poor business decisions will be made in pursuit of short-term cost savings and company brands will be damaged by outsourcing.”’ [BBC - 12th of February 2005]

In India the first public criticism of the call centre jobs emerged, declaring that the jobs aren’t steps towards development, but rather an extension of the sweat-shop policies in a different form.
* About 85 per cent of Indian BPO work is handling calls, but this category accounts for less than 10 per cent of work outsourced globally. So you can’t build a sustainable future on such a narrow global base. [The Telegraph - 20th of April, 2005]
* The huge growth in India’s call centre industry was highlighted again last week, as British company Norwich Union announced they would be cutting 2,350 UK jobs and relocating them. But author Praful Bidwai said that in effect the centres reduced the young Indian undergraduates to “cyber-coolies.” “They work extremely long hours badly paid, in extremely stressful conditions, and most have absolutely no opportunities for any kind of advancement in their careers,” Mr Bidwai told BBC World Service’s One Planet programme. “It’s a dead end, it’s a complete cul-de-sac. It’s a perfect sweatshop scenario, except that you’re working with computers and electronic equipment rather than looms or whatever.” [BBC - 11th of December 2003]
And of course it is possible for the British to get their jobs back, they just have to relocate themselves:

In a new twist to the outsourcing of call centres saga, UK graduates and backpackers are being employed by UK firms to work in offshore Indian call centres on Indian salaries. These backpackers can work in call centres in India supporting UK customer service operations and earn between Rs 11,000 (200 Euros) a month at entry level to Rs 40,000 (720 Euros) a month as team leaders. One such agency Launch Offshore, has signed a deal for a pilot of six travellers to work for HSBC at its offices in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Colombo in Sri Lanka. [BBC - 29th of April 2005]

If a report in the Sun is anything to go by, up to 40,000 Britishers could end up working in metros like Mumbai or Bangalore in the near future. Quoting industry experts, the tabloid said that sectors like insurance, banking and phone firms had in the last year shifted their operations offshore to inexpensive countries like India as a wage-cutting measure. Last year, 14,000 jobs were lost. According to the experts, the call centre employees from Britain could expect to earn between £1,800 and £4,500 annually. [www.siliconindia.com - 17th of June 2005]

Wage pressure and Turn-Over
It is interesting to see that parallel to the acceleration of capital’s movements the workers’ response also speeds up. For example, the relocation in the car industry from western countries to the new developing countries such as Brazil, South Korea, South Africa didn’t take place much earlier than the 1980s. And it took a while before workers created a wage pressure similar to the one in the countries of origin. With call centres we can see a similar pattern, but due to their very nature there is an acceleration of the whole process. The following news items question the picture of contented and industrious Asian workers who are supposed to happily welcome any old low-waged job from western companies.
* An annual attrition rate of 50 per cent plus is par for the course and a company that boasts of an attrition rate of 30 per cent struts about like a prima donna. So the situation is somewhat like what prevailed in the software industry during the period of the tech bubble - more orders than what you know how to cope with. The attrition is forcing BPO companies to pay more. Wages have risen so quickly in India that it’s not much cheaper than Canada as an offshoring location. [The Telegraph - 20th of April 2005]
* Indian call centre attrition nears UK levels: The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has found that the staff turnover (staff attrition) at Indian call centres was approaching that in the UK, and that managers were demanding comparable wages to their UK counterparts. The study, conducted by the FSA into the impact of the increasing numbers of financial companies that have moved call to lower-cost economies, primarily India, says that the growing number of UK companies setting up centres in cities such as Mumbai and Bangalore was creating intense competition for staff, making them unlikely to stay with a company for more than a few months and forcing up wages. [The Times - 9th of May 2005]
* Indian back-office firms face a growing challenge holding on to employees, even as they hire tens of thousands every quarter. Staff tend to account for half of a back-office operation’s costs, according to research firm Evalueserve, and the battle for talent has led to a 10-15% rise in employee salaries. Recruitment and training makes up 3% of the overall per-employee cost of about $13,000 per year, including administration and telecoms costs, according to Evalueserve. But the really damaging cost is the lost business for companies which cannot fill key jobs quickly enough. Many face a shortage of mid-level manpower to manage their rapid growth as they lure clients with promises of 40% to 50% cost savings. As the industry clocks up 50%-plus growth, demand for quality personnel is outstripping supply. Employees often hop to new jobs for slightly more money, and many do not view back-office work as a career. Companies provide free transport, subsidised meals and housing to retain staff, and try to enliven the environment with musical entertainment, yoga classes and costume contests. [The Hindu - 08th of July 2004]

As a consequence of wage pressure, soaring real estate prices and labour shortages, capital keeps on moving further abroad and/or towards the smaller cities in India.

“Because of the fact that the demand for call centre executives is increasing day by day, the supply from Delhi is getting lower and lower,” “What we have done is to... move into smaller towns. Over the last three months, almost 60% of our total hiring has been done through these outstation offices.” [BBC - 11th of December 2003]

Apart from relocation as an answer to rising wages, we also read more and more about technological experiments in India itself to substitute the work-force with high tech.
From low-end call centres to high-end software development, Indian companies are seeking innovations to help them combat the threat of new entrants to the market in countries like the Philippines. One approach has been to offer higher-value services, like business consulting or providing for a company’s full range of software needs. Less well-publicized is a determined attempt to retain low-end operations, even while expanding beyond them. The strategy is to transform operations like call centres from labour-intensive, cost-cutting shops into technology-intensive operations offering speed and quality. At a Tata Consultancy research centre in the western city of Pune, researchers are developing artificial intelligence software that, once perfected, would be able to sift through a company’s millions of e-mail messages, memos and other documents to detect and formalize knowledge that the company may not know it possesses. Tata Consultancy Services says such software could drastically reduce technical-support calls by automatically gleaning from call transcripts which problem keywords correlate with which solutions. “We can transform the whole call centre - the way it looks today,” said Subramanian Ramadorai, chief executive of Tata Consultancy. With “automated software engineering tools,” he said, “if you’re deploying 1,000-people voice-activated call centres, tomorrow you may say you can do the same thing with 10 people.” [www.iht.com - 27th of May 2005]

All in all various sources already speak about the end of the call center boom in India:

The End of Call Center Entrepreneurship in India: Gartner Inc. released an astonishing report that said, “As many as 70% of the top 15 Indian business process outsourcing start-ups will cease to exist in the coming months.” Gartner added scathingly that, “despite the hype, only a small fraction of customer service outsourcing will be done at offshore locations.” Margins in the call center sector have declined steadily over the past couple of years, as customers demand lower bill rates and agents insist on higher salaries. The result has been a squeezing out of the smaller (and often newer) operators, which are unable to spread their fixed costs over a larger base of revenue producing agents. Throughout India and the Philippines, there has already been significant rationalization (i.e. closings, buyouts, mergers, etc.) in the call center industry, and Gartner is probably right to say that more are to come. [www.indiadaily.com - 8th of July 2005]

Further Relocations
Indian companies only managed for a very short period of two or three years to establish themselves as low wage alternatives for international capital. The workers’ response quickly crushed this image. As a reaction countries like the Philippines, Pakistan, South Africa enter the agenda. Often cheap explanations are brought up in order to disguise the fact that these countries are only interesting for capital because of the ‘virginity’ and low wages of their workers. The Philippines and partly Pakistan are declared to be more interesting because of the ‘Americanised’ culture and foreign policies. This argument refutes itself, given that jobs are already relocated from Manila towards the countryside, due to lower rent and wages.

The Philippines
A recent survey by the Singapore-based ACA Research and Michigan-based Fortune 500 staffing firm Kelly Services, seems to says that the Filipinos are steadily progressing in the BPO business and may outsmart the Indians soon. While an Indian BPO agent is likely to remain sick for 15 days every year, Filipinos manage with only 8 sick leaves per annum. They are also more loyal. While your next door BPO guy spends less than a year (11 months) at a BPO, his Filipino counterpart spends 19 months on an average in a company. The Philippines is the third largest English-speaking country in the world. About 72 per cent of the population is fluent in English. The Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates (94 percent) in the world. The US military rule had also laid a strong base to the country’s telecom infrastructure. The country was under the US rule from 1898 until 1935. It’s interesting that in the case of India also the British rule had helped in giving a huge popularity to the English language. Canada and Ireland are also benefiting from their language skills to advance their outsourcing business. Mexico, which was under Spanish rule from 1521 to 1810, has bagged a huge chunk of Spanish voice processes from US. In the Philippines, similarity in legal and tax framework with the US has eased the administrative bottlenecks for the American firms setting captive BPOs there. Chevron Texaco, AOL, P&G, Accenture and Dell have set up centres there. Major BPO hubs in the Philippines are Manila and Cebu City. Currently, there are about 100 call centres in the country. Companies such as HSBC, Dell, AIG and UPS have all outsourced their business to the Philippines. [www.callcentersindia.com - March 2005]
Apart from the more or less interesting info, we also liked the headline of the following article, which clearly confirms our thesis:
* Philippine call centre boom spreads beyond capital: Faced with rising wage costs as the pool of qualified candidates in Manila and central Cebu empties, outsourcing firms are moving to parts of the country that are still rich in English-speaking graduates willing to work for 12,000 pesos ($220) a month. In Baguio, 120 miles north of Manila, more than a third of the 300,000 population are students. So far there is only one call centre, run by ClientLogic Corp., a unit of Canadian firm Onex Corp. “It’s a gold mine,” said Ramon Dimacali, head of industry group Outsource Philippines, who sees benefits beyond pay rates that are a third lower than Manila’s for the same caliber of graduate. “There’s definitely higher loyalty, less attrition, less churn,” he said. But there are signs the boom, a rare bright spot for the indebted economy in recent years, could soon start to run up against the shortcomings of an underfunded education system, poor infrastructure and a limited labour supply. Bangalore in India alone churns out nearly as many graduates each year as the 400,000 produced by the whole Philippines. “We’re facing a hiring crunch,” said Carol Dominguez, president of recruitment firm John Clements Consultants. “You’re losing more people than you can hire. Call centres have to figure out a retention strategy.” In 2001, there were only about six countries seen as serious competitors for the outsourcing dollar. Now there are about 30, with eastern Europe, China and South Africa among them. London-based research firm Datamonitor said in a February report that the Philippines was a strong competitor to India for the nearly 250,000 new call centre jobs expected to be created in the two countries through 2009. The Philippines now has around 60,000 outsourcing jobs, compared to 245,000 in India, according to Datamonitor. [Reuters - 12th of May 2005]
* The Philippines has a bright spot in the call centre industry that generated jobs for more Filipinos. From 1,500 seats in 2000, the industry is growing by 20,000 a year and is expected to reach 60,000 by the end of 2005 with almost $1 billion in revenues. But we still have to do a lot of work to catch up with India’s 150,000 seats. [www.mb.com.ph - 22nd of May 2005]
* British bank HSBC opened a 2,000-seat global centre for backroom service in Manila’s Alabang suburb. The 185,000-square-foot facility at the Northgate Cyberzone will be the permanent site for HSBC’s eighth global centre. The bank operates similar hubs in China, India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. The HSBC hub employs 1,300 people and is expected to hire 2,000 this year. It handles call centre operations, mostly credit card customer care services for the bank’s clients in the United Kingdom and United States. It will soon serve the HSBC group’s desktop publishing requirements. Jebsen said it was more expensive to put up such a facility in India than in the Philippines, but less expensive than in China. The average investment for call centres in the Philippines ranges from $3,000 to $6,000 per seat. [money.inq7.net - 15th of June 2005]
* Philippines: National Labor Code changes to boost call-center sector: To boost the country’s thriving business process outsourcing industry, a senior member of Congress has sought the immediate repeal of an old-fashioned Labor Code provision that bans the employment of women at night. “The absolute legal prohibition against night work for women has become totally obsolete, irrelevant and inapplicable,” Rep. Eduardo Gullas of Cebu said. At present, Gullas said local BPO service providers, including call centers that employ mostly women, cope with the prohibition through the tedious process of seeking an express exemption from the Department of Labor and Employment. Since they have to deal with clients in various time zones, local call centers have to operate in up to three shifts 24 hours a day. [news.balita.ph - 30th of June 2005]
* Do the Loop: Philippine call center company outsources to the USA: The Philippine company that acquired Scottsdale-based Phase 2 Solutions last year has opened another call center in the Valley and is hiring up to 800 new employees. According to the company’s Web site, most of the agent positions start at $9 an hour with opportunities for performance-based bonuses. ETelecare Global Solutions, which is a contract call center, now has three call centers in the Valley employing about 1,600 workers. Because some of the 800 new jobs have already been filled, the total employment in the Valley by eTelecare will eventually range from 2,200 to 2,400, making it one of the largest call center employers in the Valley. [The Arizona Republic - 30th of June 2005]

Pakistan
Pakistan is trying to copy India’s success in luring IT work, but it’s slow going: Think software and services outsourcing, and places like Bangalore, Manila, and perhaps Budapest spring to mind. But Lahore or Karachi? The country, after all, shares India’s British colonial history and has some 17 million English speakers. It has a huge community of émigrés with experience in technology. And like India, it has a culture that values education and hard work. Wages, meanwhile, stand at about the same level as in India, with call centre workers earning about $12 per day and starting software engineers pulling in $5,000 or so annually. Lower-level operations such as call centres are expected to grow even faster: Some 120 centres have opened in Pakistan in the past two years. Today they employ 3,500 people, and that number is expected to grow by 60% a year. Arwen Tech, a Karachi company that runs a 600-seat centre, saw its sales double last year, to $10 million, serving clients such as Pakistan International Airlines and the local franchisee for KFC Corp. (YUM!). [www.blogsource.org - 25th of May 2004]

South Africa
* Africa: another English-speaking nation moves ahead to challenge India in call centre market. An initiative supported by the national and provincial governments in South Africa to lure call centres of multinationals to this coastal city could impact on India’s huge role in this field. One of the main reasons that could see South Africa getting an edge over India was the stability of the communication network in South Africa. He said India sometimes had communication breakdowns that left multinationals with a concern over downtime. Supported by the Western Cape provincial government as well as the national ministry of trade of industry, the call centre industry in Cape Town is expected to grow exponentially with the number of jobs created expected to increase to more than 1,000 within the next three months from just 60 two years ago. [BBC - 17th March 2005]
* South Africa has “many of the same assets as India,” Bell says. It has an English language heritage; high quality education; relatively low wages and excellent political and business infrastructure. More than 200 call centres operate in Cape Town alone. [www.informit.com - 17th of June 2005]
Latin America
* Research from independent market analysis firm Datamonitor (DTM.L) concludes that the fear of job losses from the US to Latin America is much ado about nothing. “According to Datamonitor, the Latin American call centre market is the fastest growing region in the world, spearheaded by Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Currently it has over 336,000 agent positions in 5,100 call centres. [TMCnet.com - May 25, 2004]
* Despite having a population of just 4 million people, a recent outsourcing contract through Hewlett-Packard has elevated Costa Rica’s role as a central figure among Central American and Caribbean outsourcing nations. While the nation’s outsourcing ventures are still stymied by bureaucratic complications like ICE, Costa Rica’s telecommunications monopoly, some managers are starting to view the nation as a growing centre for alternative outsourcing. InformationWeek Reports: While the country has the obligatory call centres and tech-support operations, it has begun to carry out some imaginative tasks, too. Costa Rica is the land of coffee--they call it “grains of gold.” Appropriately, a local IT company has developed a computerized solution for sorting the precious beans. The firm, Xeltron, is now working to develop the solution to sort rice and it sees a potential global market therein. [FT - 23th of April 2005]

Israel
Jerusalem becoming call center capital: When American entrepreneur and philanthropist Howard Jonas visited Jerusalem during the peak of the intifada he was overwhelmed by how many unemployed people there were, even among the most highly educated. He decided to go beyond charitable donations and in the summer of 2002, launched IDT Global (formerly CSM), a Jerusalem subsidiary of his Fortune 1000 company, IDT, the fourth largest telecom provider in the US. He found 20 Jerusalemites formerly from the US who grew up amid American culture and manners, and put them to work. The call center serving the US, Canada and western Europe grew rapidly from 20 to 650 employees - skilled and educated workers - and word got out around the immigrant community that having a mother tongue in a language aside from Hebrew in Israel did not have to be a professional handicap. “There’s no doubt that Jerusalem is the optimal place for American and European companies to outsource their work. There’s a huge brain resource here from North American and European immigrants that provides unequaled source of manpower,” he told ISRAEL21c. “We’ve drawn people from all manners of experience and professional lifestyles, not to mention the multilingual capabilities that are available.” A selling point of SUJ to potential foreign investors, as documented by the report, is that labor costs in Jerusalem are 40-60 percent lower than in the US or UK, for example, but services are skilled, unlike India, where labor is cheap but low-tech. Other advantages include an unusual labor force, with mother-tongue fluency in a vast number of languages, including English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian and German. SUJ is also manned on staff and board by Jews and Arabs from around Jerusalem. “Arabic plays a strong role,” says Khazdan. “Egypt is not going to outsource in Israel, of course, but Europe has a growing number of Arabic speakers.” “First of all, there’s an abundance of North American and European professionals in and around Jerusalem who have decided to make Israel their home. Seventy five percent of these immigrants are college graduates - it’s a well-educated workforce and a huge resource for us,” said Barnett. “Israel ranks better in terms of political stability than India, the Philippines, South Africa, Mexico, China, Brazil and Romania. We have big companies like Intel and IDT, and the political situation doesn’t affect them at all... I think [even] Catalyst was not expecting to find that Jerusalem was so suitable for ‘world class’ business outsourcing, in terms of the standards of technology, infrastructure, management and labor force.” [www.israel21c.org - 10th of July 2005]

Eastern Europe and Others
* The calling centres are on their way out in India, Friedman (New York Times columnist) maintained. “They are going to move to Mauritius, they’re going to move to Egypt, where they have a call centre of 1,000 people now that works for Microsoft. That’s a call centre that would have gone to Bangalore five years ago; now it’s in Cairo. So the low end is going to migrate.” [news.pacificnews.org - 6th of June 2005]
* The trend is toward “more offshore activity in countries besides India, such as some of the smaller players like the Czech Republic and Malaysia,” Pau notes. Moreover, she adds, there is likely to be a farther eastward push within Eastern Europe, to countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, as work spills over from places such as the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the ebb and flow of the BPO sector, one country - Ireland - appears to be ebbing. Ireland, host to call centres in Dublin, has become saturated and is seeing wage and other cost increases. That may not be the case in Northern Ireland, where India’s HCL Technologies BPO Services recently says it was adding 400 jobs to a call centre it operates in Belfast serving European clients. HCL acquired the call centre from British Telecom in 2001 and already employs 1,100 people there. An HCL official cited Northern Ireland’s favorable “cost base” as one factor in his company’s decision to expand the call centre. One BPO contender in Europe that is taking direct aim at Ireland is the Czech Republic. CzechInvest, an arm of the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, notes that the average salary in shared-service centres in the Czech Republic is less than one-third the salary for comparable positions in Ireland. Overall costs in Prague are less than half of those in Ireland. [www.informit.com - 17th of June 2005]

Sex and Violence
Last, but hopefully not least, some good news concerning the fundamental driving forces of society:

* 3 cops injured in Mumbai call centre violence: The ongoing dispute between the employees’ union and management of a call centre in Mumbai turned violent on Monday with three police constables being injured in the resultant stone-pelting. According to police sources, the employees’ union and management of Hope India Ltd., a call centre in Saki Vihar in suburban Powai, were at loggerheads with each other and about 400 employees were on strike for the last few days. The dispute took a violent turn today as the management allegedly manhandled the employees. Fearing the situation worsening, a local resident called in the police. As soon as the police came to the spot to intervene stones were allegedly pelted on them from inside the office premises. Three police constables were injured in the stone-pelting. The extent and seriousness of the injuries are not yet known. Heavy police bandobast has been ordered in the area and the situation is under control, the sources said. Senior police officials have rushed to the spot to supervise operations. [UNI - Mumbai, 7th of May 2005]

‘Kaam’ in Hindi means both, ‘work’ and ‘sex’, and a lot of call centre boys and girls seem to prefer the latter interpretation:

Hidden cameras show enormous on the job sex by BPO gals and guys at night. Indian BPO corporations have started monitoring their employee activities at night. The call centre guys and gals at night are having sex with each other and these are getting into secretly placed video cameras watching them. The sex epidemic in India especially among call centre gals and guys is rising at astronomical heights. According to some think tanks, these guys and gals in early twenties get the sexual freedom at night working together. The sex activities take place during and after work hours in different places. Many companies take disciplinary actions. Mostly they fire those employees who engage in sex at work. But the number of employees engaged in lesbian and straight sex has skyrocketed recently. [www.indiadaily.com - 8th of June 2005]

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

We edited a long article written by a comrade from the UK about the transport sector. The author concludes: “The complexity and geographical spread of supply chains combined with JIT and low inventories makes capital vulnerable to attack. The continuing growth in world trade and the developing labour shortages in the logistics industry should put the working class in a strong position to mount such an attack, but it is still on the back foot. In my opinion the particular composition of the class that is starting to become visible within the world of logistics is a harbinger of troubles to come.” If you want to get hold of the whole text or if you have comments and questions, you can write the author (t.ashton at merseymail.com). Here is a link to the truckers strike in Canada, which after five weeks was still on at the end of July. In the course of the conflict scabbing trucks were gun-shot, others were vandalised. [ Link now dead]

A couple of people asked me about the logistics industry; this is an attempt to answer their questions. The last ten years or so has seen a tremendous growth in the size of the logistics industry and the emergence of giant logistical companies. Logistics is, according to the Council of Logistics Management, ‘the process of planning implementing, and controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of raw materials, process inventory, finished goods, services and related information from the point of extraction/production to the point of consumption.’ Logistics is a vital element of the supply chain.
One of the biggest companies in the world with more than 340,000 employees UPS describes its strategy thus: ‘…Moving forward, UPS will be able to offer customers a single point of accountability. For example, a customer will be able to manufacture products anywhere in the world and through UPS move those goods by any mode of transport across any border.’
Just-in-time production (the method of supplying what is needed, when it is needed and in the quantity required) has increased the need for tight control of the logistical process. When you buy something at WalMart or Tesco and the bar code is scanned the information is transmitted to all those along the supply chain and the process is put in motion. Of course, millions of pieces of such info are flowing through the supply chain computer system at any one time. The bar code is currently being supplemented by a system using radio frequency identification tags (RFID). Some people believe that the tag will replace the bar code system while others hold that eventually both will find their niche in the global tracking systems of capital. The tag consists of a transmitter/receiver and a microchip. These are labour saving devices that do away with the need to physically scan products; they can be attached to a product, a pallet load of components or a container load of goods. Put simply, the system works by transmitting information from the microchip attached to the minute radio transmitter/ receiver. At the moment the cost of an individual RFID is about 40 cents, so in terms of low cost items, like a tin of beans, the tag would be attached to the pallet load rather than the individual tin, but with the cost forecasted to fall to three cents per tag just about any commodity could be tagged. Those who see a continuing job for bar codes believe that the tags will not be used on low cost individual items. The demand for this system is driven by WalMart, with other major retailers joining the push. Computer company Dell is also committed to RFID. The system was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in conjunction with Cambridge University and Adelaide University at the Auto-ID Centre in Massachusetts. The Centre works closely with some one hundred companies. Allied to satellite communication systems RFID will enable companies to track their products in real time wherever they are. The implications for workers along the supply chain have not yet been identified but will certainly involve tighter control of their work.

Example of Road-Transport in Car Supplier Industry
A look at the logistical needs of a company might prove useful at this point. This is an extract from a document entitled ‘Transport Policies for the Euro-Mediterranean Region – An Agenda for Multimodal Transport Reform in the Southern Mediterranean’. It was published in 2002.
As the subsidiary of a large German car part supplier, Leoni Tunisie S.A. produces cable and electronic components for Daimler Chrysler and other European car manufacturers. It was established 25 years ago, employs 2400 employees (including 170 in research and development), and invests about 3.5 million euros a year in facilities and training each year. The just-in-time supply chains put extremely high demands on logistics systems. Leoni has outsourced all logistics needs to an international forwarder, which has a local subsidiary in Tunisia. As an example of the long-term relationship with its logistics provider, Leoni has developed a tailor-made stacking system that is specifically fitted to the trucks of the forwarder and permits for a capacity utilization of between 95 and 98 percent.
A full production and logistics cycle lasts about nine days and looks as follows…Raw materials and intermediate products are sourced from across Europe, Asia and the United States. They are consolidated at Leoni’s headquarters in Germany and shipped to about a dozen different factory locations in various countries. Seven trucks leave Germany for Tunisia each week. The trailers are cleared and sealed by German customs on the firm’s premises, where they are picked up by the logistics provider who then drives the trailers to Genoa or Marseilles (2-2.5 days for this land leg), places them without driver on a roll on roll off ferry (20-24 hours for the sea leg), picks them up at Rades port, and delivers them to the factory in Sousse (2-3 hours for this leg). The next day the finished components have been assembled and are cleared by Tunisian customs on the premises before they are sent on their return journey. Eight trucks with 320-350 tons of finished products leave Tunisia each week. The company considers the chain both efficient and reliable. As a major exporter, Leoni has offshore status in terms of tariffs and customs, and receives favourable treatment in Tunisia’s ports.
Nonetheless, the JIT demands of the industry are so high that they are now posing a threat to Tunisia as a production base. Instead of the current cycle of nine days, clients increasingly demand cycles of six days. Internal production processes have been streamlined so far (incoming orders are produced within 24 hours) that any additional time savings must come from logistics. Leoni Tunise recently lost a company-internal competition for a completely new factory with 1,700 jobs and 12 million euros worth of investment to Leoni’s Romanian subsidiary. The reasons were not wages or the investment environment – where companies regard Tunisia as very competitive – but primarily Eastern Europe’s logistics advantage. The land journey between Romania and Germany takes one day less in each direction, saving 1000 euros per trailer load. According to the CEO of Leoni Tunisie, who sits on the board of the Tunisian-German Chamber of Commerce (TGCC), Tunisia will need cheaper and better air cargo connections or high-speed ferries to Europe if it wants to remain competitive in time-sensitive industries…’.

Rail-Transport
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR), which provides an overland freight corridor between Asia and Europe, has seen major investments in track and IT technologies. Today, the TSR is a high capacity freight corridor, double tracked and electrified throughout. It has benefited from the latest advances in automation and IT technologies, including the most up-to-date optic fibre communications network. The process of crossing borders has been speeded up; the waiting time at customs stations has been cut from 3 or 4 days to just a few hours. The speed up of freight movements is reliant on the optic fibre technology, this covers 45 000 kilometres of track. Wagons are monitored automatically using programmes known as DISPARK and DISKON that pinpoint the location of every container in real time. To speed up the flow of traffic express trains running to special timetables have been introduced. These have reduced the quoted delivery times for Europe-bound single containers to just 15 days, which is significantly faster than the trans-oceanic shipping route. In fact, average journey time for goods from Asia to Europe by sea is 45 days. The major objective in the next few years is to create a direct link between the TSR and the ports of South Korea. This would offer a much shorter sea crossing to southern Japan. A major benefit will be that freight will be able to travel more than 12000 km covered by a single set of transport regulations. The cost of this expansion east will run to $ 5 or 6 billion. A proposal to set up an international consortium to rebuild and run the Trans-Korean Railway is also being considered. This would involve North Korea, and it is, perhaps, that countries ability to block the flow of trade rather than its nuclear developments that is upsetting capitalism. Allied to the changes and developments outlined here there are major developments taking place across Russia to speed up the transit of raw materials and commodities, these include a project to link up northern Europe with India through Russia and Iran. This would link the Baltic coast with the Indian Ocean. All of the developments mentioned involve state organisations, private companies and employers coordinating bodies such as the International Co-ordinating Council for the Trans-Siberian Railway. (ICCTSR) This particular body includes representatives from railways in other countries, shipping companies, port operators and forwarding companies. In 2003 the ICCTSR agreed through tariffs for foreign trade moving in containers between the Asia-Pacific region and Western Europe via European border stations and Russian ports on the Baltic. The rail developments taking place in Russia will put pressure on the European Union to speed up the liberalization of its railways. And the sheer cost of modernising the railways of the new member states of the EU will be a major financial burden for years to come; while being kept in reasonably good condition during the Soviet era they have been allowed to deteriorate since. The journey from Berlin to Tallinn takes about sixty hours due to the condition of the rolling stock and the tracks. But change will come, although not without conflict with the workers.

Air Cargo
Air cargo is another section of the logistics industry that is seeing radical change being brought about by the JIT demands of capitalism. Airfreight is used to move high value and time sensitive commodities. The amount and value of goods being moved by air is growing, Boeing predicts that cargo volumes will grow at an average of 6.4 per cent per year for the next twenty years. That would make air freight the fastest growing sector in the logistical field. In terms of the value of goods JFK airport moves more than the Port of Los Angeles.
The driving forces behind changes in the air cargo industry are the major passenger airlines and the logistical giants like UPS, DHL, TNT and Federal Express (FedEx). The big airlines are forming alliances amongst themselves to expand their cargo business at the same time as developing cooperation agreements with logistics integrators like UPS and DHL. In a relatively short time the integrators have become very large airlines. FedEx owns 640 planes and UPS runs 622. By 2019 it is estimated the integrators will control 44% of the airfreight business. In anticipation of this trend Airbus has started to develop a new super air freighter, the A380F, to enter service in 2008.
Airports in many countries are being privatised and some of them are looking to become regional cargo hubs. This means that they are investing in warehousing and logistics facilities in order to become intermodal centres. That is a place where a container can be swapped from one transport mode to another quickly. Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport aims to become a ‘mainport’ juncture of European air, road and rail freight traffic. Montreal aims to become ‘the logistics centre for both maritime and air cargo logistics.’ Huge investments in cargo and logistics facilities are being made at almost every international airport in the world.
The growth in air cargo combined with increasing reliance on air transport by global manufacturers has led to the development of special logistics airports: Liege and Ostend in Belgium, Lyon and Chateauroux in France and Nashville in Tennessee. Ex military air bases are also being converted into specialist freight airports. These airports have encouraged logistics companies to set up their hubs at their sites. When TNT Express Worldwide chose Liege as its European hub cargo traffic at the airport shot up from 35,000 tonnes to 280,000 in three years. In the USA the Southern California Logistics Airport ( SCLA) is one of the new airports exclusively geared to logistics. It is a 5,000 acre multi-modal complex which integrates manufacturing and office uses with a dedicated international air cargo airport, a rail service and a trucking hub. This model is being followed elsewhere. The Beijing Airport Logistics Zone was opened in 2002.
SCLA has become a major hub for SwissGlobal Cargo, which is a joint venture between Panalpina, a container shipping line, and SairLogistics, the cargo subsidiary of Sair Group. This company flies in tonnes of electronic goods and garments from China for redistribution to global manufacturing corporations in North America and Europe.

Ports
Before looking at technological and organisational changes in the ports industry I will outline the political pressures for port reform. Such reforms are often a requirement of the Structural Adjustment Programmes demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank when they lend money to developing countries. By 1997 the World Bank had imposed reform on 230 ports in 24 developing and Eastern European countries. And the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is under pressure from global companies such as Hutchison Whampoa and APM Terminals, who between them have a 22.8 percent market share in the worlds ports industry, to eliminate restrictions on foreign ownership and management in ports. And the US Federal Maritime Commission has been applying pressure on the Japanese and Brazilian governments to change working practises on their waterfronts. And in the European Union (EU) in recent years there have been moves to open up ports to market access, this has been strongly resisted by dockers across the EU. The matter will not go away though and port workers must be ready for further attacks by the state, be that as the EU or the WTO. I will look at this particular struggle later in the document.
As I said above one of the drivers for changes in the ports industry is Hutchison Whampoa, which is a Chinese company. A brief description of their business will give some idea of the spread of the global terminal operators. They have a 13.3 percent share of the market and move some 36.7 million containers a year. They have 175 berths in 31 ports in 15 countries: Argentine, Bahamas, Britain, Burma, China (Hong Kong), Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania and Thailand. It is estimated that by 2008 the top four companies, of which Hutchison Whampoa is the biggest, will control over one third of the world’s container port capacity. The big four are already active in over 90 ports in 37 countries. The gap between them and the rest is widening.
The key used by the state to allow private companies access to the ports industry is privatisation. On the docks the four main port models are:
Public Service: The government continues to own the infrastructure (berths, wharfs, waterways, channels and roads) and the superstructure (cranes, warehouses, cargo handling equipment, office buildings and communications network) and to employ the port labour.
Tool Port: All the port administration, infrastructure, buildings and equipment remain in public hands. Some services, especially cargo handling, are concessioned to the private sector to run and employ the necessary labour.
Landlord Port: The government, through the Port Authority, owns the land and other infrastructure and runs the port administration. The superstructure with the employment of labour is taken over by the private sector. At least 88 of the world’s top container terminals follow this model.
Fully Privatised Port: The government sells all assets including land, berths and basins to the private sector and retains no controlling interest. This form of privatisation is rare, only occurring at some ports in Britain, Greece and New Zealand. Liverpool is an example.
Container ships are measured in TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit). This means that a 6000 TEU ship can carry the equivalent of 6000 twenty-foot containers, although its actual load may be made up of containers of various sizes. The size of container ships can have an impact on the business of ports. In 1998, Maersk-SeaLand, one of the largest container shipping consortia in the world, revealed its intention to consolidate its East Coast of North America trade in one hub. It invited a number of ports to bid for this business, a traffic in excess of 700,000 TEUs per year, more than the total container shipments of all but a few of the largest ports in the world. This prize was dangled before the port administrations of Baltimore, Boston, Hampton Roads, Halifax, New York-New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Quonset Point (RI). Maersk-SeaLand expected the bidders to meet certain conditions that if met would require unprecedented concessions from the port authorities just to remain in contention. Of the three ports short-listed by Maersk-SeaLand in December 1998, two made significant efforts to win the business, Baltimore and Halifax. Halifax lined up several hundred million dollars in capital to help defray the costs of providing Maersk with dedicated berth and rail access. Baltimore got the state of Maryland to dredge the access channel to the port as well as offering the company 335 acres of the 550 acre Dundalk container terminal. The Maersk bidding approach resulted in most of the competing ports making significant concessions. Other shipping consortia have applied similar pressures on port authorities. The port of Seattle has recently invested some $72 million on a dedicated terminal for a Chinese shipping company, this investment will guarantee that the company continues to use the port for the next ten years. Seattle, by the way, is the main port for Chinese imports. And it sometimes works the other way around; the Chinese shipping company Cosco is considering investing $664.3 million in developing a container terminal in Hamburg, which handles more cargo from China than any other European port. This would follow on from a major investment in the port of Antwerp, Belgium by the shipping company.
Container ships are getting bigger, 8000 TEU vessels are in production, and there is talk of 10,000 and 12,000 TEU constructions. These giant ships are effecting changes in the ports industry, producing hub and spoke systems. Due to the size of these ships (a recent design for an 8000 TEU ship measured 338 metres in length and had a breath of more than 46 metres) only certain ports can accommodate them. For example, Rotterdam would be a hub port and other European ports would be spoke ports, which means that when a 8000 TEU ship arrives at Rotterdam smaller ships will come from other ports bringing containers to be loaded on it and, if necessary, take containers from it back to the smaller ports. The hub and spoke system demands a high level of synchronization between the ports and the various vessels. In Europe Bremerhaven and Hamburg have installed giant cranes with the reach to unload ships with a breath of 46 metres so they can become hub ports. This sort of investment does not guarantee that ports will win such business, though. The giant logistics companies and shipping consortiums will not be tied to old loyalties, just because a shipping line has always traded between Liverpool and New York it doesn’t mean it will continue to do so. If a logistics company controlling a supply chain can save money and/or time by shipping from Bristol instead of Liverpool it will do so. Its only loyalty is to its shareholders.

Impact of Information Technology
The impact of Information Technology (IT) upon logistics and supply chains is immense and I will now try to outline how it works. The most successful companies use IT systems that allow all the participants in a supply chain to access the information needed to keep flows moving along the supply chain. An example is the information hub model, this instantly processes and forwards all relevant information to all appropriate parties. The hub is a node in the data network where multiple organizations interact in pursuit of supply chain integration. It has the capabilities of data storage, information processing and push/pull publishing. The overall network forms a hub and spoke system with the participants internal information systems being the spokes. An analogue to the information hub in the physical logistics world is ‘cross docking’, a process in which products from multiple supply sources arriving at a logistics hub are sorted in accordance to the needs of destination points. They are then delivered to the destination points without being stored at the hub. In a similar fashion, the information hub allows critical supply and demand data to be ‘cross-docked’ and seamlessly forwarded to the right partners at the right time. These global companies to control their costs and revenues have developed in-house banking systems and payment factories. According to a report by Killen and Associates, a company with $1 billion in revenues can waste as much as $32 million annually through inefficient working capital and processing functions. It is not surprising therefore, that businesses are increasingly focusing on reducing idle cash and rationalising processes. These financial set-ups operate like a hub and spoke system as I understand it, but I don’t understand them well enough to go into detail. I’m still trying to get my head around it.
Cross docking is a warehouse management technique that can significantly reduce storage and handling costs; a study of the food service supply industry in 2000 estimated that cross docking could save the industry $830 million. In cross docking, incoming goods are identified at receiving and immediately routed for outbound shipping, without being placed into warehouse storage. Cross docking does not work if materials can’t be identified quickly and accurately, making bar code and RFID use essential for the operation. Mobile bar code label printers are especially valuable for the process. Shipping and receiving workers equipped with mobile computers, bar code scanners and label printers can receive inbound shipments, log them into the host warehouse or inventory control system with the mobile computer, then immediately generate a bar code shipping label with the required cross dock information using the mobile printer, which may be mounted to a forklift truck or worn on a belt or shoulder strap. Some mobile printers can also connect directly to wireless LANs to manage communication between the host system and the warehouse worker.
RFID can also facilitate efficient cross docking, incoming pallets or cartons with smart labels can be automatically routed for cross docking or delivery directly to the manufacturing line because the fast reading capabilities enable instant identification of the shipping container plus all the of the individual items inside. For shipping on, RFID readers can help packers quickly locate and aggregate all the items needed to complete the load. Cross docking combines receiving, putaway and shipping operations to minimize product handling. Each of these traditional steps can also benefit by identifying materials with bar code or RFID. For traditional receiving applications, a bar code label on incoming shipments can be scanned to record the item’s arrival. Manifest data or information from an Advance Ship Notice (ASN) electronic data interchange message can be included on the label in a 2-D barcode or smart label to provide more detailed shipping information. Shipment identification information can be forwarded to the warehouse management system, typically over a wireless LAN, which records the arrival, updates inventory records and provides putaway instructions to the receiving worker. In this way all materials are tracked automatically and accurately. And so are the workers. UPS has just announced the introduction of a new generation of driver hand held computers to ‘aid efficiency and fuel consumption.’

Conclusion
To conclude; the complexity and geographical spread of supply chains combined with JIT and low inventories makes capital vulnerable to attack. The continuing growth in world trade and the developing labour shortages in the logistics industry should put the working class in a strong position to mount such an attack, but it is still on the back foot. In my opinion the particular composition of the class that is starting to become visible within the world of logistics is a harbinger of troubles to come. In the past the distinction between blue collar and white collar workers in the industry was clear, but today that is changing as the discipline of the production line is imposed throughout the supply chain and IT allows workers to carry out functions that were previously the business of the office staff. And it is IT that can be the vehicle for organising throughout the industry. The open ended communication systems being developed to coordinate supply chain integration offer opportunities to workers for cross company and cross border dialogue. And studies indicate that workers are not slow to take the opportunity. A study by UCLA found that 60.7% of employees visit the web for personal use and one by International Data Corporation estimated that 30% to 40% of employee internet use is not work related. And it is estimated that 60% of hacking attacks against a company originate within the organisation. Furthermore, a survey of 15,000 workplace computers found that 20% had file-sharing software installed illicitly. Just as the mass worker of the Fordist production system learned to use the factory’s technology against the imposition of work the logistics worker will, I believe, do the same. But what will be the response to the struggles that spring forth? When I worked at Fords in the seventies groups like Big Flame leafleted regularly, in fact, when there was a struggle going on they would be there daily. Their leaflets were a source of information to counteract the company’s propaganda. In a factory of 14,000 workers operating three different shift systems they helped us to find out what was going on. Now I know it is a little bit difficult to leaflet trucks as they hurtle down highways and the same goes for air and rail freight too, but, in my opinion, we do need to engage with the world of supply chains. That is why I feel there is a need for a workers inquiry, a need for those of us within the movement to engage with workers in the largest industry in the world.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

The question of what to do when faced with redundancies and company closures regularly returns as the order of the day in the preoccupations of comrades. Why should we be surprised? It’s not that relocations are that much more numerous than they were in the past. Only those who only want to remember things on the scale of one generation can think in this way, because it has always been the case across industrial sectors, and not just during the last five or ten years. From the textile industry to iron and coal mining, from shoemaking to steel… Capital always reorganises its production, closing here and transferring there, abandoning technologies which have become obsolete so as to rush into new markets which become out-dated in their turn.
This is the very nature of capitalism, its principal means of ensuring its survival throughout the cycles of development. There is no miracle. While capitalism dominates, it will be like this. And yet, despite this, tens of thousands of workers, hundreds of thousands at certain points, are confronted with problems of closure or displacement of their place of exploitation, and each time the same question is asked: what do we do to defend ourselves? [...]

Why struggle?
But there begins the real problem for workers. It is not the end, it is the beginning! Often the employees are distraught at the announcement of enterprise closures. Time and time again over the last few years we have seen men and women of our class really crying in front of the TV cameras which, no doubt, thoroughly enjoy the spectacle of proletarians in despair. This is the worst thing that can happen to us: not the closure of businesses, but proletarians who sink into despair. In this case, alas there isn’t much to do. As always, if proletarians don’t raise their heads, they are sunk. But there are also plenty of other situations in which our class brothers and sisters want to find a way out of the sorry situation they find themselves in.
And in this kind of situation, conscious[1] workers must not make any mistake about the objective. We won’t see the end of business closures and redundancies without fighting against the capitalist mode of production, obviously! But when workers confronting this sort of situation want to take the bit between their teeth it would be a grave error to content ourselves with harping on about how there is no solution within the framework of capitalist society. Because here proletarians are not concerned with fighting to kill the system of exploitation, but with saving their skins. And they are right. If the struggle of proletarians commits itself resolutely against the closure of businesses, as communists we are resolutely on their side, and without reservations. But also without demagoguery.
It is not a question of snivelling like the trade unionist leftists[2] of all persuasions about “the capacities of our firm, which is in a perfect condition to produce”or “our skills which will be lost”or other nonsense which we unfortunately hear too often. The most important strength of the working class is its collective consciousness. In the first place, the understanding that, from the moment when the boss, in his permanent search for productivity gains, has made the choice to sacrifice this or that sector of production, this site of manufacturing, it means that it has nothing to do with “our competence”or with the fact that the site he has chosen to close is in a perfect condition; he really doesn’t give a toss about that. He has worked it out and made his decisions. Our know-how, our skills, our past efforts… he doesn’t give a damn. The skills of workers, the know-how, the perfect condition of the installation, or worse, the historic cradle of the firm, all that, the boss tells us by his actions, does not count in the making of the decision. And to be able to defend ourselves effectively after the blow of the closure decision has fallen, we have to learn the reasons of capital well, not to accept them but to be better able to fight against their concrete consequences.
As elsewhere, where the boss wants to transfer his production, there are skills, there is know-how, there are installations which are or will be at the height of technological innovation. To believe that we are irreplaceable here because we are the best is a stupid vanity which can only lead us to a dead end because it is to accept the game of competition between workers which the boss wants to trap us in. Those who travel this road want to prove that they are the best, that they are better than the others, that “our workplace”performs best, etc., and they are beaten before they begin. We have already seen this hundreds of times.
No, in the case where workers react angrily to closure, it is not these arguments which have to be put forward. They condemn us in advance. On the contrary, conscious workers have a duty to defend arguments which are both true and perfectly convincing. [...]

Some examples
In the examples which follow, we will see “the unions”cited as actors in the struggle. The idea that the unions can be, once again, organs of struggle created and run by the workers is a long way from our point of view.[3] But in considering the type of struggle, it often turns out that the union militants in a workplace (including the union delegates) participate, even launching the struggle against redundancies while defending the idea and the practice of selling their skin more expensively, to the great displeasure of those who think that trade unionism is “all black”or “all white”without seeing the infinite shades of grey which arise during a struggle.
There is no point in hiding the fact that, in France, whatever may be the workers’ will to struggle (and whether the nature of the struggle is offensive or defensive), there have not been examples (apart from the Renault strike in April-May 1947 or a few workplaces in May-June 1968 and then only for a limited time) of the creation of workers regroupments doing something other than “honest”, base trade unionism, and transforming themselves into political committees capable of thinking of the struggle before during and after as going beyond the horizon of capital and putting into practice the necessity of revolution. And in this situation, the “revolutionary”militants, by refusing to put forward this perspective, and by restricting themselves to the false alternative of base unionism today and councils (or the party, according to their ideology) the day after tomorrow, bear an important part of the responsibility.
Let’s return to the examples, certainly few in number, during the last thirty or forty years, where the workers set out resolutely on the road of struggle against redundancies. From memory, we can cite Rateau at La Courneuve, near Paris. The bosses had announced in the years after May ‘68 that they wanted to close the place but they backed down in the face of the real threat of a conflict which would shake the whole of the Saint-Denis Seine. We should remember that at that time, in that district, as in the whole belt around Paris, there was a tremendous concentration of factories. The threat of the CGT-PCF replying to an eventual closure of Rateau by a conflict across the whole region had pushed back the bosses who knew that the Stalinist apparatus, at that time, possessed the means to carry out its policy. Rateau did not close. The bosses set about it in another way by taking decades to gradually remove the workforce and the production. Up until last year, when there was still a burst of activity at Rateau (now Alsthom) in La Courneuve. Finally, the bosses have achieved the objective. But that, as long as capitalism survives is inevitable.[4] Another example of a workers battle of this type is that of La Chapelle Darblay, a paper mill in Normandy that the bosses had decided to close in the 1980s. For months the workers and the CGT union had conducted a guerrilla campaign: blocking roads, massive demonstrations, battles with the cops... That lasted two years without a break. The business was technologically obsolete but the proletarians did not accept being sacked. It was the French state which finally decided that it had to stop the waste of time. To preserve 1000 jobs, there was a billion Francs of investment. A million Francs per job preserved. There were some job losses, early retirements and negotiated departures. But a good part of the workers kept their places.
And still today, after many restructurations, buyouts, etc., the firm still has around 500 workers and produces a third of the paper for newspapers made in France. Even there, as long as capitalist society functions more or less long term, proletarians will not be able to prevent the search for gains in productivity.
The workers are not bound to be beaten when the bosses decide to close such or such a firm. They have to understand well that it is difficult, that the outcome is uncertain, that they can’t scrimp on struggle, but, finally, for the worker it is a case of: are we ready to put the same energy into defending our means of existence that we put all year (and even decade) long into the service of the bosses in the process of exploitation? It is first of all and above all this question that we have to respond to. And if we are ready to respond in the affirmative, then, there is always a perspective. [...]

Alsthom, 1972
From this perspective, that of proletarians obtaining the least bad conditions possible, there are plenty of examples available. In the aftermath of 1968, an average firm like Delle-Alsthom, in Saint-Ouen[5], was the talk of the town when workers’ struggles were at a high level. In 1972, the bosses announced that the D.A. site of Saint-Ouen would close. There were 530 employees, and at that time redundancy payments were symbolic: one twentieth of a month per year worked. In that place there was a young and combative working class. It was so badly paid that while the young changed bosses as soon as they could find something better, the old, most often hired after the war, only aspired to retire, and as soon as possible. At that time it was at age 65.
They launched the strike with an occupation to get some money. The demand from that time appears today to be incredibly modest: they wanted three months wages for everyone by way of redundancy money. It was the CFDT which ran the operations in this factory where the PCF was nevertheless hegemonic. A team of combative militants, excluded from the CGT in 1967, took refuge in the CFDT and acted in some ways almost as if they were an autonomous workers’ committee.
A leaflet distributed all over Saint-Ouen at the beginning of the battle, signed by the secretary of the CFDT said: “…we cannot be certain that we are going to win, because the outcome of a struggle is always uncertain, but we are going to make them pay for their dirty tricks, etc.”At least it was clear.
The strike was total, with workshops and offices occupied….. And victorious. By a whisker they got the three month payments, and the old, for one of the very first times in France, saw themselves offered the possibility of ceasing waged activity at the age of fifty seven and a half. Officially, the possibility of retirement at 60 came to be instituted, and with 30 months on ASSEDIC (paid at 80 %), that made 57 and a half years. There were also not bad redeployments for volunteers (there was very little unemployment at that time). And yet this place was part of the CGE trust which prided itself on never giving in to strikers. But this strike took place at exactly the same time as that of Joint Français at Saint-Brieuc which was also an affiliate of CGE, and which made the front pages of the newspapers for having resisted an intervention by the CRS.
And when, at the end of 15 days of striking, demonstrations, sabotage operations (notably against the CGE stand at the electrical components fair), the situation was still blocked, a squad of strikers seized the PA system of the factory to announce that the strikers of DA would that very afternoon go down to the workshops of the other Alsthom de Saint-Ouen factory, la Savoisienne, where there were 1400 workers, to launch the strike. The bosses knew it was no joke and chose the very next morning to put forward proposals which led to results. The end of the strike was voted on with 80% of the workers present. It was unanimous less one vote and one abstention. The atmosphere and the results were such that the boys said “if they finally announce that it won’t close, we’ll go back on strike for it to close”.
If the bosses no longer wanted that factory, the mass of workers couldn’t stand the sight of it either. And during the months after the strike, the aggression of the workers waiting to be laid off knew no bounds. They had to move equipment, tons of archives and plans to the other factories in the group, and they managed to sell it instead. It was moved , but it wouldn’t really be true say it was reused.

Steel Industry, 1979
Not so far back, and on a larger scale, was the fight of the steel workers of the North and East of France in 1979. Within the framework of the general reorganisation of steel production in Europe, the French bosses announced the closure of a good part of the steelworks, also including (which is nothing new) some brand new production sites.
For several months there were more or less violent demonstrations. During the rising in Paris, on 23 March 1979, the lads rolled tens of tons of rolled up sheet metal into the street. On another occasion, the Longwy police station was attacked with a bulldozer following fighting on a demonstration.
For sure, in parallel, the unions, political parties, mayors, priests and similar organised “dead town”days, which caused a striker to say on television : “when are we going to replace the ‘dead town’ days by town in revolt weeks, and minutes of silence by appeals to struggle?”. This expressed the ambiance very well.
In the end, steel industry proletarians obtained guarantees never seen before, retirement at 49 etc. They did not stop the closure of steelworks – they couldn’t do that and it wasn’t their objective. This was put forward by the unions, but not by the workers.

Chausson, 1995
Even nearer to our time is an episode of the same kind which occurred when Renault and Peugeot decided to liquidate their common affiliate, the Chausson factory of Creil in the Oise district.[6] Over the years there had been repeated planned redundancy schemes which had reduced the work force from more than 7000 to less than 1500. Finally there was the announcement of closure, with the resulting apoplexy of the comrades.
Much has been written about this closure, drawing out one or other aspect of it, but what interests us as militant workers, is the struggle. The fight only got going right at the end of the process of liquidation, and it took a lot of time for the workers to finally be convinced that they had to do it, because if they didn’t they were going to be thrown out with just a few crumbs.
There was a mixture of radical trade unionism and rank and file worker reactions, with all the unions, but also with a more or less independent strike committee, with workers taking initiatives without going through the unions. The comrades did some pretty good actions: from taking the stage of the 8 o’clock television news on TF1 to often turbulent demonstrations in the region, from invading the Renault Flins factory and running in chain formation (with some bailiffs almost being stripped naked), to several occasions when glass was broken at the trade disputes court etc. We can remember the games of hide and seek with the CRS when the lads left Creil for some operations with false meeting places, bogus trips to disperse the cops, etc.
In short, the comrades did not sink into tearful petitions. This was left to the dead town unions (on the department or federal level) and co. The comrades didn’t do too badly and anyway did much better than was expected at the start of the liquidation. Workers retired at 50 and even 49 for some (at a time when it was normally more then 60) with compensation which, while not extraordinary, was far superior to previous planned redundancies, and reasonable redeployment to other factories, Renault amongst others, although the geographical location of the factories was a real problem in this case because they had to move to another region. We could cite a number of other examples. But for us communists who are concerned with the independence of proletarians vis-à-vis unions and all the channels by which the state tries to make workers’ contestation go away, these are the interesting ones because, on various levels, they involved the appearance of real forms of workers’ autonomy, where the militants refused the siren songs of reformism.
Because there lies the trap for militants. Whatever is the objective workers fix when they enter into struggle, a choice immediately imposes itself: support committee or workers’ committee and strike committee.

Support committee or workers’ committee and strike committee: The more or less combative trade unionists (there’s no question there) and now almost all the militants who call themselves extreme left are creating or getting involved in support committees. Integrated as they are into the very heart of the state, their first preoccupation is to unite the various components : unions, political parties, MPs, mayors, regional councillors, priests and bishops if possible, so as to constitute a committee of support, claiming that it is to support the struggle of the workers, but always with the result that this is pushed into the background.

Unilever, 2000-2001
Here is another exemplary case. A Lever firm, at Haubourdin close to Lille, went through several restructuring plans which reduced the workforce from more than 2000 to 453 employees in a few years. It was a firm belonging to the agro-food giant Unilever, which was engaged in a global battle against Nestlé and Danone and which confronted Procter & Gamble with its washing powder and cleaning products. Unilever had to restructure its use of production and rid itself of obsolete factories like the one at Haubourdin.
In April 2000, they announced the phased closure of the site for December 2000. The reaction of the workers started out rather half-heartedly behind the CGT-CFDT-FO inter-union group, and began by looking for the support of political or trade union professionals.
Then a demonstration in Rotterdam, on 2 May 2000, to protest against the 25,000 redundancies across the world announced by the group was simply clubbed down by the Dutch police. From then on the nature of the struggle changed. The workers decided to intervene in all the public events of the Lille region (the Lille fair, various Inaugurations, etc.) so as to appeal to the good memories of the Socialist Party politicians (Aubry, Mauroy, etc.) and then made systematic visits to all the local firms, starting with those on strike, then all the others to explain the reasons for the struggle, and demonstrations at the French headquarters of Unilever in June 2000, at the Belgian headquarters in Waterloo in October 2000, etc.
Finally, rather than snivelling, as the trade unionists of Danone were to do later by appealing for a boycott of Danone products, the workers took over the supermarkets of the region and distributed the Unilever products free to the customers. They even got into the Auchan hypermarket at Vélizy in the Paris region at one point.
During the struggle, between actions, the workers continued to work and thus got their pay, which reinforced cohesion. The majority participated in the strike or in actions, and even if the inter-union group was to the fore, the workers had the feeling of leading their own strike.
The result of events in April 2001: the redundancy payments were considerably increased (to around 250,000 Francs) and 189 employees kept their jobs, the factory resuming work.[7] Even if demands like “stop redundancies in firms that make a profit”were put forward by the political militants, this struggle showed that, providing they display imagination and collective strength, workers can sell their skin dearly.

Danone, 2001
The best example that we can cite in this matter is what happened at the Lu factory of the Danone group in Ris Orangis[8] when the management announced that it would liquidate the factory. Here are the facts. The closure project was revealed by the newspaper Le Monde of 11 January 2001. On 12 January in the morning an inter-union leaflet[9] dated the 12th and signed by all the unions in the factory announced: A meeting took place at 11.00 between the Mayor of Ris, Mr. Mandon and the factory unions.
A coordination of mayors of the municipalities containing the Lu factories was created on the initiative of Mr. Mandon and some members of the general council. A first meeting of this coordination took place in the offices of the general assembly. The aim is to meet the Minister of Labour. He has assured all the Lu employees of his most total support.
A round table will be organised by the Prefect of Evry during the next week. A meeting of staff representatives of the Europe group on Wednesday 17 January. A meeting of staff representatives at the EU Commission on 18 January.
Thus, 24 hours after the announcement of the closure project everything is stitched up. All the meetings were fixed with the mayors, the Prefect, the Minister, councillors… The workers in the factory (which in this particular case were mostly women labourers) hadn’t been given a single word in the matter.
The leftist trade unionists in the factory had made the choice not to organise the workers’ response, not to involve the workers in decisions to defend themselves directly but to look for help from the state institutions. And everything which happened subsequently around Lu Danone, that is to say not a lot, was predetermined by this political choice to betray the workers’ interests.
Because in this matter, the trade unionists had led the workers from demonstrations to rallies, had hammed it up in front of the media, had held “speak outs”as they called them, but at no point did they have the will to rely on the potential combativity of the workers. On the day of the EU Commission meeting, at the Danone headquarters, the anger was obvious amongst the workers who’d turned out in large numbers. The unionists went into meetings with the bosses lasting hours, leaving everyone in the street in the bitter cold, without bringing back even the slightest bit of information. Obviously, little by little, the participants in the gathering disappeared into the nearby cafés. And this choice was deliberate. It’s a trick used time and time again by trade unionists to disperse gatherings without saying so, so as not to base themselves on the strength of the workers.[10] Two months later a demonstration was organised at Château-Thierry where there is another factory in the same group. At the rally in front of the (Socialist Party) town hall, there was not a single discordant note. The mayor and the puppets in sashes, with the factory delegates repeating exactly the same discourse of resignation with the leftists not even wanting to intervene, surrendering their place directly to the state apparatus. This whole little world appealing to the Left to pass a law against redundancies in firms that make a profit.
Because let’s recall the situation: Danone, whose MD, Franck Riboud, is a personage classified as “on the left”. The government was left-wing, Jospin. The PCF was in the government. The MP for Ris Orangis, Mandon, was in the Socialist Party. The general council had a left majority. Etc. And the whole little circle of leftist trade unionists ceaselessly drained the independence of the working class even before it had the slightest chance to show itself.
In the end, there was no struggle of the workers of Lu Danone, apart from a little strike at Calais. If the workers didn’t do too badly from the point of view of redeployments and compensation, no one can say that it was the result of the non-existent struggle, but because Danone had called some of these places “social”, and paid for peace. The MD effectively declared: “it’s better to get on with closing sites now that the firm has the means to compensate the staff rather than wait because then it perhaps won’t be possible any more”.

By way of a conclusion
The attitude of conscious militants in the examples cited above has been very varied. At Chausson Creil, during the months and months before the closure, the mass of workers did not believe it and did not feel ready to fight. In this case the best political militants can’t do much. Then, as time passed, the workers became conscious of what had to happen. During all that time the most conscious militants did not abandon the perspective of struggle. They did not walk into that treason of support committees with various components of the state, and when struggle became possible they did not do something else.
As for Alsthom Delle at the time, the Trotskyists had launched a support committee in Saint-Ouen with the secondary school students and some political hacks. But the worker militants, who were then in Lutte Ouvrière[11], had been clear from the announcement of the closure that they would never participate.
And yet, there as well, the mass of the workers took some time to convince themselves that struggle was the only way out. Paradoxically, while this was a factory where the workers had a reputation for often being on strike, when the bosses announced that the factory was going to close, it took several months before the strike became possible.
And this fundamental difference between the advocates of support committees and the partisans of workers’ and strike committees is as old as opportunism. A comrade who lived through the 1947 strike at Renault, told us how one day, at that time, when the strike committee ran things in the two departments on strike, a Trotskyist from another workshop, who was invited to the meetings of the strike committee, proposed the creation of… a support committee. The response of the comrades was clear and definite: “no way. The strikers themselves must remain the masters of how their strike is conducted”. It’s enough to say that this opposition between revolutionary workers’ politics and opportunism on the question didn’t begin yesterday.
Nothing is certain in this world, the situation of the wage worker along with the rest. Today you have a permanent contract, tomorrow, perhaps in three or six months or in three years, you’ll find yourself laid off. And it will always be like that as long as we haven’t put paid to the capitalist system. Fear doesn’t save the worker from this danger ! On the contrary, it weakens him and makes the threat seem more dreadful and concrete. It’s all a question of the morale of the working class in the struggle against capital. Even when it is very pressing, the worst thing for the women and men of our class is not poverty, it is despair. Comrade worker, in the face of the bosses’ blows, don’t give in, fight back, it’s your only hope.
[Brussels-Paris, 26 March 2005]

For all correspondence write (without adding anything else to the address) to: BP 1666, Centre Monnaie 1000, Bruxelles 1, Belgium.

Footnotes:
[1] Of their class interests for sure!
[2] They are not the only mourners but they are the most significant example of them.
[3] See MC Letter no. 11 “Trade unions and political struggle”.
[4] As always it is but a single generation of workers who have protected their jobs.
[5] A city close to Paris.
[6] 50 km north of Paris
[7] In May 2003, when a buyer failed to appear, the 189 workers found themselves on the streets and began a desperate but still pugnacious struggle, at the same time as the movement against the pension reform.
[8] 25 km south-east of Paris.
[9] We have this text available. See also: Bulletin Ouvrier n°2.
[10] Translator’s Note – you might say “the cops use baton charges, the Left use MPs and union leaders”.
[11] Translator’s Note - Lutte Ouvrière is an organisation (and a paper) similar to the SWP in Britain. It is a large, extremely populist and opportunist Trotskyist party. The only difference is that it has a tradition of being more critical of the unions than the SWP.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

In 1996 The Liberal Party (analogous to the UK Conservatives) led by John Howard in coalition with the National Party (the farmers party) won control of the federal government after 13 years of Labor government. In October 2004 Howard won his fourth term in office and for the first a time since the early 1980s an Australian government has a majority in the upper house of Parliament, the Senate. In the first three terms of the Howard government they were forced to negotiate with independent, Greens or Australian Democrats (a small centrist party) senators to pass their legislation. So with this Senate majority the government has returned to its austerity agenda which largely stalled in 2000-01. The centrepiece of this agenda is an attack on wages and conditions by changing the laws governing employment. The legislation will not come before Parliament until September and has not yet been made public but according to the government the following changes will be included in the reform package:
Unfair dismissal protection for workers in companies with less than 100 employees will be removed. This will leave 5 million workers or two-thirds of the workforce with no recourse to the unfair dismissal laws. Larger companies are also expected to take advantage of this situation by splitting their businesses so that no single legal entity employs more than 100 people. This will obviously give the bosses much greater power in the workplace with the possibility of instant dismissal hanging over most workers if they step out of line.
The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC), the court which currently sets minimum wages, will be replaced with a Fair Pay Commission whose members will have no security of tenure and thus be easily replaceable by the government if they don’t set the wages the government wants. The Workplace Relations minister, Kevin Andrews, has stated that minimum wage workers are overpaid by $70/week.
It will be much easier for workers to be shifted onto individual contracts known as Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). Currently only 5% of workers are on AWAs with the rest employed either under state or federal awards, which are negotiated before the AIRC between the unions and employer bodies for an entire industry or Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBAs) that are also usually negotiated by unions.
AWAs will only have to include provisions covering holiday leave, personal leave, parental leave and maximum hours. Employers will no longer be required to pay overtime, weekend and public holiday loadings or make redundancy payments. Under AWAs employers will be able to forcibly pay out up to two weeks of the standard four weeks annual leave. Secret ballots run by the Australian Electoral Commission will have to be held before industrial action can legally be taken. These ballots can take up to 10 days to organise, so they are designed to stop industrial action. Any ”third party” that claims to have been affected by industrial action will be able apply to the AIRC to have it stopped. There will be more severe penalties against individual workers and unions for engaging in ”illegal” industrial action. The government business practices watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, will be able to interfere in disputes and take legal action against a union even when the employer doesn’t want to pursue legal action.
In response to these looming attacks on workers the unions organised demonstrations in dozens of cities and larger towns between June 26 and July 1 with a combined attendance of some 300 000 people. Many workers effectively went on strike for at least part of the day to attend the protests. Australia Post and pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smith Kline obtained injunctions from the AIRC to stop their workers attending. 185 posties have had disciplinary action begun against them for attending the rallies.
Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, had the largest protest with perhaps 150 000 attending. A comrade who was there said that the demonstration was 70% male, predominantly blue collar and organised by workplace.
In the state of New South Wales the unions didn’t originally intend to hold demonstrations instead organising a state-wide mass meeting linked by satellite TV. However the desire of workers to take action forced the unions in NSW to organise protests. However in Australia’s largest city, Sydney, the unions split the demonstrations up with 20,000 marching in the CBD and smaller rallies in various suburbs.
Here in Canberra only 500 turned up at the Hyatt Hotel to protest against the Liberal Party meeting being held there but it was a Sunday morning. I heard one construction worker ask another ”are we going to storm the joint?” This was probably a reference to the events of August 19 1996 when a few thousand people left a union rally against the Howard government’s first budget and attempted to storm Parliament House. Those events still haunt the unions and the current campaign is the first time since then that unions have mobilised workers in a political campaign against the government. Given an outlet to express their frustrations with the worsening standard of living in Australia workers attended the protests in large numbers. This was more despite the unions than because of them. The unions spent $8 million on TV ads attacking the changes yet the ads didn’t advertise the demonstrations.
If AWAs become the norm there will be little role for unions as institutionalised mediators. The unions are thus mobilising workers to try and convince employers and the government that unions are still needed to control workers antagonism. Despite the widespread desire to strike against the reforms the unions have no intention of organising strikes and are instead hoping to influence Liberal or National senators to break with the government they are part of and vote down the legislation.
Workers in Australia sadly have little recent tradition of autonomous action and there do not appear to be any moves to organise opposition to the changes separately from the unions. There is another round of demonstrations planned for August and September but if no serious antagonism is expressed then the changes will no doubt go through.
To be continued…

Further Reading
* ”Australia: mass protests against industrial relations legislation” World Socialist Website, 2 July 2005, www.wsws.org
* Bolton, Sue. ”Howard’s lies on industrial relations ‘reforms’”, Green Left Weekly July 20 2005, www.greenleft.org.au
* Deer, Luke. ”’Precisely because it was the seat of government’: The Parliament House riot of 1996”, www.anu.edu.au
* Head, Mike. ”Australia: New workplace laws to slash pay and conditions”, World Socialist Website, 14 June 2005, www.wsws.org

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

In the last issue we published the translators’ preface for the German edition of Beverly J. Silver’s book “Forces of Labor”[1]. The author came to Germany in early June 2005 to present the book. This is an interview for the German magazine “Analyse + Kritik” [http://www.akweb.de]

In your book Forces of Labor you put a certain emphasis on the perspective that labor unrest is a kind of driving force of the development of capitalism. That bears a specific resemblance to an approach in Europe called workerism or autonomist Marxism. Are there any direct connections with that kind of thought or is this resemblance accidental?
The emphasis on labor unrest as something that is continuously transforming capitalism in part comes out of US traditions. I grew up in Detroit in the 1960s, and there was in the general understanding of the 1930s sit-down struggles in Detroit this idea of the structural strength of workers - that is, the idea that workers’ gains came in large part through their strategic position at the point of production. This is something that has been developed in US labor history and industrial sociology. One of the major influences on my work is the writings of Piven and Cloward.[2] There are several arguments that they use at the national level in terms of discussing the history of poor people’s movements in the US, that reoccur in FoL, but brought to a global scale. There is the idea of major advances or transformations coming through upsurges that come only periodically, that these upsurges are themselves not the result of efforts by organizers or political parties, but that they come out of structural conditions that allow for certain kinds of movements. And, in particular, in the understanding of the 1930s’ labor unrest they emphasize the structural, positional power of workers at the point of production, in terms of workers being able to push forward demands. At the same time, they emphasize that each of these upsurges is brought under control through a combination not only of repression, concessions and cooptation, but also through systematic transformations in the organization of production that weakens movements “behind their backs”, so to speak.
So there is that heritage or roots of the argument, but also one of the key intellectual influences on FoL has been my work with Giovanni Arrighi. During the early period of operaismo Arrighi was actually out of Italy, he was teaching in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and then Tanzania, developing arguments in which the problem of labor supplies and labor resistance was seen as central to how colonialism developed, as well as to the development of national liberation movements in Africa. When Arrighi went back to Italy in 1969, it was at the height of the autunno caldo. And at that point, there was the strong influence of the workers’ struggles at FIAT and, again, the recurrence of struggles where workers were very skeptical of politics and associational bargaining power and very determined to preserve their autonomous power and strength in the struggles - a social-political context that also strongly influenced the development of operaismo.
But there are several differences between the operaismo as it developed in Italy and the influences that came to me, to this book. In 1971 Arrighi and others formed the Gruppo Gramsci. From the start, in their perspective there was a very strong Third Worldism and global perspective, which was something that was not really there in the early operaismo. A second difference is a much stronger combined theoretical and empirical approach, as opposed to the more philosophical tendencies within much of operaismo. One of the strong emphases in the Gruppo Gramsci was on the actual, concrete study of empirical conditions on the ground as they influenced the nature of workers’ bargaining power. In this sense they were closer to Romano Alquati and Sergio Bologna than to Mario Tronti and Toni Negri. Finally, whereas certain tendencies within operaismo emphasized that the working class is strong, and getting stronger and stronger all the time, in FoL there is the attempt to see both the long term processes tending to strengthen labor, but also countertendencies brought about by the various capitalist fixes in response to the strength and militancy of labor.
On this last point, we also have developed our thinking over time. If you compare a piece that Arrighi and I published in 1984, “Labor Movements and Capital Mobility”[3] to FoL, you can see that there is a little bit of implicit self criticism in FoL and in later joint articles. The 1984 article emphasizes the growing strength of labor, the long term secular trend toward growing strength of labor on a world scale. Our argument was that the geographical relocation of capital in the 70s and early 80s had to some extent weakened labor where capital had moved out from, but strengthened labor elsewhere, and that overall, seen as a global tendency, the overall process was one of labor strengthening. Then the depth of the crisis of labor in many parts of the world in the 90s was not something that we were really prepared for. We began to say: okay, what happened? In thinking this through, we began to look at the impact of the financialization of capital (what I call in the book the “financial fix”) as a key explanation behind the depth of the crisis for labor. Up until the mid-80s capital had responded to labor’s strength with a series of fixes (spatial, technological/organizational, product), none of which were particularly effective in undermining the overall strength of labor. The result was a deep crisis of capitalism. Then the financialization of capital began to take-off; capital withdrew heavily from trade and production (and from the purchase of wage labor), turning the deep crisis of capital into a deep crisis for labor.
Let me circle back to the differences with operaismo: Another difference that I should mention has to do with - and I think this is a fair critique - the question of whether workers’ struggles are always good. This issue comes up in the development of the argument about boundary drawing in FoL, and the questions raised there about Marx’s and Engels’ interpretation of the homogenization process, of proletarianization, as producing an inherent tendency toward unified working class struggles. Workers’ struggles as localized defense are always understandable, but how do the localized defenses add up to something that leads toward greater global justice, global equality?

This kind of boundary drawing isn’t something that is put upon the working-class by capital, it’s produced within the working class, is that right?
I distinguish three kinds of boundary drawing. There is one that actually does come from the workers themselves. It is workers themselves using non-class bases of identity - citizenship, gender, race - in order to defend particular privileges. Because there is an ongoing tendency of capitalism to continuously bring workers into competition with each other through these various fixes, this is an inherent reaction, it’s an endemic kind of reaction. That doesn’t mean that the only boundary drawing is going on by workers themselves, but it also goes on by capital in terms of segmenting labor markets, and by states in terms of delimiting citizenship rights.
It’s also not to say that workers are not also involved in breaking down boundaries. What I suggest as a very broad conceptual apparatus to work with, is that if we look historically that established working classes, who are the beneficiaries of the last wave of struggles, attempt to maintain boundary drawing against competition from newly formed working-classes, whereas newly formed working-classes are more likely to try to break down the boundaries. If we look at rural migrant-workers that come into Chinese cities to work, the initial reaction of the established urban workers was to keep them out. The migrant workers themselves now are drawing on the language of citizenship rights in the urban areas and are saying that these kinds of distinctions between urban and rural workers and the rights of urban and rural workers shouldn’t have any place. We recurrently see that with struggles by immigrant workers; for example, both historically and today in the US, immigrant workers have argued that the same rights should apply to workers regardless of race, regardless of nationality.

In your book you mention three different types of labor power. In your comparison of the struggles of the automobile workers and the textile workers, you state that although textile workers were much more militant, they lost most of their struggles. Does that apply to a kind of hierarchy between the different types of power - sometimes I read it like that, that those parts of the working-class building their strength on the shopfloor, on the big factories for example, on workplace bargaining power, that, although they might be not as militant as others, their struggles are much more effective, they hurt capital much more. Is that right, is there that kind of hierarchy?
What I argue is that there is actually a similarity between the first round of successful struggles in Britain in the 19th century and in the US in the 1930s, in the initial phase of the product cycle. In those moments there is a certain amount of profits that are available that provide the potential for some kind of stable, redistributive social contract. In fact there was such an outcome in Britain in the late 19th century in textiles, and in the US in the 1930s in the automobile industry. In both cases, the wave of labor unrest led to a multi-decade social contract, in which there were some redistributive processes going on, where capitalists were forced to share part of the profits with labor.
There is, however, a difference in the basis of the strength of labor in the textile industry versus in the automobile industry. In the automobile industry the highly centralized organization of production means that a strike in, say, a part of the assembly line in a single engine-plant can bring an entire cooperation to a standstill; whereas this kind of structural workplace bargaining power didn’t exist in the textile industry because of its decentralized nature with many smaller and medium sized factories. Without this kind of workplace bargaining power, then workers’ victories had to depend on alternative sources of bargaining power. So I make the argument that associational bargaining power was much more important in the case of the initial textile industry victories.
If we look at the early 21st century, in some ways the bargaining power of workers within services industries - with multiple worksites, multiple employers - has much in common with the kind of situation faced by textile workers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, I suggest in FoL that associational power is likely to be more central to effective workers’ struggles in the present situation than it had been for much of the 20th century. But we can also underestimate the amount of workplace bargaining power that workers still have, even in the service sector industries. The most effective struggles will probably find ways to leverage a new combination of workplace and associational bargaining power.

There are voices that insist, all those workers in the precarious workplaces, they can’t fight, so we still have to concentrate on the factories and on the public sector with the large bureaus. Others say there aren’t any privileged places, everybody can fight wherever she/he is. What do you think about that?
Well, everybody can and often does fight wherever she or he is; but there still are privileged places, in the sense that there are places where workers have much stronger bargaining power; where their struggles have a much greater impact on capital and on state power. In part what I have argued is that, with each successive spatial fix, the privileged site of strong workplace bargaining power has moved successively to each new site of rapid industrialization. Thus, today a key place to look is China, which has been experiencing very rapid industrialization and proletarianization, including the creation of industrial sites in the automobile industry with workers concentrated in large factories, working on assembly lines, with workplace bargaining power that can be leveraged; and that, I expect, will be leveraged by Chinese workers.
With regard to the future of workers’ movements in the core, I think we should be asking: what are the new, main sites of working-class formation in the core countries? And then look to: what are the forms of bargaining power within the hands of these workers? It is useful to look at the existing struggles by these workers - even if they are for now still marginal in their impact - and the kinds of strategies they use. If you look for example at the US, particularly in California you have this round of very successful mobilizations by janitors, who were mostly immigrants, working in the office buildings downtown. They don’t have the kind of workplace bargaining power that comes from working in a complex division of labor – if one janitor does not work, this does not stop the whole thing, even if one building stops, this doesn’t stop the other buildings. There is, however, bargaining power that comes from the place-bound nature of the work. This ideology of globalization, that everything can move, anything can move anywhere, is not true: there are economies of agglomeration, there is tremendous sunken investments in terms of fixed capital in the buildings, so that it would be a huge loss of sunken capital to move. They can’t send the buildings overnight somewhere else to be cleaned. The ability to have successful struggles there comes from some elementary structural bargaining power that shouldn’t just be ignored.
But at the same time, it’s clear that there are capitalist organizational strategies in this industry - for example, the use of multiple subcontracting firms as the direct employer - that combined with the less complex division of labor means that these workers certainly have less workplace bargaining power than, say, automobile workers. So it is clear that the success of the ‘justice for janitors’ campaign also depended on developing and leveraging forms of associational bargaining power including community organizations and the power of a central trade union structure that played an important role in funnelling resources to the campaign.

Do you think that were the two main factors: a community based fight and the strength of the union?
Community organization was important, including networks that existed within immigrant communities. The SEIU (Service Employees International Union) played an important role, in that they provided significant financial resources for the campaign. The campaign was very expensive (legal and research costs) - which may be one of the limits of the campaign strategy. To be sure, there were lots of problems with that campaign (with the undemocratic, top-down nature of how things were done), but they were able to do something very important; to show that it was possible to mobilize and organize immigrant workers, and to win struggles in precarious workplaces.

In your book you write a lot about the textile and the automobile industry as the main industries of the 19th and 20th century. You try to identify certain industries or sectors which might become similarly important in the 21st century, but you are very cautious.
It is very difficult to identify a sector that has the kind of economic and also cultural weight that textiles had in the 19th and automobiles had in the 20th century. It may be because it is too soon to tell; that is, these types of transformations only become obvious to us post-facto. Or it may be because we are living through a real substantive transformation in the nature of capitalism. There is an argument to be made for semiconductors as a new leading sector in the sense of the multiple impacts that it has had, but at the same time it is not key in the sense that the semiconductor industry itself is not producing large working-classes - if anything its effect is to reduce total employment. In different ways, I think we should also be keeping an eye on both long-distance transportation and military-related industries. In a different direction, it is interesting to note one clear trend that came out of the World Labor Group data[4]: in the last decades of the twentieth century, labor unrest in the education industry, among teachers, showed a clear upward trend worldwide.

I think that is a consequence of what you have called a socializing state: big expenses in the public sector, social work, education…
Yes. So, the crude argument, ‘where capital goes, conflict goes’, is carried forward throughout the book – both as a geographical argument within industries (with each spatial fix), but also from industry to industry (with each product fix), including the movement of ‘capital’ into state sectors, with education understood as a key public sector industry.

Another question concerning intellectual heritage in FoL: Yesterday[5] you talked about ‘making and re-making’ of the working-class. Was there any resemblance with E.P. Thompson[6] and that kind of thought?
Certainly, understanding working class formation as a process is an important similarity. Clearly the strong emphasis in social history on grassroots struggles is an important source for this work. Also, the idea that consciousness often comes out of struggles, rather than being a pre-condition of struggles is implicit throughout the book – trying to problematize the assumption of a linear progression from proletarianization, to consciousness, to struggles to…

The mechanistic understanding of classical Marxism, the social category called labor class…
That’s right, that’s also an influence.

I found very interesting, as I understood, that you have an understanding of class as a kind of process, developing, shaping and re-shaping. Would you think it is possible that the working class is completely atomized and, as a social formation, no longer an actor?
Let me offer a historical analogy. If you look at discussions about the US labor movement in the 1920s, you see that the overwhelming consensus was that Fordism itself was producing a hopelessly disaggregated, weak, and atomized working-class: it was drawing in immigrant workers from all over the place who didn’t share a common language or culture, whose skill-based bargaining power was undermined by the new and alienating technologies. It was only post-facto, when you start getting the success of labor movements in the mass-production industries, that then the whole frame for understanding things changed. Now the advance of Fordism, instead of being seen as a labor-weakening process, was seen as a process that was inherently labor strengthening. Now, also with Postfordism everyone is going back to analogous types of argument to those being made in the 1920s, in which the new ways of organizing production and the new technologies are seen as clearly labor-weakening processes. But it is likely that there is also a process now going on, in which workers themselves are discovering where their bargaining power is in the new situation, where their leverage is - it takes time to figure it out. And once that kind of process of discovery is more widespread and generalized, and also acted on – that then we will get again another shift in the way that social sciences thinks about Postfordism, seeing it as actually opening up all sorts of new opportunities for struggles. But that will be a post-facto understanding based on an analysis of the struggles that come up themselves. The reason for a lot of the tentativeness in the discussion of the early 21st century and Postfordism is precisely because this is something that we as analysts can try to guess based on certain kinds of conceptual frameworks, but ultimately we will see what comes up in the struggles. And the basic argument just is that they - the struggles - will come up.

One argument that you stress in your book is that labor unrest not only forces capital to move around the world and that where capital goes, conflict goes, but that labor unrest is also shaping and re-shaping the national and international structure of politics. Yesterday you spoke about war and the new forms of war. What do you think about this war on terrorism, is that a kind of reaction on labor unrest? And what do you think how does this war on terrorism affect the working class?
There is no doubt that prior to 9/11 [2001] there was a feeling that immigrant based labor movements were gaining strength rather quickly. And one effect of the post 9/11 repression was that immigrants’ political organizing and labor militancy has become much more problematic, difficult, particularly for undocumented workers. In the US, the Department of Immigration was moved into the Department for Homeland Security. There are many more opportunities for the state to use Homeland Security directly or indirectly as a way of weakening labor struggles, particularly to the extent that they involve immigrants. However, a central argument in FoL is that repression has its limits as a form of rule, and moreover, that historically war itself has had radicalizing effects on labor and other social movements. Yesterday, I showed a figure from chapter 4 of FoL that charts the annual mentions of labor unrest in the World Labor Group database for the twentieth century. One striking feature of that figure is the impact of the two world wars: you get dips in labor unrest in the initial years of wars themselves. There is repression, there is the “rally around the flag” effect. But in both cases these dips were short term, and were followed by major explosions of labor and other forms of social unrest. The argument in the book is that for most of the 20th century wars on the one hand were an occasion for repression, but on the other hand they had a labor strengthening effect, increased the bargaining power of labor in face of the reliance of states on workers in the battlefield and in the factories. So the question becomes whether these new forms of war also have a labor strengthening effect or whether states have effectively emancipated themselves from their reliance on mass public and workers’ support to successfully fight wars.
I think that there is a conscious state strategy to reduce its dependence on the mass of the population and the working class through various strategies including the automation of warfare, privatization of a wide array of military activities, the elimination of compulsory military service - but there is a whole discussion to be had on whether this is actually working.
Coming back to the first part of the question: I think the whole counterrevolution of the 1980s, the combined counterrevolutions in the military and in the economic sphere was in good part a reaction against working class power.

In Germany some say that in the Middle East there is a kind of blockade for capital accumulation and the war is seen as an instrument to break through this blockade.
I’m more inclined to think that this is a geopolitical struggle over oil and the control of oil and that there was a rather misguided attempt by the US to basically get control over the oil supplies as a way of having leverage vis-à-vis Europe and particularly vis-à-vis China, but that it didn’t succeeded. But the war probably wouldn’t have gone forward if it didn’t also mesh with the interests of those seeking opportunities for profitable capital accumulation: the direct interests of the oil companies in profits, and military-industrial complex interests like weapons producers, private security companies, etc.

Footnotes:
[1] Beverly J. Silver. 2003. “Forces of Labor. Workers’ Movements and Globalization since 1870”. New York: Cambridge University Press
[2] See: Piven, Francis Fox and Richard A. Cloward. 1977. »Poor Peoples Movements. Why they succeed, how they fail.« New York: Vintage Books
[3] Arrighi, Giovanni and Beverly Silver. 1984. »Labor Movements and Capital Migration: The US and Western Europe in World-Historical Perspective.« In C. Bergquist, ed., Labor in the Capitalist World-Economy, pp. 183-216. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage
[4] In the mid-1980s the World Labor Group started the data base on world-wide labor unrest from 1870 to 1996, starting point for the research that lead to the book “Forces of Labor”.
[5] ‘Yesterday’ refers to a presentation on FoL in Berlin, Germany, in early June 2005.
[6] See: E.P. Thompson. 1966. The Making of the English Working Class. New York. Vintage Books.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

From the gigantic police cordon know as Edinburgh: In the last days the development of this society has been symbolised and accelerated in the streets of Edinburgh and London: the political leaders of the world’s ruling nations hide away in the Scottish countryside, planning future terrorist attacks such as extension of their wars, privatisations, welfare and wage cuts, while their police forces turn the region into a gigantic police cordon and the media applauds the repression of all protests which are not toothless marching. Then the bombs in London, a terrorist answer to the terrorist politics of the G8 nations by those who are only other rulers-in-waiting...

The Crashing Sound of a System in Crisis
The ‘drop the debt’-show can’t disguise the reality of the last decade: extension of mass poverty from Capetown to Novosibirsk, longer working hours, lower wages and redundancies (lately at IBM, GM, Rover...). The EU countries continually announce breaches of the stability pact, which results in a deep political crisis (e.g. the constitution debacle), governments in Germany, France and Italy are finished without being beaten by a parliamentary opposition. In Latin America the neo-liberalist / free-market model is in a deadlock situation, not least due to social unrest in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil. The USA and Russia try to export their internal crisis by prolonged bloody warfare in Chechenia and Iraq, but can’t win these wars on either a military or political level. All in all, the abyss between the potentials that we have to create a better world (the material wealth, increased social knowledge, communication, productivity) and the actual use of these potentials (production for profits instead of needs, war, impoverishment) is widening rapidly and noisily...

Terrorism - Warfare of the Unrecognised Statesmen
The crisis causes political disintegration of many states (Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan etc.), political power has to be reinstalled, borders re-defined. The creation and maintenance of nation-states has always been a bloody business of war and repression. The difference between an official army and ‘terrorist groups’ is their official recognition, but they have in common means (bombs, fear and social repression) and goals (control over the resources and work-force of their territory). Mandela and Arafat were brandished as ‘terrorist’ before they became accepted as statesmen, western governments supported all kind of ‘terrorists’, the BinLaden-Clan and the Bush-family have been business partners behind the stage of their military conflicts. With the increasing impoverishment both can count on recruitment from the economically devastated areas, suicide bombers from Gaza strip or freshly drafted young people from the Ghettos of US cities. For the exploited and their struggle for a better life the most dangerous aspect of ‘terrorism’ at the moment is it’s counterpart, the state’s anti-terrorism.

‘War on Terror’ on the Deathbed of Social Partnership
In Europe and the USA the profit squeeze crushed the possibility of appeasing social conflicts by offering something in exchange for increased exploitation. In the 90s all ‘Labour’ Parties in Europe used their social credibility in order to enforce unprecedented cuts in the welfare system and workers rights. They lost their credibility. The unions have only been able to negotiate how bad the wage cuts and dismissals will be. Tied to their weak position at negotiation table they lost the trust of many workers, in many recent conflicts they even turned against them (e.g. the wildcat strike at GM in Germany). People realised that their mass protest is pointless, as long as it is only appealing to the ‘democratic rules of majority’: the mass protests against the Iraq war, the East-German marches against welfare cuts didn’t stop the state acting against the wish of the majority, as the recent marches against poverty won’t change things as long as they don’t hurt the interests of the rich materially. In this social situation politicians and capitalists try to refine their repressive machinery to deal with future conflicts. The ‘war on terror’ is their main pretext at the moment: they increase the atmosphere of fear, so people turn towards the state; they introduce stricter laws and controls, which effects possible protests and workers actions (strikes, occupations etc.); they shift their spending from welfare towards the military sector; they try to deepen divisions within the working class by anti-immigrant propaganda.

Proletarian Movement against the State of Fear
After the bombings in Madrid people in Spain took the streets in order to show that the terrorist attacks won’t isolate them in fear and that they are pissed off about the lies of the conservative government, it’s participation in the Iraq war and it’s labour reform. The future workers movements for a better life will have to get out of the catch 22: being in fear due to terrorists who respond to the terrorist politics of a state. A state we are then told to expect safety from while at the same time it is attacking our living standards. We will have to develop trust in our own ability to organise ourselves, because the established bureaucratic organisations won’t do it anymore. We will have to overcome the illusion that it is enough to petition the rulers or that we could impress them by our mere mass. Our future struggles will have to confront the legal boundaries, which are tightening on a daily basis. We have to refuse the state’s ‘war on terror’ because any of our (strike) actions which are more than symbolic, any workplace occupation, any effective demonstrations will be denounced as ‘violent anarchism’ and possibly ‘terrorist’...

Proletarian Movement for a Better Life - Against Bus Bombs and Capitalist Attacks!

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

A few years ago I worked in a call center. It is still existing and is providing a hotline for computers and other electronical items (tv, satellite receiver, etc.). In the meantime there are working roughly 300 call center agents at the welcome desk (first level) and the technical hotline (second level). At the moment the company enlarges its location in Germany and there are rumours about a relocation to the Czech Republic. A few weeks ago I met two of my former colleges, who are still working there. We chatted a little bit, and this interview came out.

Q: Let’s talk about the break times first.
A: We have two and a half hours idle a day. But this includes everything, lunch break, smoking breaks, restroom, and re-operation time. It is not allowed to take a break whenever you want. Now, you have to book it before you go.
A: There are certain times when you aren’t allowed to take breaks. At these times, a sign on the phone appears that it isn’t possible to take a break.
Q: What does that mean; it is „not possible“? Is it technically not possible or are you not allowed?
A: It is not possible to book a break technically. But of course you can take a break without booking.
A: I did that once, but when I got back the team leader gave me a call and asked, why I didn’t book. It was shortly after they came up with it. I just wanted to resist.
A: Some of the new agents got in trouble recently. Team leaders asked why they hadn’t booked before, and they answered, „Why? It wasn’t possible!“
Q: But then someone must be checking the ACD all the time?
A: Yeah, there is always one of the team leaders only checking our times.
A: He doesn’t do anything but ogling that thing all day. Depending how long customers are waiting to get an agent, he decides how many people can have a break.
Q: A few years ago, people took their break when ever they wanted. If there were too many „on idle“, the team leader tried to kick some back to the phones. We were playing shy and looked down and maybe one or two went back. But they could only check the total time, afterwards they couldn’t see when you took your breaks. Now they put that problem on your shoulders.
A: Yeah, we always take our stop watch with us for breaks. You need to be correct by seconds. If you are 20 seconds late, you’re in trouble. Recently we had to justify 30 seconds break overtime in a 45 minutes meeting with a team leader. They hold a record about it.
A: There’s always a stress factor. If you want to have a break, you watch that thing to book it. You don’t listen to the customer anymore. It creates a lot of stress.
A: Well, that’s a situation when I throw the customer off line.

A: There is another new thing with the calling time. Each phone call of a technician shouldn’t be longer than 20 minutes. They invented a back office team, their job is to call customers with difficult technical problems back in between 48 hours. Of course it doesn’t work, yesterday I heard that those technicians are working on cases which are two weeks old.
A: Of course back office technicians are now busy with simple cases which were caused by the 20 minutes calling times structure of the other technicians. But it is not their fault. We know how slow people are to find numbers or stuff like that. Again, we are the ones who have to deal with stress.
A: And we have more escalating customers, who wait and ask for that fucking call back. We are not allowed to connect them with a technician; this would double the cases for the back office technicians.
A: And we can’t give it to the team leader, they just don’t take them anymore insisting on the call back. They rather discuss 15 minutes with you then taking the call.
A: They don’t know anything about technical problems anyway. The boss said that they need to have leadership abilities.
A: But they don’t have that either. That’s the problem. I don’t know why we have team leaders...
A: Only to control us!

A: Now we sit at certain places, and we are not allowed to talk to each other anymore.
Q: Do you have time for talking with each other? Back then there were times when a lot of people called and the lamps at the phones turned red. But this was only at those certain times, when they sold their stuff in selling actions. On normal days, we had roughly two hours with hardly any calls, sometimes even more. We could check for phones of friends when they were taking breaks. And we had talking rounds for everybody who wanted to participate. We got together and had discussions about any topics, like homosexuality, racism or listened to stories from the GDR. And at least once, we solved a problem with a team leader that way.
A: No, that’s over! Now the lamp is red always, except on the weekend. Well, the technicians’ lamp is always red.
A: It is, of course, also because of the bad work organization. It is all about the first contact. They don’t care about how long it takes to call customers back or how long they are in the waiting line. If we have red lamp, the technicians have to do first level, but of course then the line to the technicians is even longer. We can see how long the waiting time will be, so we have to prepare the customer to wait over a certain time.
A: Some people wait an hour, but we have to say that we can’t see how long it is exactly.
A: That’s totally pissing people off!
Q: Do you tell the people how long it is or do you give them a hint?
A: Well, we do have test-calls. I had one recently. But he told me his name, so I was unsure. I asked him and he told me that he belongs to the call centre. Right after the call was done, the team leader got me for a meeting. I played a little bit funky and kissed her ass. I allowed her to calm me down; she goes for stuff like that. Well, nothing happened. But I thought, this asshole, why didn’t he tell me before.

Q: Do you have set time limits, too?
A: Well, no, not really. But we have to stick to certain times, those two and a half hours. But this is organized by the computer...
A: We have to do everything with the computer, not through the phone anymore. You can see everything at the phone display, but you don’t touch it anymore.
A: But we still work with the phone. But listen: there is that problem with idle-times. You have to take the call through the keyboard and then different screens are popping up...
A: You have a screen with all the numbers where you can put the call to. Then the customer is gone and you are on „absent without a reason“. You close that window and then it asks you what you want to do: a break or processing work, you close this window, too. And that takes a long time, in principle you have hour glasses. And then you have to put the phone on in order to get the next call.
A: That shit alone and that the program gets stuck all the time. I had 15 minutes idle time one day. If you have a lot processing work to do or you need to go to the toilette more often you are easily at your time limit. And then you have a meeting with the team leader and, of course, they don’t care if the15 minutes idle time were caused by the program. That’s why we work with the phone, it is just faster.
A: When I first started to work with the computer my performance data weren’t right and they sent me a coach to look over my shoulder. He was hanging around for two hours. Afterwards, I worked again with the phone and they praised me, even the leader did!
Q: Earlier it was possible to talk to one customer while you were working with the data of the former customer. So you could fudge your idle-times a little bit...
A: That’s over. With the phone call the data of the customer pops up at your computer, if he is registered. It works over the phone number.
A: The processing work should be only three minutes. So you have to do the entries while you are talking with the customer. I can’t do that.
A: I let the customer wait while I make the entries and I also tell him.
A: It is completely stupid, especially if someone has a customer number and wants to talk to a technician. I still have to do all that shit. I tell him I am connecting him but instead put him under mute and finish all this stuff and then connect him.
Q: Obviously, the computers weren’t as connected with the phones as they are today. We asked the customer for their number and then put them through to a technician right away, that took 18 seconds. Even faster if you didn’t put up the data.
A: That’s over. If you do it today the system puts you on idle without reason because you didn’t fill out the screens. And that changes your idle time.
Q: How did they get you to agree with the new technical stuff? Did they train you?
A: Yes, we had trainings. It is a part of SAP which fit to the company. It was the idea of a team leader, but you get the impression that he had never worked in a call center. What an idiot and he was a technician himself.
A: And on top it wasn’t done. They always said, we’re going to do this and that, and this is how it is going to be and so and so...
A: Our old system was much clearer, you could see the stuff right away. When someone asked about a price you typed in that thing and you got a price for it. With the new system you have to register the customer, you have to click around, set the order and then you can tell the price. If the customer doesn’t want it you have to cancel everything. And that takes a lot of time, and then the program gets stuck. The customers think we’re completely illiterate, they take us for completely loco. They ask about a price and get stuck at the phone for ten minutes.
A: Before my average calling time was maybe one minute, now it’s at least two.
Q: How did they switch the programs?
A: They changed it from one day to the other and then we had SAP people running around, who checked if you got around with it. In the beginning, we found it funny because it was something new, but then we realized, what kind of crap this is.
A: During the switch-over, there were always meetings. Actually, we are not naughty. I am working, I show up everyday, I’m even on time. I do my work, I try to help customers and still get in trouble. It is not the point that you work, but you... need to have discipline.
A: This asininity, it makes you completely nuts. You can’t do anything against it.
Q: Is it still possible to cheat with this system?
A: No, that’s over. You only can put the customer on mute, that’s the only thing. They control everything.
Q: So, they gave you the technical stuff and the meetings to set you under pressure?
A: Yeah, and of course, because we thought it is something new and interesting.
A: You don’t help the new people anymore, it is all about your time data. You don’t know anybody anymore and so you lose a the connection. You don’t talk anymore with the people at all. And this is all good for them, there are no people anymore who get together and start something against this shit. You just work, that’s all you do.
A: And the assessment center! One day, the management had the idea of an internal assessment center. Some didn’t pass and got kicked off the hotline and ended up at the goods receiving department.
A: They got lucky, at least they get their former wage.
A: That’s shit! Recently, I talked with someone who got moved out. He has had to do overtime for now three or four months, eleven hours per day and every Saturday another six hours. And even with overtime they have less money than we have without overtime.
A: They move packages over a belt and scan ‘em. Moving and scanning, moving and scanning, eleven hours.
A: They have a quota they have to achieve.
A: Now we understand when something is scanned wrong. They don’t want to check what’s inside of a package. They have to make their quota.
A: Man, that’s bad! They don’t even have a kitchen. In their break-room, they sit on post boxes.
A: He said, in the beginning they felt like being in the third world. As if everything would be illegal, as if they would produce drugs. If the cops would raid the place they would be in.
A: Here you can see nothing fits. That’s why we have so many calls.

Q: Well, lets think about other stories, like the one with the two who didn’t book their break. About people who could be fellows.
A: Nothing! There’s nothing. Our last team meeting was horrible, I tell you! The new people have part time contracts only for three month, they say stuff like: you can listen to my calls, I have nothing to hide, or the smile is in the voice anyway. Such bullshit!
A: And if there are new girls the team leader likes, they’re allowed to do everything. Such a young chicken has no clue, but is allowed to do everything.
Q: The big goal of a Call Center Agent is to get rid of the phone and if you do send a fax or e-mails, you got it. So they are not interested about changes?
A: No, they have it nice.
A: And also the old people, they got a better job and talk positively about the company. You can’t do anything with such kind of people. I don’t know who I should talk to.
A: I want to do something so things are changing, but I don’t know what and how.
A: And you don’t need to look for another job. It is always like this.
Q: But then it’s clear, that you need to do something there.
A: Well, no one can tell me that all of the new like it.
A: No, you’re right.
A: But they don’t have anybody to talk to, they don’t know anybody...
A: We should put something out, maybe hidden, so no one knows who it was. Maybe something would happen.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

During the anti-G8 protests we were mostly in Edinburgh and spend a bit of time at the Stirling camp. The practical organisation and co-ordination was flawless. Smooth ride from the train to the bus to the campsite. The convergence space was excellent, the meetings well facilitated, the Stirling camp was an example of anarchism in action with co-operation, autonomy, harmony and functionality. We, the movement, have chosen to focus on and priorities the practicalities of our own organising and communicating with each other. However, this may be at the expense of more rigorous political questioning and debating amongst ourselves and also serious attempts to connect with those outside of our movement.
The G8 in Edinburgh/Gleneagles confirmed the post-Genoa trend of the ‘anti-summit-actions’: the direct-action and radical wing is shrinking in numbers, the reformist wing officially dissociates itself from the ‘anarchist’ and the police are more or less able to counter the direct actions. Following some general observations from the summit:
a) The radical counter-summit was smaller and less international. Most of the direct-action folks came from Great Britain, Skandinavia and Germany, only very few Italians and Spanish, hardly any French. The ‘black bloc’ was often referred to as the ‘Germans’, which was probably right. On the big ‘Make Poverty History’ march the police managed to encircle and isolated the ‘black bloc’ within few minutes, in total may be 600 people.
b) The reformist-wing was much less political than at other anti-summit mobilisations. Most of the infra-structure and official orientation of the ‘reformist’ activities were dominated by the big NGOs, such as Oxfam and Christian Aid as well as the media/ pop-star circus. They managed to enforce a ‘wearing white’ dress-code on the big demo. The demo had an atmosphere of ‘we are all against poverty’ and of demonstrated individual/bourgeois humanism, which matches more or less the official line of the Labour Party ‘drop the debt’ policy. There were much less unions, migrant organisations, left-wing parties than e.g. in Genoa.
c) The split between ‘direct actions’ and ‘politics’ deepened. There was hardly any political statements concerning global politics, the UK governmental position on Africa or other general developments from the ‘direct action’ scene. Hardly any political leaflets and on the work-shop-day only very few debates. The main discussions and talks were organised within the trots/ lefty ‘G8 Alternative’ conference. There was an attempt to have a political discussion about ‘precarity, work, unemployment’ around ‘Carnival of Full Enjoyment’, but unfortunately only few people turned up. Also after the bombs in London there was no ‘collective’ statement from the ‘revolutionary movement’. It was also disappointing how little recent international struggles were present and/or discussed within the radical counter-summit, e.g. the school occupations in France, the events in Bolivia, the pension struggles in Rusia etc. The recent european movements coming out of the direct action scene such as social centres or the precarity discussion was also absent. There were few links made between the actions in Scotland and our activities back where we live.
d) The police couldn’t handle their superior position. On the big march the police managed to isolate the ‘direct action’ people. On the ‘Carnival of Full Enjoyment’ and on other smaller events in Edinburgh their strategy of out-numbering the activists turned against them. They managed to contain the ‘Carnival’ which was meant to visit the job center and some bigger companies, but they encircled thousands of passers-by and spectators which lead to a situation were the spectators turned into activists. A lot of conflicts between ‘local people’ and the police evolved. Later in the evening about 400 younger Edinburgh proles had fights with the cops, shouting ‘Who’s streets - Our streets’. During the day of the decentralised blockades the cops didn’t managed to prevent any actions beforehand, but could react to the blockades quite quickly. The legal support groups speak about the biggest police intervention in the UK ever, about 700 people got arrested during the summit.
e) Conclusions: The G8-summit proved once more that the ‘movement’ is very able to organise itself (huge indymedia space, camping sites, decentralised coordinated actions etc.), but particularly after the bombs it became ever more obvious that some street blockades and parties don’t provide an answer to the situation.

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.prol-position.net

The following events occurred against the background of the aggravating crisis of the global car industry (see also the article on the GM strike in ppnews #1, 3/2005, page 3). At the beginning of June 2005 GM announced the closing of plants in the USA, which would result in the loss of 25,000 jobs in addition to the 12,000 jobs cut in Europe. In the first quarter of 2005 GM lost 1.1 Billion US-Dollars, the worst result in 13 years. A detailed article on the crisis of VW after the corruption scandal is on the wsws-website.

FIAT, Melfi/Italy
The factory in Melfi became well-known in April/May 2004 after an unexpected strike by its workers. Melfi was supposed to be FIAT’s role-model factory. It is a ten year old greenfield plant in the south of Italy with a young, inexperienced work-force on low wages and an extensive net of suppliers. Melfi was said to be the most productive car plant in Europe after GM Opel in Rüsselsheim. In the core plant about 5,000 workers were employed plus 3,500 from the nearby suppliers.
The strike started when workers of TNT-Arvil, the company which is responsible for the internal transport and the transport between suppliers and the core plant, went on strike, demanding the same wages as in other FIAT plants, the abolishment of the severe shift schedules and disciplinary measures. Within a few hours all the workers within the productive net of Melfi joined the action. The strike lasted 20 days with the production of 35,000 cars lost by FIAT. The workers blocked the gates and had to defend the picket against the riot squads.
The strike was ‘successful’ in the sense that some demands concerning working time and wages were met, but also in the sense that it showed the weakness of the ‘new’ production model based on tight links between core plant and suppliers (see news on DC/USA below). Recently Melfi was shaken again, this time by lorry drivers whose struggle affected production in the plant.
‘A strike by lorry drivers has impeded the delivery of new cars by the Italian car manufacturer FIAT in the last three weeks. The company informed the public yesterday that the strike has caused serious economic damage. FIAT was now using up its full storage capacity, the company said. FIAT stopped production in its biggest car plant, because parking lots are already filled by new cars awaiting delivery. The strike has obstructed delivery since the 26th of April. FIAT is now moaning about not only its own economic damage, but also that of customers and traders. Some car factories will also be hit by the strike today. A company spokes-person named Mirafiori, Melfi and Cassino. A plant in Ivecco di Suzzera was running on lower capacity, he said. The drivers are protesting against transport companies, not against FIAT. Unions and employers have already been holding talks in Rome in order to stop the strike. FIAT boss Sergio Marchionne said last week that the company’s loss because of the strike was 350,000 Euro until then. The company is trying to deliver cars by train and by ships. The company has not given any figures since then, but newspapers have spoken of losses of more than half a million Euro. The company, which is trying to make its core activity of cars profitable again, has warned it will take legal measures against the strike.’ [http://www.orf.at/ticker/182448.html - 23rd of May 2005]

VW, Navarra/Spain
The introduction of the new collective contract resulted in an unexpected combatative reaction from the workers. Since the introduction the numbers of cars produced has decreased by 2,500, due to several interruptions of production. Company management and the works council have met four times since then in order to resolve the dispute. The workers’ delegates demand wage increases, early retirement schemes and reduction of over-time. The management refuses the demands, saying that the wage rise would increase the total wages bill within the company by 27 percent. In times when VW tries to cut costs by Europeanwide programms like ForMotion wage increases are something impossible, at least following the management’s opinion. The four strikes which took place since the 22nd of April hit a weak spot, given that the start of production of the new generation Polo is planned for early May. On the 13th of May 6,000 workers of VW Navarra and the supplying companies protested in the streets of Pamplona, asking the management to ‘lift the veil from the future of the plant’ and to announce the production volume of the coming years. The VW spokesperson claimed that the protest doesn’t ‘give a positive image to the plant’, which might effect future contracts with VW. Not only VW is in trouble, workers at Renault Commercial Cars plan strikes for the 27th, 30th and 31st of May. For five months management and unions have been negotiating a collective contract without results. [Cinco Dias: 23rd of May 2005]

DC, Haden-Toledo/USA
In the following short article on the ‘revolutionary’ new production organisation at DC it reveals itself that the car industry isn’t really able to ‘revolutionize’ its mode of production. What they call ‘revolution’ is the re-centralisation of assembly work and supplying industries. After the de-centralisation in the 80s, the dismantling of the integrated factories, the suppliers are now returning to the main plant. De-centralisation was an answer to the exercise of workers’ power in the big industrial complexes, but in the end proved to be less productive.
After two decades of down-sizing and outsourcing the automobile companies seem to trust the enforced peace and are re-concentrating the forces of labour – thereby counting on the willing cooperation of the unions.
‘The Auburn Hills-based automaker has named two general contractors to head up the construction of its supplier facilities within its Toledo North Assembly complex. Three suppliers will be located within the “footprint” of the plant, allowing for a revolutionary partnership. The three supplier buildings will be located on the north side of the plant, adjacent to the final assembly facility. Bodies and chassis will travel on conveyor belts between facilities, eliminating costly transit. DaimlerChrysler estimates this system will save the company more than $300 million, which will be redirected into product development. Sterling Heights-based Kuka Group will be responsible for body work, while Auburn Hills-based Haden will take care of painting. Chassis operations will be completed by the Ohio Module Manufacturing Co. The DeMattia Group, a Plymouth-based construction firm, has been selected as the general contractor for the 460,000-square-foot Haden facility. The partnership between the two companies began in September 2004, with construction beginning two months later. According to DaimlerChrysler officials, the Toledo facility is the first of its kind in the North American automotive market. Many in the industry feel that this plant will soon set the standard for OEM/supplier relationships.
A landmark agreement with UAW Local 12, which represents workers at the Toledo plant, is one of the main reasons why the project is on track, Lindland said. “The UAW certainly has to be involved in these kind of situations, and they really need to work to support these kinds of cost-saving measures that the Big Three so desperately need,” Lindland said. Although the supplier facilities will handle many of the tasks previously conducted by DaimlerChrysler workers, no jobs will be lost as a result of the plant’s transition. Workers at the automaker’s Parkway Annex facility in downtown Toledo, which is planned to close in 2006, will be offered first dibs on the new jobs created by the suppliers. As many as 15 suppliers could eventually be a part of this revolutionary partnership, however, DaimlerChrysler officials have not yet commented on which ones, or if they too would be located within the plant’s vicinity. The $2.1-million project is slated to be completed by the end of the year, with the first vehicles rolling off the line by early 2006.’ [http://www.detroitautoscene.com - May 2005]

[prol-position news #3, 8/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

Update on Car Industry: More strikes

Following a short update with news from the global car industry, serving as background information to the articles on the automobile sector in Iran and India in this newsletter. The car industry is still the most ‘globalised’ sector and therefore an indicator of the general condition of global capitalism. At the moment we can observe an acceleration of the crisis and of the global shift of the automobile industrial centers. Two of the biggest companies of the USA and representatives of a whole area of industrialisation, GM and Ford (and its suppliers Delphi and Visteon), are on the verge of formal bancruptcy and consequently announced mass redundancies and even factory closures. The Business Week from the 25th of July 2005 deals with the emergence of a new ‘Detroit’ in Eastern Europe and Asia, stating that: “The full impact of Detroit East’s manufacturing muscle will hit Western Europe around 2008. That’s when the plants will reach peak capacity, flooding the Western market with cars that enjoy a newfound pricing advantage. The surge will occur just as Chinese imports start to accelerate. The combined effect on prices will make it increasingly difficult for laggards like Fiat, Opel, and Volkswagen to maintain expensive, excess capacity in the West, and may well force auto makers to shut down Western factories.” We can already see the prelude of this process:
23th of July: Ford announces to sack 30 per cent of its staff in the US (10,500 workers).
26th of July: Daimler Crysler wants to reduce its German workforce by 5,000.
23rd of August: Volvo wants to dismiss 1,500 people.
29th of August: SEAT declares to cut its workforce by 15 per cent.
10th of October: Delphi, the supplier of General Motors, declares to be insolvent; currently 185,000 people are employed by Delphi worldwide, in the USA about 8,500 are supposed to lose their jobs this year, 25 plants are planned to be shut down, the remaining workers face severe wage cuts.
It will have to be seen in the future what the reactions of the workers will be and if the ‘defensive’ struggles in the West might come together with struggles of a new workforce in the car factories in the developing East. For example Hyundai announced at the end of September to invest 1 billion Euros in a new car plant in the Czech Republic and while Ford cuts jobs in the USA it hires new workers in Russia (see below). So far capitalism can’t rely on any other sector which would replace the automobile industry and its importance for the economy. During the last months there have been various struggles worth mentioning:

Threatened strike at Ford in Russia
On 30th of September Ford workers in Russia threatened to strike if management refuses to increase wages by 30 percent and offer other concessions. The workers demands come as the firm is planning to almost double production at its St. Petersburg plant, putting additional pressure on its work force, the union official said. While Ford plans to add to its workforce of 1,700, the production boost will nevertheless add pressure to workers who already do overtime in the hope of a bigger paycheck. Most of the plant’s workers earn between 10,000 rubles (350 US-Dollars) and 17,000 rubles (600 US-Dollars) per month. In comparison, Ford workers in Brazil earn between 560 and 910 US-Dollars per month as well as receiving 1 percent of the profit a plant makes. Recent discontent over terms and conditions has led to a dramatic increase in union members, with membership rocketing to more than 1,100 from just 112 in August. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2005/09/30/042.html]

Strike at VW in Brazil surprises the official unions
On 31st of September a general assembly of 8,500 VW workers in São Bernardo decided to go on strike against the official recommendations of the union. They were joined by another 3,000 workers of the late shift. The unions reacted by telling the workers to go home and come back to work at the 3rd of October. In a statement, the automaker accused the São Bernardo do Campo union of being out of control. Plants at Taubaté and Curitiba were affected due to missing car parts from São Bernardo. Workers at the other plants joined the strike on the 4th of October. For the first time all VW plants in Brazil came to a standstill, 18,000 workers walked out. At São Bernardo the strikers were joined by landless people who occupied land owned by VW. On the 18th of July hundreds of workers occupied an area of 42 acre in size. By October up to 7000 persons - including about 2000 children, were in the camp.
The strike at Taubaté ended after about one week when workers accepted a VW offer to pay 5,000 Real (2,125 US-Dollar) per worker subject to an agreed production volume being reached in 2005. Workers originally asked for 5,500 Real profit share per employee, while VW countered with 4,700 Real. In early October VW said it had now lost 12,000 cars and 9,000 engines because of the strike. On the 24th of October the São Bernardo workers finished their strike. The 12,400 workers at the oldest and largest VW factory in Brazil returned to the assembly line though they had not signed an agreement with the automaker.
Contact: [email protected] / [email protected]

Spontaneous strike at VW in Bruxelles/Belgium
On the 17th of October workers at the VW plant laid down their tools spontaneously in response to the governmental plans to raise the age for entering retirement from 55 to 58 years. Their action happened in the aftermath of two one-day general strikes in the country. [http://auto-motor-und-sport.de]

Indian rulers want to enforce anti-strike law against car workers
On the 25th of October the high court in Bangalore, location of Toyota and other automobile plants, upheld three notifications issued by the government declaring automobile and auto component industries as a public utility service under the provisions of the Industrial Act. Justice R. Gururajan observed that the wheels of industry have to keep moving in the larger interest of the economy and upheld the notifications. It is implied that workmen in public utility service cannot go on strikes and lockouts.

Strike at SEAT in Spain against redundancies
On the 10th of November all three SEAT plants (Barcelona, Martorell and Pamplona) were on strike against the announced cuts of 1,350 jobs. Already earlier in October a strike of lorry drivers stopped production at Spanish plants of Citroen and Daimler Chrysler. [http://www.rp-online.de]

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] http://www.prol-position.net/nl/2005/04/car_up

Mobilizations in the Greek Textile Industry
During the last decade, 44.000 jobs were lost in the greek textile industry. 1 28.700 workers have been sacked only in 2003 and 2004. Production in this specific industry is carried out through the use of obsolete machinery, piece work and a large workforce and thus it is based on “intensity of labour”. Since profits are based on the low labour cost, it comes as no surprise that with the opening up of the neighbouring countries’ markets, which had been out of reach for the western capital for long, capital moved where it could achieve a better rate of profit. Production is relocated to Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania and Romania where wages may be even 10 times smaller (the average gross wage reaches up to 1000 euros in Greece, whereas in the other Balkan countries it’s around 120 euros). 3.500 greek textile companies operate in Bulgaria alone and almost every piece work workplace has been relocated. 2

Accounts given by Bulgarian unionists 3 draw a rather depressing picture of the working conditions there: many factories operate on a 24 hour basis, Christmas bonus and holiday pay are being withheld, and there is no full pay leave. Incidents have been reported about confinement of the workers in the factories through the locking of doors by the administration till the workers end a certain amount of products. At the same time, state inspections of working conditions are actually nonexistent.

The factory closures should be seen in the context of the labour policies put forward by the greek state in the previous years. The ongoing reforms of labour legislation continuously aim to reduce labour costs, through relaxing rules of dismissal and by introducing provisions for the extension and non-payment of overtime work as well as for the flexibilization of labour in general. The companies that were subsidized by the state for supposedly productive investments have in fact used the money for relocation, while they have reduced their workforce making use of the advantageous new regulations for easier dismissals and voluntary retirements.

Recently, the Union of Northern Greece Industrialists proposed to the government the creation of a “Free Trade Zone” near the northern borders so that the wave of relocations be restrained. Their true aim is, on the one hand, to reduce relocation costs and, on the other hand, to exploit the labour power of foreign workers inside Greece on the terms of their home countries as far as wages and social security are concerned.

Workers’ response to closures and relocation has been unsuccessful and inadequate. While factories were closing one after the other, the workers could not manage to form a community of struggle and practical solidarity actions beyond the local level were largely taken a day after the fair. For example, last year when the workers of an occupied textile factory (Tricolan) in Naousa tried to get in touch with the workers of another textile factory in Thrace [a region near Bulgaria] belonging to the same owner they were confronted with indifference or even fear. What’s remarkable about this story is the fact that it is very possible that the workers of the factory in Thrace will also face a closure very soon.

Nevertheless, the textile workers of Naousa, which is one of the cities most severely affected by closures and relocation, went on a large number of mobilizations during the previous year. The mobilizations ranged from road blocks, demonstrations and 24-hour solidarity strikes organized by the local union branch to their culmination with the occupation of the Tricolan factory last November. On the 31st of October 2004 the workers of Tricolan occupied the factory and refused to turn it over to the boss unless their following demands were satisfied:
1. A 3000 euro allowance for each worker
2. Unemployment benefits equal to their last wages until they could find a new job.
3. Recognition of the unemployment period for retirement pension.
4. Additional financial aid to families with student members.
5. Funding of the housing loans by the National Organization of Worker Housing.
6. A 5 years reduction of the age of retirement.

The most interesting point about these specific demands is the fact that every worker who is thrown out because of closures can relate to them, as well as other unemployed workers. But the occupation of Tricolan remained relatively isolated. There were no other militant strikes or occupations and so it eventually ended on the 25th of November 2004.

There were some developments during August and September this year in the city of Naoussa. Klonatex, a company belonging to the same owner as Tricolan, announced the closure of two more factories, Olympiaki and B’ Klostiria Naoussis, employing 110 workers. The Workers’ Center of Naoussa responded with the declaration of three 24-hour general strikes: one on 5th of August, another one on 11th of August and the most recent one on 23rd of September. The strikes were quite successful as far as participation of workers is concerned. All the textile factories and the municipal services remained idle on these days; many people (even high school students, construction workers and packaging factory workers) participated in the demos organized on the 5th of August and the 23rd of September in the city of Naoussa and on the 11th of August in Veria, the local capital. Also, small workshops and small retail stores closed down in the area, in solidarity with the strikes since the whole local economy is affected dramatically by the very high rate of unemployment (34 percent). Despite the mobilizations, the administration of the factories has declared its determination to close them unless “a spectacular and unforeseen solution [sic!] is found”. The real meaning of that is the suspension of the operation of one of the factories since they claim that their productive functions overlap. On the 22nd of September the textile union organized in Naoussa a national meeting of textile workers from factories in Athens, Thessaloniki, Preveza and Evros where similar events are taking place.

In Athens, the underwear company “Sex Form” has stopped paying its workers since the middle of July. On the 29th of August, the 250 workers of “Sex Form” decided to go on strike demanding immediate payment and guarantees for the continuation of the operation of the factory as the administration is constantly blackmailing them with dismissals and relocation to Bulgaria. Working conditions in the factory have deteriorated in the last years with intense work rates, low wages and humiliating checks against product theft. At the same time the owner of the company has received generous subsidies from the state. The administration of the company has managed to persuade 50 of the 250 workers to scab. Since the beginning of September the strikers have begun a long struggle with demos and continuous picketing outside the factory trying to persuade the scab workers to join the struggle. They have also organized public meetings at the municipal cultural center. The highest point of the struggle was on the 26th of September when the strikers blocked the entrance of the factory to prevent its operation. That day the production stopped and the administration called the police special forces to break the blockage. At the same time, the scab workers sued their colleagues for “preventing them to work”! There was an immediate response by the strikers who called an assembly outside the police station. According to some accounts, the trade unionists have undermined the mobilizations since they have accepted to participate in common meetings with a committee of the scab workers at the Ministry of Labour. The same accounts hold the union responsible for preventing more radical actions proposed by some workers as well as saving the owner of the company from lynching by the strikers on the 6th of September. Local militants from the leftist and the antiauthoritarian milieu have organized solidarity actions in the area.

Similar developments are taking place in Thessaloniki as well. A textile company opened up a new factory employing 300 workers in Bulgaria and threatens to close two factories (Ergo-Textil and Ergo-Iliofin) employing 320 workers in Thessaloniki unless new loans are provided with the aid of the state. Moreover, the company stopped paying wages two months ago. Workers of both factories have gone on strike since 19th of September and in the case of Ergo-Iliofin they have also occupied the factory, demanding an allowance of 3000 euros for each worker as an immediate aid for the satisfaction of their basic needs. Furthermore, one more factory (Voulinos S.A.) ceased its operation in September because of a 15.000 euro debt to the electricity company. The workers of this factory also went on strike at the end of September demanding immediate government intervention for the restart of its operation. On the 27th of September, a meeting among the workers of the three factories was organized in the Workers’ Center of Thessaloniki with the participation of representatives of the textile union. Two days later, on the 29th, the workers demonstrated in the streets of Thessaloniki. Militants from the leftist and the antiauthoritarian milieu participated in the demo.

Finally, in the city of Preveza, one more factory (Klostiria Prevezis) stopped its operation in September as workers didn’t agree with the dismissal of 42 employees. The dismissals were considered by the administration to be ‘essential’ for the continuation of the factory operation. The workers in this factory have not been paid for the last 4 months and we should note that many of them are near the age of retirement. However, this particular factory will restart its operation since the solution of subsidized voluntary retirements complemented with immediate payment of the wages was agreed in a meeting among workers’ representatives, the factory administration and government officials.

All the above examples illustrate a situation that is rather gloomy for the working class in the textile industry. Workers respond to the closures with demonstrations, strikes and occupations but they seem incapable to reverse these developments by appealing to other parts of the working class and generalizing the struggle.
TPTG and friends

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net

• 1 Most of the textile factories are located in cities in northern Greece. One of the most prominent is Naousa, which was called “Manchester of the Balkans” since the first textile factory in the Balkans was built there in 1874. Nowadays, unemployment in these areas has risen up to the level of 30%. Especially in Naousa this figure goes up to 50% during wintertime.
• 2 The state of things is not very different in other industries as well (shoe, food, paper, tobacco, wood). Employment has fallen by 30% in the wood / furniture industry, 15% in the food / liquor industry and 20 % in the tobacco industry.
• 3 The establishment of contacts between the textile union of the Petritsi city in Bulgaria, where many factories have been relocated and the textile union of Thessaloniki was an important development. Data used in this article about working conditions in Bulgaria come partially from that source.

Few Eastern European workers migrate to France
Eastern European migration flows to France are recent and have been quite small in comparison with other migration flows : they only started around 2000, except for Polish workers (employed as seasonal workers) who already started coming in 1990 and Romanian workers (as asylum seekers) after 1994. In 1999, Eastern European migrants represented only 2.2 percent of the 3.3 millions foreigners in France compared to 1.7 percent of 3.6 million foreigners in 1990 (the total proportion of foreigners in France has been stable for many decades : 6 percent of the total population). So there is a small but modest progression, especially if you compare it to what happened in most of Western European countries: Germany saw Eastern European migration peak at the beginning of the 1990’s; Portugal has received a strong Ukrainian migration from the end of the 1990s (around 400,000 Eastern European migrants live presently in this country); Italy has seen an important inflow of workers coming from Rumania, Ukraine and Albania [1]. In Spain, the government estimates that there are around 500,000 legal and illegal Rumanians.

Polish people constituted the most numerous contingent among Eastern European migrants in France in 2000 [2], but in contrast to those coming from the ex-USSR, their number is diminishing (from 47,000 in 1990 to 33,500 in 1999). They represent 40 percent of all those who have a residence permit, but it concerns a small number of persons : around 30,000. In 1999, only 2.7 percent of Polish people having recently migrated settled in France as compared to 327,000 in Germany.

Eastern European migrants
(with residence permit) in 2001 in France

Nationalities
Russians 11,537

Ukrainians 3,118

Central and Eastern Europe : 48,281

Including Poles 28,009 i.e. 41,1 percent

Rumanians 10,530

Bulgarians 4,098

Polish workers in Europe : mainly in Germany and in Great Britain
65,000 Poles came to work in a country of the European Union since it was enlarged to its ten new members, a year ago. But if one counts ‘seasonal jobs’ in the European Union, 450,000 Poles have been employed during these first 12 months. Most went to work in Germany (28 percent), Great-Britain (21 percent), Italy (11 percent), Ireland (7percent) and Netherlands (7percent). In 2005, according to the Polish Ministry of Labour, 500,000 seasonal Polish workers will go abroad to work, mainly in Great-Britain (as farm workers, dentists, medical staff and even… plumbers) and in Germany. This number is not very different from last year (2004) when 300,000 Poles found a seasonal job in Germany and 100,000 a seasonal job in Britain. Wrongly fearing a massive arrival of cheap labour, most of the ‘older’ 15 members of the EU, except Britain and Ireland, have instated a transitional period of at least 2 years, before opening their labour market to the citizens of the new member countries. Some states (Germany, Spain, Italy and Netherlands) have been more pragmatic and have created, for seasonal jobs, quotas which apply to the new members.

Eastern European migrants in France: in which sectors are they working?
Contrary to other migrants, most Eastern European workers are educated and qualified. Central and Eastern European migrants rarely get with a permanent residence permit (valid for over a year), partly because French immigration policy has become harsher [3]. They are Poles, Romanians (qualified blue and white collar workers) and Russians (executives, engineers).

A more important number of Eastern European workers come with a temporary status (residence permit for more than a year and provisional authorization to work) : the number of those receiving temporary permits has increased tenfold from 1990 to 1999, they are workers, asylum seekers and students. Among those who come and work, one mainly finds Russians, Poles and Romanians in manufacturing industries, building industry (including shipyards) and collective social services (for example hospitals). Since Poland entered the European Union the 1st of May 2004, hundreds of nurses, disappointed by their working conditions, have left Polish hospitals to go and work in other countries of the European Union.

Seasonal work, illegal work and ‘secondment’ of Eastern European workers: building industry, public buildings and works sector, and agriculture
As well as the official entries into France, the number of illegal workers has also grown. Some networks (mainly Romanians and Ukrainians) control street hawking and prostitution (37percent of the prostitutes working in France come from Eastern Europe). But most illegal workers are exploited by the building industry, more often in private houses than on big building sites. They can be hired illegally by small business whose owners are sometimes themselves Eastern Europeans, who arrived a few years ago and offer their ‘services’ for prices which are 10 to 30 percent cheaper than those of French craftsmen.

The most numerous migrants are the seasonal workers, whose official number has literally exploded. Among the Eastern European workers, the majority are Poles. They have been among the first to arrive in France after 1990 and, every year, thousands of Poles come, usually just for a seasonal job in the agricultural sector, to evade poverty and unemployment which have particularly devastating effects on Polish rural population. France has signed a specific bilateral agreement about seasonal workers with 3 countries: Poland, Tunisia and Morocco. In 1999, the Poles represented 34percent of the seasonal workers who did not have an EU passport and in 2001, 43 percent. But many of them are not declared by their bosses. They work in the farming sector (fruit, vegetable and grape pickers [4]), in the building sector and in restaurants.

An illegal practice is spreading very quickly and affects many Polish workers (and not only them): the ‘secondment of employees’ offered to French companies by Polish companies which pretend to provide ‘services’ while in fact they are selling (cheap) labour. This practice is growing in the building sector, agriculture (market-gardening, wine-growing), or in nuclear power stations, and in factories for specific works, but to a lesser extent.

These workers are disguised employees, false self-employed workers: they are not declared in France (but in Poland) and their employers are not subjected to paying social security contributions to the French State. The legal procedures are complex and, in fact, the famous Bolkestein directive has already been enforced for a few years. Only 20 to 25percent of the companies which ‘second’ their employees on French territory declare their staff to the French Ministry of Labour. Most of the time, the Inspection du Travail (Factory Inspectorate, a State administration which is supposed to control factories and companies) controls only the working conditions and not the hiring conditions.

Agricultural work: fruit, vegetable and grape picking
In many market-gardening areas (Bouches-du-Rhône, Brittany, Alsace, South-West), more and more Polish workers (adding to the Moroccans and the Tunisians) are employed by the farmers for wages which are largely lower than those authorized by French legislation, often 5 to 7 euros per hour compared to 12 to 13 euros per hour normally. In these sectors, labour accounts for 60 to 80percent of the production cost.

French bosses claim to be obliged to give low wages to farm workers because of the strong competition of German producers: from 1991, Germany has introduced the statute of ‘ seasonal worker ‘ in the agricultural, forest and hotel sectors, a statute much appreciated by employers : the hourly wage is sometimes lower than 5 euros, the contract is limited to 3 months, there is no minimum or maximum duration of work per week and, if the contract lasts less than two months, the employer does not pay any social security contributions for his workers and can legally hire them for around 5 euros per hour. 90percent of the migrants hired by German farmers come from Eastern European countries.

In July 2005, 240 seasonal workers, Moroccans and Tunisians, went on strike in two farms of Saint-Martin-en-Crau which belong to the Sedac and Poscros companies, large producers of peaches and apricots. The workers wanted their 2004 and 2005 overtime working hours to be paid, which amounted to about 1500 to 3000 euros per head. They usually work 230 hours per month, but are paid only for 150 hours. They also protested against their living and working conditions: they had to buy their own working clothes and shears, they slept in ruined dwellings without water. In theory, they were supposed to receive the minimum wage (called in French the SMIC) and to have an OMI (Office des migrations internationales, a French State organization different from the IOM and mainly related to French former colonies) contract. With this contract, employers can only recruit foreign seasonal workers for a limited amount of time (8 months maximum) and their employees receive around 800 euros per month.

The strikers of Saint-Martin-en-Crau won : their employers promised to put them in workers hostels, to pay their transport expenses as well their past unpaid overtime hours, and to rehire them next year. So they came back to work. But the next day a new strike begun in another farm, mobilizing 120 workers, both seasonal (Moroccan, Tunisian and Polish), but also permanent workers, with the same requests. In this conflict, divisions appeared between seasonal workers according to their nationality: the 30 Polish seasonal workers did not follow the movement because they had received pressure from the management and threats of being sacked. Not speaking French as Moroccan workers do, they also form part of a very recent immigration, and are therefore less armed to defend themselves. Being newcomers, they probably think that abstaining from striking will enhance their chances of being hired next year. As usual, the State and the Farmers trade union tried to convince the public that these scandalous practices concerned only a minority of bosses who don’t respect the Labour Code, whereas, in reality, these practices have existed for many years and develop because of the increasing competition.

Workers trade unions are traditionally weak in the agricultural sector, including among permanent farm workers. Whereas the CFDT trade union published and distributed booklets (on the beaches!) about student seasonal workers rights, the only visible organization in this conflict has been the CGT trade union, through its local and departmental organizations. During the conflict won by the strikers on the two farms of Saint-Martin-en-Crau, the CGT played an important role : several of its delegates were received to discuss with the ‘ préfet ‘ (representing the State in each French department) accompanied only by only one of the 240 strikers!

Strike on Saint-Nazaire Shipyards (Chantiers navals de Saint-Nazaire)
Polish companies provide Polish workers to French subcontractors who themselves work for large corporations. Their goal is to reduce by 30percent the manufacturing cost of the ships.

In July 2005, around 20 Polish electricians of Kliper, a Polish company which deals with the assembly of electric cables, working on the construction of two steamers, went on strike because they had not been paid for two months (since June). Their foremen had disappeared with one of the company’s minibuses, also taking their contracts with them. Kliper, the Polish company, works for a subcontractor (Gestal) of the Atlantic Shipyards of Saint-Nazaire (Alsthom Marine).

On Saint-Nazaire shipyards, these scandalous practices are well known since the strikes of the Rumanians, Greeks and Indians (paid the minimum wage, the SMIC) who worked in 2003 on the Queen Mary 2. Their employer, Avco Marine, refused to pay 92 Rumanian workers. First they went on strike alone, and then they were joined a few days later, with the help of the CGT trade union, by French, Indian, Polish workers of the Atlantic Shipyards and of sub-contracting companies. They received 3,200 euros which were paid immediately. But, to this day, they only got 50percent of their wages. Legal actions have been launched but Saint-Nazaire’s public prosecutor office decided to close the case.

Wages, which are apparently in conformity with French standards, in fact hide low-cost practices: sub-contracting companies oblige their workers to pay for their housing, their meals and the shuttle buses which takes them to work everyday. These companies use a trick which is invisible on pay slips: a rate which represents half of the minimum wage (the SMIC) in the event of a ‘period of availability’. This vague concept makes it possible to reduce by 50 percent the wages when the employer claims the work process is hampered by another company doing work on the steamer. This boss can then force the Polish workers to wait, without being paid, in the unfinished gangways of the liner. The working conditions are very bad and they slave away more than 50 hours per week. The Poles buy their food in cheap supermarkets, eat generally from cans and never in the Atlantic Shipyards staff restaurants. They are paid in Poland, in zlotys, according to the rate of exchange most favourable to the employer. The industrial accidents on these shipyards are frequent, the injured workers have often no insurance (the agreements between French and Polish Social Security are not yet operational).

Most of the Polish strikers from Kliper had arrived two months ago from the Gdansk and Szczecin shipyards. They had not received their wages (1,200 euros per month compared to 500 euros for the same job in Poland) since their arrival in France, just a hundred euros to buy some food. When they were informed that they would not be paid at all for the moment, the workers decided to begin a hunger strike in front of Saint-Nazaire’s City Hall. They declared that they will not move from there until their case is settled in France… since the Polish company Kliper proposed to send two buses to repatriate them in Poland! This method is used with each conflict: a first group of workers arrived in Saint-Nazaire in Spring and was entirely renewed in May, because their wages had not been paid. Finally, this first group was partially paid and sent back to Poland.

The CGT trade union is mobilized on this case (and has started a legal procedure against the non-payment of the wages) and all the representatives of the local authorities including the Polish consul hypocritically have regretted that the Labour Code is not yet precise enough on these questions to enable them to intervene…and each one tried to put the blame on the other.

But on the 3rd August 2005 the Polish hunger strikers stopped their action because they won. The hunger strike in front of Saint-Nazaire’s city hall was no good publicity for the mayor and “his” town, some of the strikers had even stopped drinking water and the local population was moved and showed some solidarity. The media took interest in this case, so the French and Polish governments were obliged to react promptly in front of a quite unexpected determination, unexpected indeed by everyone : the strikers, the CGT trade union and the authorities. So the workers got their money (for the first time in this kind of conflict) but they were sacked and sent back to Poland where they will be on the dole because their contract ceased. During this strike, the CGT trade union was able to show that it did not have anything against Eastern European workers coming to France and argued to that a “Social Europe” should implement reforms favorable to workers.

Conclusion
Concerning Eastern European workers in France, one can note two tendencies:

- a limited inflow, contrary to the situation in other European countries: thus the theme of the ‘ invasion ‘ of French labour market by cheap Eastern European labour is a myth, which particularly flowered during the referendum campaign for the European constitution, in parallel with the propaganda about the relocations to Eastern Europe;

- the Eastern European workers who arrive in France, mainly Polish, are more and more often illegally employed. Either they are not declared by their bosses, or they are submitted to all sorts of dubious ‘legal’ contracts which can easily be violated by their employers.

Some sectors (building industry, agriculture) have always employed illegal foreign workers and succeeded in exploiting migrants who were obliged to leave their country to find a job.

Three more recent factors also play a role today: the lack of local labour in agriculture, the increasing competition between European countries which try to find new ways of degrading working conditions, and the fact that farm workers can’t find any more jobs in their native countries, which is the case for the Polish workers.

Borbala (Oiseau-tempête)

Footnotes:
[1] The 2003 regularization of clandestine workers shows the importance of Eastern European migrations : of 635,000 people who have been regularized, 133,000 are Romanian, 100,000 Ukrainian and 47,000 Albanese.

[2] After the war, there were 425,000 Poles (25 percent of the foreigners in France) compared to 47,000 (1.3 percent) in 1990 and 33,500 in 1999.

[3] More and more illegal workers are expelled. From 2003, 1672 Romanians have been expelled including 134 by ‘special grouped flights’ and 1528 on commercial flights. In 2002, 1157 Romanians were expelled. But the number of Eastern European students is growing.

[4] Over 2228 seasonal workers legally picking grapes in 2003, 2225 were Polish. France has several trade unions whose members, in all, don’t represent more than 7 percent of the “wage-earners”. The CFDT is a former Christian trade union, which after 1968 attracted quite a lot of white-collar Far Left militants and used them to build a Leftist reputation in the 1970s before expelling them later, expulsions which gave birth to new trade unions (called SUD, in the Post Office, Health sector, Education, Railways, etc., mainly in the public sector). The CGT, traditionally more influential among blue-collar workers than the CFDT, is a trade union which has been controlled by the Communist Party for decades, but as the French CP is now fragmented between several fractions, it is a bit more “open” (i.e. a bit less Stalinist) and even reintegrates in its ranks revolutionary militants who were expelled in the 1970s and 1980s, and give them significant local responsibilities. Before the beginning of the last European referendum campaign, the official leadership of the CGT supported the “yes” vote while a good part of the apparatus, supported by Far Left militants, defended the “no” vote. A microscopic incident which revived once more the Far Left illusion to push the trade unions to the Left and/or to control them.

Oiseau-tempête
Oiseau-tempête is a journal of social critique which exists in Paris since 1997 in Paris. It is produced by a collective of a dozen people from different political origins, who are partly inspired by anarchist, Marxist, situationist or surrealist ideas. Most of them don’t identify totally with any of these currents. To make a long story short, our project can be defined with 3 words: communist, libertarian and internationalist. All humanity’s wealth and tasks should be put in common : we refuse any instituted power, any useless mediation. We think that common freedom is the necessary precondition to the blooming of each one’s liberty. Outside the journal, the collective also publishes leaflets and papers according to the events. The last issue (n°12, summer 2005, 80 pages) appeared in June 2005.

www.internetdown.org/oiseautempete

[email protected]

Oiseau-tempête, 21, ter rue Voltaire,

75011 Paris France

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net. Edited by libcom for accuracy.

“Be all you can be”
As many wonder why Americans aren’t doing more to oppose a brutal, illegal, but highly profitable war (if you have stock in Halliburton that is) they should realize that a very quiet but effective protest is going on. It is a protest that affects military planning, the morale of the US Army, and may ultimately lead to the end of the war itself. There is a boycott going on and it is being lead by young, poor, black men.
The US all volunteer Army system (mandatory service was another casualty of the American War in Vietnam) depends on the same tools, tricks, and techniques capitalism uses to convince masses of people that they absolutely “must have” the latest contribution to their growing junk piles of products. “Be All You Can Be” and “An Army of One” are slogans that come from the same Madison Avenue hacks responsible for selling soap and toilet paper. Slogans aside, the US Army has traditionally found fertile soil for collecting recruits off of the streets of America’s most depressed economic areas. Areas where a job is scarce and a good job is rare offer little hope for the future for thousands of young black men. The US Army offered these men a chance of escape that no other organization in the country would.
Blacks, a far from monolithic community, have supported service in the army since the Revolutionary War for economic and other reasons. Perhaps in the days of slavery it was simply the prospect of freedom since blacks fought on both sides of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Maybe it was considered a rite of passage to manhood denied blacks in most other areas of American society. Maybe it was another chapter in the unrequited love affair many blacks are engaged in with American culture as they try to prove their constantly questioned loyalty and right to first class citizenship through military service. Whatever the reason, blacks have been significantly represented in the US Army since WWII. By 2000, 24 percent of Army recruits were black even though blacks made up only 13 percent of the overall population. When you subtract the number of black men who could not serve due to criminal convictions, the amount of voluntary support is staggering.
Yet since 2000, the numbers and percentage of blacks in the army have been in decline. Today, blacks account for only 14 percent of US Army recruits. As the overall recruiting shortfalls in 2005 indicate, it isn’t as if this decline doesn’t matter. It isn’t as if recruiters aren’t trying as they troll the streets and roam the halls of high schools peddling dreams of money for college and trips to exotic places like game show hosts. The fact is many recruits are simply saying “no”. Even though poor black men are facing increasing economic pressure, such as a 50 percent unemployment rate in New York City, often living in dangerous surroundings with little hope of building a better life unless they leave, the prospect of fighting a war for the new American oligarchy seems foolish. Many would rather take their chances on the streets of Chicago than on the streets of Baghdad.
Black young men are often not in alone in their decision to reject the call of the military. Parents of potential soldiers of all backgrounds are dissuading their children from military service too. The Army has attempted to counter that trend with an add campaign stressing the “independence and reasonableness” a decision to join the military is for young people painting the decision to support a war of aggression as a perverse right of passage to adulthood.
They even have created a web site specifically for parents of potential soldiers touting the benefits of being a soldier. Naturally, death and dismemberment benefits aren’t mentioned. Parent organizations like No Draft No Way and Mothers Against the Draft are alerting parents to covert military aptitude testing in the schools and how to opt out of a law that requires all schools receiving federal funds to provide military recruiters with personal information about their children. They also share information about how to stop recruiter phone calls and contacts.
The decline in recruits, particularly from the black community, a source thought to be secure, hurts the army in many ways. First, current soldiers are not allowed to leave when their contracts are up because their replacements are not in the pipeline. This “stop-gap” provision, or back-door draft, creates morale problems when soldiers want to come home at the end of their enlistment and be done with it all but legally can’t. Many soldiers are facing the prospect of their third tour in Iraq. Additionally, if recruiting numbers continue to fall and the US seeks to maintain troop strength in Iraq at 100,000 soldiers through 2009 (while threatening actions in Iran and elsewhere), a real draft may be necessary.
War planners fear a real draft because there main economic stooges, the American middle-class, will then be directly affected by the war as opposed to the faceless poor who are currently suffering the majority of the casualties. A real draft, especially one without the “my daddy is rich” exemption would awaken already stirring anti-war sentiments and may call the oligarchy itself into question. A Pew Research Center poll indicates for the first time that a majority of those polled believe the Iraq war is a mistake. An NBC poll showed that nearly 60 percent of Americans want to reduce the number of soldiers in Iraq.
Polls have consistently shown that blacks in the US are overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq. A recent PBS report noted among black youth only 36 percent think the war is justified while over 61 percent of white youth think it is. Even though they are in the same country, many blacks know first hand what it means to be “those” people and they naturally question those in power. Blacks remember the days in the US when they were thought of as a community of potential terrorists too and treated accordingly. When blacks hear of terms like ‘haji’, ‘raghead’, or ‘sand nigger’ being used to dehumanize the Iraqi people, they know the tune of their oppression is still playing though the words have changed.
It is difficult to question the intelligence of young black men as they continue to see through the charade and march away from the recruiting station. As America recently marked the occasion of the death of the 2001 US service member, black men may be choosing to save their own lives while refusing to take the lives of others for a president that in the words of rapper Kanye West “… Doesn’t care about black people.”

on a [prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

The “French touch” in the CEECs 1 : lay-offs, low wages, limited freedom and high productivity

In May-June 2005, during the electoral campaign about the European Constitutional treaty in France, there was a lot of discussions in French medias about the famous "Polish plumber", presented as a menace to French workers by the sovereignist Right and Far Right parties.

Curiously, nobody tried to seriously inquire about what was, on the other side, the behaviour of French companies in Eastern and Central Europe. Few journalists dared to say that French hypermarkets like Carrefour, Auchan or Leclerc in Poland pay their employees with delay, open on Sundays with no extrapay, change their timetable from one day to the other, etc. Or, to be more precise, the journalists did their job but on marginal radios, like the State-financed Radio France Internationale (RFI) and on one of the national channels – after midnight! Nevertheless, listening to or watching these medias, one could get some interesting information.

On RFI, for example, there was a long report about French investors in Romania. The French capitalists interviewed on the radio used the anti-globalization rhetoric to justify why they paid low wages to "their" Rumanian workers: after all, they were contributing to a "durable development" in that country! And a worker, who was probably cumulating hundreds of overtime hours, explained that he succeeded to buy his house in 5 years, earning 150 euros per month. But the journalists also interviewed a Romanian trade-unionist about the multinational French distribution group Carrefour, which has heavily invested in several CEECs, and fires any employee who wants to organize a trade-union in its supermarkets. If Rumanian workers still had any illusions about the "fatherland of the Rights of Man", they probably have lost them all now.

And on national TV (after midnight) there was a one-hour report about some French companies who have bought thousands of hectares in Poland and make Polish farm workers sweat day and night ("they are not as lazy and demanding as French workers"!). The cynicism of the French executives interviewed in this program was worth listening to and contrasted with the disgusting daily propaganda about the "Polish plumber".

Unfortunately, even if some French media partially did their job, most of them only focused their attention on the mythical threat of 150 or 180 Polish plumbers (the exact number was revealed only after the electoral campaign) against "French jobs".

This article tries to give some information about French investments in Eastern and Central Europe, i.e. the former Stalinist States which were part (like the Baltic States) or not of the USSR and are now, or will be in a near future, integrated into the EU. Written by a non-specialist, this text certainly contains errors and flaws and should be obviously enriched by data about the reactions of Eastern European workers in front of the methods of French companies, in order to build an effective international solidarity. The most important remains to be done.

France: a minor investor… but a major exploiter in Eastern and Central Europe
Prol-Position has already documented the importance of German investments in Eastern and Central Europe. In most of these countries French capitalists have less economic weight (6 percent of the market) than German bosses (27 percent of the market). Several French administrations Affairs closely follow these questions and, for its specialists, this difference is linked to several factors:

–Germany and France have different historical and diplomatic links with Eastern and Central Europe. 2

–Germany can count on a much more developed network of small and medium firms which are commercially aggressive (for example in Poland, there are 91 French companies as opposed to 226 German ones);

–German banks are much more implanted in the CEECs and have much closer relationships with German corporations and small and medium firms.

Whether these French specialists are partially right or not, that does not change much to the daily exploitation of Eastern European workers. Even if French capitalists are generally behind German bosses in the "East Rush", their methods are exactly the same.

If one considers the CEECs, Germany and the United States are the two main investors. For example in 1997-1998, Germany invested 11,436 million euros, the USA 8,460 and France 2,905, closely followed by countries like Netherlands and Austria whose GDP is almost four times inferior to the French one.

Nevertheless, French imperialism has done its best to take its share of the Eastern European cake. As soon as the "Popular democracies" opened their frontiers to foreign capital, French multinationals tried to take over major State companies (power stations were bought by EDF or phone companies by France Telecom) and did not hesitate to sack thousands of workers. When Renault bought the Dacia factory in Romania, to produce its 5,000-euro car, the "Logan", it sacked 12,000 workers out of 28,000 and generously decided to pay 143 euros per month to its workers.

After this first stage of gross looting, French companies are now studying what are the best possibilities for them on each local market and adapt themselves to the various political situations: corruption plays a negative role for foreign investment, while low taxes and low wages (French wages are 6 to 8 times higher) act as a powerful magnet.

Between 1992 and 2003, France has multiplied by four its exportations to the CEECs. The levels of its exports is superior to the exports concerning China or Latin America, and more stable.

If the rate of growth of the CEECs is higher (between 3 and 4 percent as opposed to 1-2 percent for the rest of the EU), official and unofficial unemployment rates are much higher (18 percent in Slovakia, 19 percent in Poland and 40 percent in Bulgaria, for example), a factor which maintains the wages level low, while the qualification is generally quite good according to European standards, the Baltic countries being the first "pupils of the class", Slovenia and Hungary being the last ones.

This article presents some basic factual information about the situation in the CEECs: who are the main French firms involved, how many local workers do they employ, and what’s the rank of French imperialism in relation with its competitors in each country.

For the reader who has not the patience to read these data, one can be sum them up in a few words: around 220,000 people work, directly or indirectly, for French companies in Eastern and central Europe (80 million people are employed in all the present European Union). The main French banks are involved in Eastern and Central Europe as well as the most important groups of the car and building industries, and the distribution corporations. French imperialism has a strong influence in Romania and Poland; a reasonable influence in Hungary, Bulgaria and Czech Republic; and a weaker position in Slovakia and in the Baltic countries. French imperialism contributes to the destruction of local agricultures and to the dismantling of all major state-owned companies.

The presence of French imperialism is often hidden by subtractors: Technic Plastic Romania works for Salomon, Solectron produces phones for Philips, etc. And the clothes produced by Alca Group factory in Bucarest for Lacoste, Etam, Pierre Cardin or Hugo Boss dont indicate that they are "made in Romania".

Bulgaria
France is only the 13th foreign investor, the main ones being Austria, Greece, Netherlands, Germany and Italy. French companies employ around 3,000 persons. As a bourgeois economic journalist notes: "At industry level, French-Bulgarian trade shows the classic structure of trade relations with the developing countries: export of investment goods and semi-processed goods and import of labour-consuming goods. (…) From the top, these industries rank as follows: textile products for supplying of new partnerships in the field of ready-made clothes; the pharmaceutical industry, perfumery and detergents; motor vehicle construction  with the Peugeot Group, which ranks first on the market of new cars; chemical industry, rubber and plastics; mechanical equipment. After these come electronic and electro-technical equipment, food industry and cloth and furs, sold as raw materials to Bulgarian factories of working with client-supplied materials.

"(…) French participation in Bulgarian privatisation is limited to several industries, mainly the banking sector (the acquisition of Express Bank by Société Générale), energy industry (the acquisition of Pirin-Bistritsa by Mecamidi), electrotechnics (the acquisition of a production unit in Perushtitsa by Schneider), cement industry (Bulgarian enterprises of Devnia Cement and Vulkan have been purchased by Ciment Francais), do-it-yourself (the opening of two centres of the trademark of Monsieur Bricolage in Sofia and Plovdiv) and food industry (the acquisition of the Serdika state-owned milk-processing factory by Danone). The Dewavrin business group has recently built an enterprise of washing and colouring of wool in the region of Plovdiv. (…).

"Many French companies have commercial representations and/or agents. Some of them are of major importance: Peugeot, Renault, Citroen - they have made the French cars the best-selling cars on the Bulgarian market, but also Alcatel in telecommunications, Servier and Boiron in the pharmaceutical industry, Lactalis in the cheese industry.

"(…) But small and medium French enterprises are attracted by the low expenses for access to a market with production potential and - as a result of that - of prospects for economic sub-delivery: qualified personnel, medium salaries, interesting regional and geographical location. Thus, 75 per cent of the French presence in Bulgaria is made up of mainly small and medium enterprises of the textile and clothes industries, shoe industry, telecommunications and services."

This long quotation describes a basic scheme which is often reproduced in other CEECs.

Czech Republic
France is the 4th investor behind the Netherlands, Germany, Austria. 300 French companies employ 60,000 persons. The majority of French companies employ from 50 to 250 persons. 45.5 percent in the manufacturing sector, 39 percent in services and 15.5percent in commerce. The most important companies are:

–Alstom (mobile phones),

–Carrefour (distribution),

–Danone (food industry),

–Saint-Gobain (14 manufactures producing glass and building materials),

–Société Générale (bank),

–Sodexho (catering),

–Suez (town water),

–Veolia (town water), Dalkia (heating in collective housing units, electricity), Connex (transport), Marius Petersen (industrial waste treatment)

–Vinci (road and railway infrastructures)

–PSA, allied with Toyota, has built a factory in Kolin, near Prague.

Croatia
Croatia’a main partners are Austria and Germany. Although French investments have been progressing, they represent only 2,42 percent of foreign direct investments. There are 5 companies concerned by French investments: Alsthom, Lesaffre, Bouygues (building industry, which possesses 51 percent of Bina Istra), Saint-Jean Industrie (car components) and Bricostore (do-it-yourself). In all, 2,000 persons work for French companies including the workers employed for the construction of Istria motorway. In 2005 ORCO is supposed to invest in Suncani Hvar hotels.

Estonia
France is the 19th foreign investor. Main companies: Télédiffusion de France (in Eesti Ringhaalingu Saatekeskuse radio) and Dalkia International (in 2 companies dealing with collective urban heating), JC Decaux (street and urban furniture), Billon Simex International (table tennis), Connex (urban transports) and Riviera (wine, cosmetics). Around 2,400 people work directly or indirectly for French companies.

Hungary
France is the 5th foreign investor behind Germany, United States, Austria and Netherlands. French companies have invested in the food industry (Danone, Bongrain, Ceva-Phylaxia), building industry (Bouygues), energy (Total, EDF, Suez, GDF), car industry (Renault, Peugeot, Citroën, Michelin), distribution and do-it-yourself department stores (Cora, Auchan, Bricostore, Decathlon, Plaza commercial centers controlled by BNP Paribas bank), chemistry-pharmacy (Servier, Sanofi-Synthelabo), publishing (Hachette) and hotels (Accor). In all, 351 French companies employ 57,583 persons.

Poland
France is the 1st foreign investor. Mainly concentrated in the telecommunications (France Telecom has bought 47,5 percent of the national telephone company TPSA in 2000; through massive lay-offs and downsizing, in 5 years 42,000 jobs over 70,000 disappeared and now TPSA employs outsourcing companies and temp workers) and distribution sector (food department stores: Carrefour, Auchan, Leclerc, Leader Price and Casino; do-it-yourself department stores: Monsieur Bricolage, Leroy Merlin, Castorama), the investments touch all economic branches: hotels (Orbis linked to Accor), car industry (Michelin in Stomil Olszryn), car equipment (Valeo, 3 factories), Lafarge (building industry), Saint-Gobain (glass and building materials), Thomson (electronics), Air Liquide (chemicals and petrochemicals), Danone and Pernod Ricard (food industry), Sanofi-Synthélabo (chemistry-pharmacy), Faurecia (auto equipment). 33 percent of French investments are concentrated in the manufacturing sector, 30 percent in services and distribution and 35 percent in telecommunications.

The following example is quite illustrative of French capitalist methods in the PECO’s. A French company bought Wyborowa vodka in 2001. At that time 640 people worked there, now (in 2005) the workforce has been reduced to 250. And it could have been even worse, because a few months ago the French investors wanted to fire another 112 people and to reduce wages of the rest by 50percent (!). The workers reacted and did a hunger strike for 13 days. Final result: "only" 90 workers were sacked and the wages were "just" reduced by 7 percent... All that in a factory that always did and does bring profits! In fact French capitalists dont want to keep on producing a lot of small cheap local brands of vodka, as before. They just want to concentrate their efforts on one or two big brands, mostly for export, and with this new commercial choice, they don’t need as many workers as before. So the vodka for the  Polish market is much more expensive and there are more workers on the dole.

Romania
France is the 2nd foreign investor behind the Netherlands. Danone (food industry) has built one factory. Carrefour has 5 supermarkets and plans to open 20 more before 2012. Bricostore (do-it-yourself ) has 3 department stores and Cora 1. 50,000 persons work for French companies and 75 percent of them in companies which were been privatised such as Renault Dacia, Apa Nova Bucarest (Veolia), Lafarge Romcim, BRD-Société générale and Michelin, Sical (paper and cardboard), Dalkia (collective town heating in Ploiesti and Bucarest). France Telecom has invested in mobile phones (Orange Romania) as well as Alcatel.

Small and medium companies have massively invested in small towns of Romania: confection, shoe industry, wood industry (Parisot builds furnitures for Confororama, Ikea and Mobexpert), mechanic industries (IUS Outillage in Brasov), electric industry (Energom in Cluj) and engineering and NTIC (Kepler Riminfo in softwares and call centers).

Car equipment factories have invested in Pitesti (Auto Chassis International, Valeo) and Sibiu (SNR, Société nationale de roulement, Faurecia for car seats). Salomon France is going to partly relocalize its activities in Romania to produce skis.

Slovakia
France is the 3rd investor behind Germany and Austria. 200 French companies employ 25,000 workers. 70 percent are small and medium companies (less than 51 workers) mainly concentrated near Bratislava and Trencin but big groups have also started to invest like PSA Peugeot Citroën who has bought 25 ha to produce 300,000 cars in 2006 with 3,500 workers and plans to provide 6,000 additional jobs to subtractors. It has also created an industrial park in common with Slovak and American companies to host car equipment companies and services linked to the car industry.

French companies have also invested in the

–Food industry (milk, cheese, sugar),

–mechanic industries (metallic fences),

–chemistry (Rhodia has bought Chemlon factory in Eastern Slovakia)

–collective urban heating (Dalkia manages 6 towns including Petrzalka in Bratislava),

–mobile phones (Orange Slovakia controlled by France Telecom)

–banks (Dexia Slovakia a French-Austrian consortium; Natexis in Ludova Banka),

–car equipment (Plastic Omnium invested 60 million euros next to Bratislava Volkswagen factory, Valeo, Faurecia),

–security equipments (Bacou-Dalloz in Partizanske, Central Slovakia),

–gas (GDF has its own filial Pozagas and has bought 24.5 percent of the local gas company, SPP, which employs 5,600 workers and has 1,42 million of clients nationally,

–Steel industry (Arcelor),

–Petrol (Total),

–Plasturgy (Nief-Plastic),

–Tooling (2MI),

–Road construction (Vinci), etc.

Slovenia
France is the 3rd foreign investor, behind Austria and Switzerland, and has leading positions in the banking sector (Société Générale), car industry (Renault), management of public services (Ondeo in Maribor), distribution (Leclerc), building industry (Lafarge bought the second cement factory). 40 French companies employ 5,700 persons.

Yves (Ni patrie ni frontières)

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net. Edited by libcom for accuracy.

• 1 CEECs: Central and Eastern European Countries
• 2 As Davide Passoni notes in Pagine Marxiste no. 5 (November 2004): "during all the 18th and 19th century, the Eastern and Balkanic Europe has been an object of permanent struggle between Germany, France, England, Italy and Russia, struggle which led to two world wars. It was the tendency of German imperialism to grow towards East which provoked the reaction of the European powers and of the USA. They wanted to impede Germany to acquire a specific weight in Europe which would have enabled it to lay the basis for its hegemony on the continent". And Passonni adds: "The amplification of its internal market [after the reunification of Germany] and the reconstruction of its Eastern part have pushed to the east the baricenter of Germany and Europe, and it’s no mystery for European diplomats that German economy is the one which profits most from the enlargement of the European Union."

This interview, done by Jasoslaw Urbanski, was published in July 2005 in the Polish monthly Nowy Robotnik and in Wildcat no.74, summer 2005.
[b]“We are picking 800 - No more!” [/b]

How did you get to Ireland?
For ten month I had worked for a company in Poznan/Poland as a salesman. After they hadn’t renewed my work contract I decided to go abroad in order to earn some money. A friend had told me that wages in Ireland are not that bad and that there aren’t any bigger problems to find a job. I decided quite quickly. I arrived in Dublin with 100 Euros in my pockets. I was lucky to be able to sleep in friends” houses and not having had to pay for hotels. My expenditures I reduced to buying cheap food.

How did you start working at Tesco?
I looked for a job in all kind of ways: I applied at shops which announced ‘Employee wanted’, I used the service of the job centre FAS (which is similar to Polish job offices although much more effective and friendly to the job seekers) and I asked acquaintances. At the FAS I met two Polish women who told me about the job agency Grafton. Recently this company started its activities in Poland, as well, in order to recruit workers for the bigger companies, amongst others for Tesco. It was a Friday when I arrived with my CV in the Grafton office; on Monday I already had a concrete meeting with the manager and on Tuesday I started working at Tesco Distribution in the storage depot. You have to admit that the work agencies work quickly.

How did the irregularities and exploitation at Tesco look like?
In the huge depot where I work now since seven month there are workers who have a permanent contract with Tesco and workers employed by an agency. I belong to the latter group, together with a lot of other Polish and some people from Slovakia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary and a few Irish. The permanents are mainly from Ireland plus some black people (due to political correctness1 ), Russians, Turks, French. And also a Polish guy who had started working before Poland joined the EU. After a short time I realised that these two groups (temps/permanents) not only differ in terms of nationalities. The permanents earn at least 12.50 Euros per hour, depending on how long you work on a certain job in the company. Every few month they got a wage increase. We still only get 9.52 Euros, although some of us work for the agency for over a year now. No wage rises! Due to that we only get about 360 Euros per week, although we do the same work. The permanents get extra money on Christmas and on Easter, we don’t. The permanents work every second, we have to work every Saturday. There are a lot of these little differences. Every temp worker dreams about getting a permanent contract at Tesco and to be freed from the agency. But that would nearly require a miracle. Tesco has an elaborated policy and knows for sure that people from Eastern Europe would work happily for 7.60 per hour (minimum wage in Ireland). In addition to that Tesco gets rid of the responsibility by employing people through temp agencies. The temp agencies hire us, they pay us, hand out the weekly pay slips, shift us from one depot to the other, according to the clients requirements, they pay our social security and compensation in cases of work accidents. In legal terms we are only temporary staff. What that means for our rights is difficult to say, even for lawyers. In these times of migration they were clever to install this system which enables them to exploit the workers from the East to the max, them not knowing their rights and desperately looking for a job. We worked within this system up to the moment where the managers started to enforce higher daily work norms, a higher work load. Roughly spoken our work consists in sorting products. We pick stuff from Euro-palettes and sort it into specific containers which are then delivered to nearly all Tesco supermarkets in Ireland. Our main task is ‘picking’. We know that the Irish permanents picked about 500 boxes a day. That was before the extension of the EU. If they picked more than this unofficial norm they got some extra money. When the Polish arrived it was said that 750 boxes per shift are supposed to be picked. I can remember that number from my first working days of my career at Tesco. About two month ago the managers announced in informal meetings that it would be fine to pick 800 or 850. Those who dreamt most vividly about a permanent contract at Tesco picked already 1400 boxes and a guy from Slovakia broke the record by picking 1900 box during a seven and a half hour night-shift. One month ago, when they announced that the norm is now 900, we - six guys, all from Poland - went to the shift manager and asked him about what was going on. During the training period we had seen videos for hours saying that we are supposed to take care of our backs and now we are supposed to pick 900. He said that we could go home, if we don’t like the work, and that a lot of people are only waiting to do our jobs.  

How did you react to the attempt to squeeze so much out of you?
On the next day I went to work with my t-shirt, where I had written in big letters: We are picking 800. No more. Although it was Saturday, the top manager appeared straight away and called me into his office. He called the boss of Grafton there too. Then they both put me through the ringer for about two hours. Why had I written that? Whether my back hurt? What my colleagues thought about it? They were very nice, careful and polite. They even ordered me a vegetarian pizza because I had missed my lunch break.

During our meeting I got an SMS for my work mates in the hall “We are with you”, which was really important. The guys even came up to the office door and let it be clearly heard that they were there! I insisted that the norm should not be any higher than 800 boxes. They asked me not to wear this controversial t-shirt any more. I asked the Grafton representative what he would do if I didn’t take it off. He said then they may have to sack me. Then I threatened him with the union, at which point he very quickly changed the subject.

That was a good day. We were all sure of our - so it seemed - successful resistance. The Irish showed us solidarity, when they saw my t-shirt they gave the thumbs up and mentioned Lech Walesa. They gave some good advice. The next thing were the people from the SIPTU Union (Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union) introducing themselves to us and telling us, what most of us already knew - that we are exploited and it would be time for us to organise! They encouraged us to join the union on mass so that they could successfully represent us. I had known of the SIPTU for a few months and had even tried to had in a membership application, but Grafton, as my employer, had blocked my membership. It came out later that they had no right to do this.

What happened then?
The following week one of the top SIPTU activists visited our workplace. Temp workers from all the three shifts had a meeting with him. The guy told us they would help us. SIPTU is the largest union in Ireland, one often hears of their actions on the radio, there are adverts for them in the busses. They are very active. They had already helped us with some small questions, after an announcement by the SIPTU at the Jobs Agency (previously Job Shop) the guys had immediately got their P60 accounts, which they needed for their tax year calculations.

How many of you joined the union?
I that that during this time half the temp workers at Tesco joined the SIPTU. Maybe a third. Many workers hesitated, partly because they were only working here for the holidays and would go back to their own countries in three months. Others were afraid to stick their necks out too far. There were also those for whom the 3.75 Euros membership fee per week was simply too much. They didn’t understand that they could win more by joining. At the moment there is a new employment law coming in Ireland. Situations like the one we find ourselves in at the moment, will be illegal: that we do the exact same work as the permanent workers, but earn 200 Euros less per week! The SIPTU are doing intense lobbying work to change this sick situation.

What is your daily life like at Tesco at the moment?
The SIPTU are currently preparing a complaint against Grafton and Jobs about all their irregularities. The next thing to go to the employment tribunal is about the sacking of our colleagues last week, who did not reach the imposed norms. It was cleverly arranged. Tesco told the temp agencies which workers had to go. The agency told the guy in a very rude way, that he didn’t have any more work, AND they told him at 6 in the morning in front of the gates to the warehouse when he went to sign in for his shift. There were two such cases. Legally the agency should find the person another job, for at least the same wage. They also have to pay any time in-between, if they do not find new work right away. Most people don’t know that, which benefits the agency. If you don’t demand any holiday pay, you can be sure the agency won’t remember to give you this all by themselves!

For three weeks now the daily norm is now 1000 boxes for us! Finally it became clear that our resistance was not successful and our joy unfounded. The manager invited us all one by one to a meeting as said, like old friends, we all have to achieve more, and it is an order from above, that they can’t influence at all. Sure they like us and all, but if it doesn’t suit us, then they will have to get rid of us and get new workers. And finally, when some of us can pick 1200 or even 1400, why can’t the rest of us pick 1000? With this they managed to talk many of us into picking 1000 and more and more of the guys are now doing this. And this really puts pressure on our backs! There are only a few of us remaining, who are staying on the 800 limit. We are ready to act, but we counting on the union helping us.

How do you think this conflict will end up?
After the success of the ‘t-shirt action’ I wanted to just go ahead and form a temp workers committee at Tesco. We even met at work to discuss this. I though of a press conference to really publicise the issue widely. It is clear that Tesco is afraid of public criticism. When it came out how badly they were treating the workers from the east, it damaged their carefully constructed image. But most of our circle thought that it wouldn’t make sense, we wouldn’t have a chance against such a huge colossus. There was only a handful of us radicals, actually only three who were prepared to risk our jobs in order to preserve our dignity and - and a healthy spine. Afterwards the idea was taken care of by the committee. But I think it will perhaps also bring some results, if we rely on the SIPTU. They are the professionals. They have got employees, offices, support amongst the people. As an anarchist I do not get along with everyone, which is not the case for the SIPTU. And if the agency tells me that I will not be working for Tesco any more, maybe then I will chain myself to the forklift truck. Since they sacked one of us for not fulfilling the norm, I have been going to work with my t-shirt again: We are picking 800. No more. I am determined to resist until the end. Luckily I have not fallen victim to the slave syndrome that has spread amongst our countrymen!

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net. Edited by libcom for accuracy.

• 1 libcom note: we are unsure as to what is meant here, but it could be unclear due to language barrier issues

Translated from Wildcat 75, December 2005
Masked men attack a manager from the Indesit kitchen stove factory and cut his face with a razor knife: This story from Lodz went through the Polish press in October. The attack came one day before the funeral of a young worker whose head had been crushed by a two-ton sheet metal press in the neighbouring refrigerator factory which also belongs to the Indesit corporation. The automatic stop mechanism had been removed from the machine in order to prevent the line from being stopped all the time. In the link above, we print excerpts from a reportage from the daily paper Gazeta Wyborcza. [1]

The reportage shows graphically what a Western corporation’s brand-new large factory in Eastern Europe looks like for the workers: hiring predominantly through temporary work agencies, low wages [2] for which skilled workers do not want to work, a correspondingly high turnover, brutal norms which are achieved by avoiding security regulations and endless - partly unpaid - overtime. A factory command which is almost exclusively organised through pressure.

The media as well as the police have immediately made a connection between the fatal work accident and the attack on the manager - a connection which is refused by local leftists. An article for the Nowy Robotnik also criticises that “there is no political consciousness in the plant. We haven’t met any charismatic people who would take up the task of organising a union or a strike in the plant.” [3]

Similar complaints can be heard from factory leftists in many Western European plants. But most workers neither form unions nor attack their managers but work overtime. At Indesit in Lodz they seem to do it with a deep alienation towards the factory and growing hate of their bosses. It was exactly this impression - the lack of mediation between workers and management in one of the new centres on which capital says it plans to base its future - which we found interesting when we heard of the attack, and this reportage has only reinforced the impression.

Lodz, Polands second-largest city with 770,000 inhabitants, was considered the “Manchester of the East” since the 1860s, it was one of the centres of the Russian Revolution of 1905, and it was a centre of the textile industry through the 1980s. Most textile factories have closed down since the collapse of the Eastern European markets. [4] At 16.8 per cent, unemployment in Lodz is only slightly lower than the national average of 18 per cent, but significantly higher than in other big cities like Warsaw (6.3), Poznan (6.7), or Cracow (7.4 per cent). Accordingly, the city advertises the fact that local manufacturing wages are at only 85 per cent of the Polish average. [5]

The city administration had the consulting firm McKinsey devise a “strategy” which among other things proposes a focus on the household appliance industry which is currently leaving Western Europe. [6] With some success: In the last few years, the big names of the industry have settled here. There are 1700 people working just in the two Indesit plants which were opened in 1999 and 2004. This makes Indesit one of the biggest employers in the city. Bosch-Siemens has been active since 1998 and is currently making 700,000 washing machines and dryers a year with 450 workers - at conditions similar to Indesit: gross hourly wages of 6 Zloty and norms at Western levels. Suppliers like Mecalit, Coko, Wirthwein, Prettl, DSWI, Drahtzug Stein, or E.G.O. have also moved to Lodz. In the reportage, an Indesit manager says: “We have already invested over 100 million Euros in Lodz and we are still investing. We are not going away.” It remains to be seen whether the “strategy” will work out for the corporations as well and whether the local working class will turn out to be not just cheap but also cooperative.

Notes
[1] The reportage has appeared on 17 Oct 2005 in Gazeta Wyborcza, the biggest bourgeois daily in Poland. We have abbreviated the German translation to about half the original length and re-arranged some parts. The full German translation can be found at www.wildcat-www.de.

[2] The reportage talks of 4.20 Zloty per hour. According to the Nowy Robotnik, gross hourly wages for workers hired through a temporary work agency are slightly above 6 Zloty per hour. The exchange rate is at approximately 4 Zloty to 1 Euro.

[3] Malgorzata Michalska in Nowy Robotnik Nr. 21 (25), http://nr.freshsite.pl/?nr=25&id=577.

[4] For example, the textile factory Uniontex still employed 14,000 workers in the 1970s. In 2003, an occupation strike was organised against the final closure of the plant - against the big unions Solidarność and OPZZ. After the end of the strike, a self-managed cooperative with 130 employees was founded in the factory.

[5] Unemployment data from the Polish statistical office (http://www.stat.gov.pl). Investment data from the site of the Lodz Special Economic Zone (http://www.sse.lodz.pl) and from the Polish press (local news eg. at http://wirtualna.lodz.pl).

[6] See the article and the interview about the Bosch-Siemens plant in Berlin-Spandau in Wildcat 74 - “The only thing they can expect from us ... (is a kick in the arse!). A washing machine factory closes down.” [translation in this edition of the newsletter]- and also the current conflict at the AEG plant in Nürnberg.

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net. Edited by libcom for accuracy.

Right after Katrina hit, it looked like issues of race, class, and poverty were again coming to the forefront in the United States. The images of “bloated bodies floating in muddy water washing over submerged pickups and campers, of corpses being eaten by rats as they decompose on the city streets, of people dying in wheelchairs outside the convention center as families poured water over their heads to keep them alive” transfixed the country. (New York Times, Sept. 4th) No one could fail to see that these people were almost entirely poor and Black. There were calls for a “renewed attack on entrenched poverty”.

Six weeks later, how things have changed. The newspapers rarely carry stories on the survivors as a group; it’s as if tens of thousands of people suddenly vanished. If the media mention them at all, it’s about individual success stories: new marriages, people reunited with long-lost relatives and pets, those who have gotten lucky breaks in their new surroundings. Instead, what’s most visible now is the political fall-out: the jockeying for money, and the reports of swindles and con-games connected with bogus charity fundraising. In other words, business as usual.

New Orleans remains semi-militarized, stripped of most of its population. There’s still an awful lot of National Guard troops roaming around southern Louisiana and Mississippi providing “humanitarian aid” now, along with private security contractors, many from the same firms providing security services in Iraq. And significantly for its long-term effects, the social character of an important part of the South is changing, its working-class being recomposed from the shift of people out of the region and to a lesser extent from an influx of people streaming in.

A look at the numbers shows how this is taking place. Over one and a half-million people have been scattered from the area, mainly to the neighboring six states of the Deep South. Although the mass centers like the Houston Astrodome are now emptied out and the public shelters are starting to shut down too, tens of thousands remain out of sight and public attention in individuals hotel rooms paid for by FEMA [1], the federal agency charged with disaster relief.

The national construction industry was especially hard hit by the storm; the Midwest factories making cement, brick, and wood-products all shipped through southern Louisiana ports. Because of these shortages in building materials, a shortage of skilled labor and the cleanup of storm debris in the affected areas, little permanent housing is likely to be built anytime soon. As many have pointed out, this transfer of people marks the largest internal migration in the United States since the Civil War, topping the Depression-era flight of poor white farmers from the prairie and outstripping the migration of southern Blacks to northern factories in the decades around World War II. Both of these past migrations led to social conflicts, especially the latter.

However, instead of a plan for permanent housing, FEMA has ordered hundreds of thousands of trailers to house survivors. These trailer camps will concentrate for an indefinite time the poor and working-class survivors in isolated rural areas, far from jobs, public transportation, and public services. Already, people are calling these trailer camps, “FEMA-villes,” a play on words going back to the Depression when the tents and cardboard boxes of the unemployed were called “Hoovervilles” after the Republican president of the time.

All of this is already increasing social strains throughout the South. The states hardest hit by Katrina (and then Rita) are already the poorest in the country, with low-wages. little union membership, paltry public services, and few if any welfare benefits for single people. While some of this economic pressure may be offset by the influx of federal money and rebuilding efforts in the region, much won’t - and it’s questionable how much of this federal money will benefit the people most affected by the storm.

Baton Rouge, the next largest city in Louisiana, for instance, has doubled in size. As one writer in Baton Rouge recently described the local situation said, “Jobs are as rare as snow in August... barely a trickle of cleanup jobs are going to Louisiana businesses or Louisiana workers and those few that are magically trickling down into the local economy are grossly underpaid...” (“Losing Hope in Louisiana,” Washington Post, Oct. 12th). Texas, which took in a large influx of evacuees is already a major site for undocumented immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America and the sudden presence of thousands of mostly unskilled relocated workers from the hurricane states has lowered wages there too.

The official body count of a little over a thousand dead is suspiciously low and the efforts to recover bodies shrouded in secrecy. Recovery will be hard because many corpses have been swept out to swamps and rivers as one coroner in Mississippi told the Washington Post. Legally, someone declared missing without proof of death has to stay missing for two years before being officially documented as dead. No doubt this will aid the government in underplaying the true figures, much in the same way as it does with Iraq. (In Iraq, only deaths taking place directly in Iraqi soil are counted, leaving out the many wounded who later die in military hospitals outside the country.) With many families evacuated by the hurricane broken up and suddenly shipped off to different parts of the country, tracking who is alive and who is dead is still incomplete.

The Special Case of New Orleans

New Orleans has long been called the most Third World city in the United States. Mostly dependent on tourism, the city ranked among the poorest in the country, with over 25 percent of the population living beneath the official poverty line, a declining majority-Black city - over 70 percent of the population was Black - much like Detroit and Baltimore.

Although the area of southern Louisiana surrounding New Orleans is one of the most industrialized regions in the country, with a heavy concentration of chemical, oil, and plastics plants and a huge shipping industry, most of these manufacturing and port jobs were down-sized or automated long ago; few city residents benefited. The Port of New Orleans, for instance, one of three major ports in the region, only had 350 workers officially on the port payroll, although the surrounding warehouses employed thousands more.

Back in the early 1990s, the collapse of the oil industry plunged the area into severe recession. At the time, I worked with a Cajun [2] woman who talked about the effects of the oil industry collapse. Her family had lived in southern Louisiana for several generations, yet now were split-up around the country. Rural towns were suddenly so poor because of cutbacks in services that dead alligators and dogs were left lying to rot in the streets. She lived near the Mississippi border. You could tell when you were crossing from one state to another: The grass strip in the middle of the highway on the Mississippi side would be immaculately trimmed while on the Louisiana side, the grass grew a foot high. Around this same time, David Duke, an open white supremacist and populist demagogue, ran for state-wide office and almost won. This part of the South has always been an incubator of powerful waves of populism: anti-elite, anti-big business, anti-Semitic and making thinly disguised racial appeals to southern whites.

New Orleans’ reliance on tourism also decisively shaped the city in other ways. The master-servant nature of much tourism work - and the tourist were largely white and the workers mostly black - created an atmosphere of simmering racial and class tension which spilled over in especially gruesome and violent crime.

Another woman friend, who spent significant time in the city over the past few years told me that when you crossed the street at night, people would try to run you over with their cars. Street mugging was widespread and many locals wore eye-patches and used crutches because of attacks. Nearly everyone had some horrible crime story to tell, often where even after turning over their wallets and purses, the perpetrators still stabbed, shot, or beat.

Moreover, like many other poor, Black majority low-wage U.S. cities, the drug economy in New Orleans filled in the gap as the high paid jobs disappeared. New Orleans had one of the highest percentage of drug-related gang memberships of any U.S. city. Drugs and poverty erode people’s ties informal ties and solidarity; it’s no wonder that one study showed pre-Katrina New Orleans residents had little social trust in others (Baltimore Sun, Sept. 21st). It was a city where the white elite was more concerned about Mardi Gras floats than the festering poverty around it, police brutality rampant, and political corruption rife.

It’s in this context that the reports of looting and crime erupting after Katrina has to be placed, without over-estimating or under-estimating what really went on: Just looking at the alleged numbers and incidents of looting and violence says little about its social character or what motivated people. Now, all of the sensational reports of murders, rapes and beatings in the Convention Center and Sports Stadium have now been discredited. There was in fact widespread and spontaneous social cooperation. As a Major in the Louisiana National Guard who was stationed at the Superdome later said, “The people never turned into these animals. What I saw was a tremendous number of people helping people... They have been cheated out of being thought of as these tough people who looked out for each other.”

Even the actual looting that took place, beyond the theft of necessities to survive, often reflected existing social tensions. In The New Republic, a New Orleans based-writer argued that targeting an unpopular local Wal-Mart had much to do with anger at the tax breaks Wal-Mart had gotten and the low-income housing that it has destroyed in the neighborhood:

“Take the looting at the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street the day after the levees began to fall. The store itself opened last year as part of a “redevelopment” of the decrepit St. Thomas public housing complex. The plan, according to critics, involved a net loss in cheap housing units and a tax scheme that helped the world’s largest retailer. The public debate was long, and acrimonious. None of this quite explains why people used Katrina as an excuse to relieve the store of its flat-screen televisions, but resentment was clearly simmering well in advance of the storm.” “New Orleans Diarist: Past as Prologue” New Republic, Sept. 26th)

Yet it would be equally wrong to think that no anti-social victimization took place either. One group of residents from the Ninth Ward who had fled to a nearby school reported being held hostage several days by gang members before escaping. People going back to the Ninth Ward said their homes had been stripped of all valuables. At this point, an accurate picture has yet to come out.

For almost thirty years, the U.S has had no major social struggles. Traditions of collective solidarity are frayed if non-existent. You can chart this decline by looking at two major prison uprisings, one at the height of struggle and one at the dying end of this period. In Attica, prisoners forged a cross-racial solidarity that still stands out today. Yet just a few years later in the early Reagan era , another major prison uprising in New Mexico, gangs tortured and set rivals on fire.

A few days after Katrina hit, rumors spread in Baltimore that all the gas stations would shut down by late afternoon. Hundreds of people lined up at the gas pumps; tempers frayed; fights broke out, and in a few cases, guns pulled. A bitter joke I heard at the time went like this: “Question: What’s the difference between New Orleans and Baltimore? Answer: Twenty feet of water.” It’s easy to see how in a social climate of sharp competition between people that sudden fear and scarcity can lead to more antagonism and not less.

“Disaster recovery is not just a rescue of the needy but also a scramble for power and legitimacy” - The Uses of Disaster, Rebecca Solnit

The New Orleans region plays a key role in the U.S economy. As one researcher puts it, “Historically, it (the Mississippi river and the ports of Southern Louisiana centered on New Orleans) has been instrumental in bringing the USA to its dominant trading status, contributing to the transformation of American from agricultural giant to industrial giant. Latterly, it has added energy, in the form of oil extraction, gas extraction, and petroleum refinement to its inventory. Some 25 percent of US crude oil extraction originates offshore and a significant proportion of refinement onshore. Indeed, and in no small way, New Orleans and the region may claim material credit for America’s current geo-political status... It is the worst possible place to build a city; but the optimum place to build that city.” (“Hurricane Katrina: Location, Relocation, Abandonment...”, Steve Gibson)

But if New Orleans has to be rebuilt, how and in whose interests will the rebuilding take place? Right now, there’s much talk on how much of the infrastructure was damaged; whether oil rigs were toppled and plants wrecked, but not about the absence of workers. A certain State recomposition from above will take place; an attempt to reshape and mold the regional work force in capital’s interest. Already, the Bush administration is trying to shape the character of this reconstruction by suspending federal wage laws guaranteeing union scale wages in the construction industry.

What’s going to happen to the tourist-based old New Orleans economy? Will workers come back and where will they live? So far, the signals are mixed. One recent large poll of former residents living in the Superdome and other shelters showed 44 percent didn’t want to return to New Orleans. Some small leftist and community groups are demanding a “People’s” rebuilding of New Orleans, but with ex-residents so spread out far from the city, no one is listening. But if many do come back, will they accept a return to the old life of grinding poverty and low-wage jobs? Or will some sort of struggles break out? All these are open questions right now. (October 15th, 2005)

Footnotes

[1] While FEMA is associated with responding to natural disasters, one of the agency’s lesser known missions when it was set-up in the 1980s is a plan to detain “suspects” in special camps in case of a political crisis.

[2] Cajuns are descendent of the original French settlers in southern Louisiana who kept a distinct culture.

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

In the last months, T & G Union has evolved a campaign to unionise the workforce of a very aggressive convenience food company, Grampians Country Food Group. This group controls around 50 percent of the British Convenience food sector. It puts tough price pressure and logistic on suppliers and is itself submitted to significant pressure form the supermarket chains. It sticks to an aggressive anti-union policy. The plant at Winsford near Crewe in Cheshire with around five hundred manual workers was opened in autumn 2004. In the course of campaigning for independent trade union representation the T&G Union came across the preparative moves of what appears to be a massive operation aiming to replace contracted (mainly British workers) with temporary agency-driven staff from Eastern Europe, the Baltic Republics, Spain and Portugal, a clear majority of them originating from Poland. Within the last months entire factories have been cleaned of contracted workers and seem to be taken over by agency-controlled migrant labour.

According to T&G research a 300 workers Grampian plant is already operating on a Poles-only basis. The convenience food sector could actually head towards a curious situation of negative racism in its employment policy. Polish work gangs are organised in groups of 5 to 15, mainly around 9 people, often mixed male and female, which are mainly housed in one place and bussed to and out of work with minibuses operated by their agency. Every worker is stopped 12 pounds out of her or his net wages declared on the wage slip for transport. Such stoppage is seriously overpriced, illegal and most probably linked to tax fraud by the agency. Of this society, the workers see very little. They were clearly impressed to learn that British unions actually take an interest in them. Polish workers work much longer than their British workmates. They earn only half of the British manual workers’ wage of about 7 pounds an hour. The official minimum wage has risen to 4.85 pounds in October 2004 and to just a little over 5 pounds in 2005. However, the minimum wage only appears in a contract between the ”Consistant Group” and a Polish sub-contractor, as being paid to the sub-contractor. The Sub-contractor then makes its own deductions before paying out its workers. Hardly any worker wants to stay in England under such conditions. Living costs are high and food alone will use up a lot of the money which was to go in savings for providing consistency, funds for losses on rent, insurance, resources to look for new jobs in Poland after a break in the working biography there. The only option for workers staying in Britain is to change the site of exploitation to ”something decent at least” or stabilise their working relation with a direct contract. Both does not seem to happen, about 10 workers interviewed closer in direct conversations could not name a single success story they heard of in and around Crewe. This climate and the threat of additional costs for an individual return (a peak time ticket Crewe-London can eat up a monthly Polish wage) can coax workers into continuing the working relation with Grampian’s agents even if sound reason and sober calculation is against it.

In effect, Polish workers in Britain have hardly any material benefit from their sacrifice of home and personal life. They are being exploited in the genuine modes as established by Polish capitalism in their home country. The costs of individual return and the shame of coming back from England with nothing are the decisive psychological differential on which agents capitalise to the full extent possible. Even when working double hours as compared to their British colleagues, they do not get the possibility to earn as much as them. This adds to a peculiar hierarchy, in which for example on the meat cutting assembly line professional protective gloves are rare and only to be obtained by certain workers.

”If we would work 40 hours a week, we could all go home at once, we would not make any money here, just losses,” says X. (name known to the author) among general approbation. The overall working week for Polish workers at Grampians varies between 70 to 80 hours according to their accounts. Work is ordered on extremely short notice. A work gang would receive a telephone call around 10 o’clock at night that is when the last worker of the gang comes home from late shift. This telephone call would tell them who was to arrive at what time the next day. The start of work could thus be put at 6 o’clock, only 8 hours in advance. Free days are never enjoyed by a gang as a whole. Bank holidays, such as Easter holidays, are treated by Grampian workforce logistics just as normal working days. The contract between ”Consistant Group” and a Polish sub-contractor, forwarded to a contracted worker on the 20th of October 2004 to serve as a ”example” and justify pressure on workers as a direct result of pressure on the sub-contractors states explicitly under 15.4 that there is no right to claim paid holidays and any holiday is to be seen as a favour granted by the company. The rare free days granted for individual workers seem to be rotating on purpose and leaving only leaving individual workers in the house on purpose. The housing documents we could secure clearly forbid any party or joint social event in the house. They threat with immediate extraditement ”to London” when: any person other than the agencies officers enter the house, in the case of a social invitation, the worker and the invited will both make the journey ”to London”( in practice, they are thrown out of the minibus at a distant highway). One place we visited does not even have a bell to ring.

You have to make yourself understood to the workers upstairs by shouting through the letterbox. As soon as a neighbour or a police involvement is recorded (music, social events, alleged drug incidents), the agency announces to victimise the entire group of lodgers housed in the location, firing them from work and evicting them from their house on immediate notice. Regulation of this type has to be signed by the workers on moving in. The relevant document as been typed down with incredible lack of care for spelling or punctuation, but it exceeds incredible care on the side of the inmates. While a so called Michael, not giving his entire name and not signing himself represents the ”Consistant Group” of the employers, the migrant workers have to spell out their entire name in print and sign that they understood and comply with the regulation. Such paternalistic relations seem to be a foundation element of the contracting system.

Workers are terrorized by stoppages, ie. money deducted from their pay envelopes. The only official stoppage is around 60 pounds weekly for housing, a sum obtained e.g. from all 9 workers in a two-bedroom house officially equipped for 7. So this group pays actually more than 2000 pounds a month for the house. Grampian officials are said to have invested in housing property because this is a very lucrative business when linked so closely to the workplace. Besides the official hosing stoppage, there are unofficial stoppages which are not tax recorded. The group of 9 workers in one house is being deducted more than 360 pounds a month for so-called ”carpet cleaning”. Some of them have been in the house for over half a year and they have never seen a carpet being cleaned. In fact, the stoppage would provide for entirely new carpeting in the house every week. The places are kept remarkably tidy and clean however. Even though no cupboards are provided and the place is in fact very crowded. There is very strict regulation not to smoke in the sleeping rooms, but the company forces workers to sleep on the floor in the smoking room. The excessive tidiness might be linked to the constant thread that a cleaning firm will be called into the house and their price be stopped from the wages as soon as the condition of the place does not correspond to the expectation of the so-called agent’s ”supervisor”. In spite of nearly no convenience being facilitated in the houses (no television, no cupboards, only most basic kitchen equipment, the company forces each worker to pay a 300 pounds deposit which represents the wages you can earn in the Polish countryside in no less than 3 months. As applies to the payment of the first two weeks, which is generally not handed over by the company, workers see the chance of getting these sums back as very minimal.

A very serious issue raised by workers is the fact that they are systematically deprived of their passport and identity cards. They are equally not handed out their permission by the home office to work in Britain. For a lot of workers it is unclear whether this permission has actually been obtained. Therefore they cannot be sure of being in a legal working relationship which makes them very cautious in contacts with British institutions or the option to search different employment. Medical treatment has been denied to X. (name known to the author), a Polish worker after he suffered serious health problems at work. When he asked to be allowed to see a doctor, he was told that this is ”his problem”. He did not get leave from work and understood that he cannot see a Doctor.

Nevertheless each Pole is being stopped more than 4 pounds weekly out of her or his wage for National health insurance. Younger workers who are more familiar with the internet have found out that they can download the forms for getting work permission in Britain from the Home office website and apply individually. Such an option would be preferred by all workers we asked, but they would not be very confident in being able to follow up this process to a successful end. Workers have taken the initiative to tackle the awkward situation of being in a foreign country without documents to identify themselves. When calling the agency, they were told, these documents have been sent back to the solicitors. Nobody would say why. Dealing with British authorities would need some confidence in language skills. The informal offer by Cathleen and Neil Clarke to provide amateur language courses have been greeted with enthusiasm.

Though workers are forced to do 80-hours work weeks, they have a quite vivid sense of taking the initiative. After explaining some essentials of British ”fighting back” trade unionism, the first question for the T & G activists was characteristically ”How can we (the Polish migrant workers) help you (in your cause)?” To be honest, this was what we least expected and we even might have had a slight tendency to think that we had come to help them.

In the past months, Polish migrant workers in Crewe have been trying to challenge the regime of informal control of their entire life in Britain in some dramatic individual clashes. Characteristically though, every escalation has been won by the agents. Maciek complained with a friend about sums missing in his wage envelope (this is claimed to be a general phenomena). In the course of the argument, Maciek was driven to an unknown highway and kicked out of the minibus. His colleague managed to stay in the plant. Polish workers related the story with suspicion towards certain colleagues who would be able to furnish details of the two contesting workers to the management and thus allow them to split their case to their favour. In a more dramatic development a Polish woman signed off from work and housing, realising the ever-present temptation of all those caught in the treadmill. Her effort of getting hold of her housing deposit of three week’s wages took her a long time and lengthy paperwork to be read and signed. In the meantime, the agency would empty the fridge in her house of her belongings and kick it on the street together with her personal luggage. Scandalised by this inversion of any notion of leave notice, she convinced the police to send two officers on the scene. It turned out that a woman officer of the agency has close relations with a higher-ranking police officer in Crewe. So when she called another patrol against the first it turned out, that, in the Polish workers’ words ”the workers’ patrol turned down and left, so additionally to her eviction, she had to face accusations and trouble with the police”. This incident has resulted in migrant workers taking caution not to contact the police at all, even in the case of obvious maltreatment.

Up to now migrant workers get thrown out of work and out of their houses on immediate notice and driven to a highway. In the case for Maciek reported by his workmate this happened for his demanding the pay he was entitled to but which was not paid. In general the first two weeks’ wages as well as the 300 pounds deposit it for the accommodation are seen as not retrievable by the migrant workers themselves.

Strategic considerations, open questions
How is the contracting chain organised? Who can be hold responsible for what? How can we collect evidence, researching in Britain and Poland alike to link the producers in Britain to the migrant workers trade chain extending into the Polish province? We know about a key role of the Dutch multinational ”Convenience Food Systems” with currently two offices in Poland (CFS Polska, see researched details below). The main contracting agency for Poles in the Crewe region is at Wrexham. They have subcontracted Polish agents from different regions (Wielkopolska, Malopolska, Kielce, see address below). Most of the Polish workers however state that they have been dragged into the agency chain by ”friends” and personally known people. False promises are evidently made on the last two levels of the chain who are most involved in getting workers over to England. Once they are there, they face the harsh conditions and the patronising disciplinary power of the so called ”Consistant Group”, for the Winsford workers they are based at Wrexham (address see below). Grampian is on very good working relations with the agents organising the Polish workforce. On request by Polish workers, they have been informed that the agents would not interfere with Grampian directly contracting migrant workers they would like to secure for their production for a longer period of time. This form of cherry-picking by the factory, creating a competition for ”advancement” within migrant workers has not yet started among the Polish workforce. Up to now, only Spanish migrant workers have been contracted by the manufacture to get out of their agents’ patronising.

Individual bargaining is involved in every stage of the supply chain of new migrant workers. In Poland this involves seriously false promises, in Britain the threat to send off workers back to Poland without any savings earned in England. Any effort to collectivise this bargaining on the Polish supply side could seriously shift the power balance around a Grampian plant. Within the coming months, Grampian will not only need to replace conscious migrant workers but also access new dimensions of supply for replacing British staff. Campaigning to increase the price of migrant labour supplies would most effectively target British gangmasters on the basis of the new licensing regulations and Polish sub-contractors in Poland alike.

Contact: [email protected]

From prol-position news #4, 12/2005

Lodz with 700.000 inhabitants is becoming a center of the European household appliance-industry. Until 1989 the city was a center of the Polish textile industry which since then has been closed down. The city is poor, with high unemployment. Some household appliance-factories have settled down here, among them Bosch-Siemens (see article in this newsletter on Bosch-Siemens in Berlin).

The two Indesit factories for refrigerators' and cooking stoves employ 1,750 people, among them 1,300 manual labourers. The rest are Polish white collar workers and only a few Italians, among them the three Italian bosses. The workers are under high pressure from the management. The wages are low (4,20 Zloty an hour, about 1,10 Euro). With overtime the workers earn about 1000 Zloty. Despite high unemployment Indesit has problems finding skilled workers, the turnover is high.

The workers are complaining about the treatment in the factory. Young workers are being employed after finishing school, without experience. No other skilled worker would accept 4,20 Zloty an hour. The training on the machines lasts only a few minutes. Then the conveyor belt gets started and the managers and foremen press the workers to work fast. If the workers do not meet their piece-rate, their foremen are being punished for it by the management. That is also why many workers have to do overtime and work on Sundays. Often the workers are being told to carry on working just before the end of the shift. It happens that they work till 10 p.m. just to get back to work at 5:30 a.m. next morning.

The workers hate their bosses, especially the Polish foremen. Those had asked the workers to take the security installations of the machines to speed up production. That measure - and the fact that the 21-year old worker was completely overworked due to overtime - is seen as having caused his death. He got stuck in a machine that he could enter because the security installation was taken off and was squeezed to death.

In general, there are many injuries, especially cuts on hands and heads... Before the accident happened the foremen had increased the piece-rate and asked the workers to take off their gloves to be able to work faster. The worker who was killed had saved another workers life some time earlier on the same machine. The foreman and managers also treated the workers badly, shouted at them, blamed them for standstills that were due to missing parts. Often the pay-slips were wrong. There had been other attacks on managers before, in and outside the factory. The foremen whose face was cut was called the “SS-man” by the workers.

“It is a Gulag, a work camp,” say some other workers about Indesit. They are using the internet, forums and chat-rooms, to exchange comments and threaten the managers. Many of the most hated managers are mentioned with their full names. Every morning when they come to the office they read the stuff to find out who is being threatened, who is highest on the hate-list. They are scared, especially after having seen the foremen’s face. “Now he’s got a broad smile”, says a worker. Since the foremen was attacked the other managers are getting escorted home every day.

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net. Edited by libcom for accuracy.

18th of November. The strike at Gate Gourmet against the deterioration of the working conditions and the lowering of the wages is on for 43 days now. The company uses scabs from other Gate Gourmet locations and temp agencies.

When today around noon a Gate Gourmet truck with meals for an aeroplane tried to leave the company grounds it was blocked by about 70 strikers and some supporters.

The truck-driver, a scab from a different Gate Gourmet location, ruthlessly continued driving forward, but the strikers held out in front of the truck pressing against it. Security guards from the firm Chevalier tried to pull people away and started hitting them but they could not break the blockade. Instead the truck-front got damaged and apples, icecream and curd cheese were thrown from behind.

When finally the truck front window was smeared with spread cheese (fat content 40 per cent) the driver could not see anything anymore and gave up. Cheers from the crowd followed, and the embellished truck was driven back onto the company ground. When the police came and asked the strikers to finally let the truck drive through, it was nevertheless blocked again. There were some scuffles, minutes passed, but in the end when the police threatened to make arrests the truck could get through.

The whole thing lasted more than an hour and no trucks could leave or enter the Gate Gourmet premises.

Some workers from LSG, the biggest catering-firm for airlines world-wide, were passing by in their trucks, driving very slowly and showing their solidarity by honking. Other LSG-workers had come by earlier in the week to show their support. They understand that the cheap labor at Gate Gourmet also puts their (still better) working conditions and jobs in danger.

Summary of a report written by Wildcat Köln, German version here

From prol-position news #4, 12/2005

The following summary relies entirely on media reports - we couldn’t get hold of any first hand reports from comrades.

The month-long strike/lock-out at HMSI and the police attack on the workers caused a big stir in India. This is mainly due to the location of  the strike: a modern factory of a multinational company in a developing region which up to that point was not seen as prone to industrial disputes. The conflict at Honda threatened to become a spark in a generally tense atmosphere within India’s modern international industry. Therefore the police brutality against the workers can’t be understood as a mere response to a single workers’ struggle, but must rather be explained by the general situation in the new investment zones (see also Newsletter 3 on call centres in India). In order to understand the political significance of the dispute for the Indian economy we recommend you read the detailed analysis of the Indian group Rupe. They describe the increased dependence of the Indian economy on foreign capital influx since the crash in 1991, the new privatisation schemes and the other, dark side, of ”India Shining” (the Indian boom). (www.rupe-india.org/39/contents.html)

About the Region
Gurgaon is situated in the state of Haryana, close to New Delhi, a town in a rural area without any tradition of workers’ struggles. The new town centre is characterised by modern office blocks and shopping malls. Companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Nokia have their headquarters here. The government of Haryana implemented strict anti-union labour laws in order to attract further foreign investment. The industrial zone mushroomed during the last five years and comprises 90 factories, with a large share of companies in the automobile sector. About 70 percent of all motor-scooters produced in India are said to be produced in this region. Japanese companies play an important role, given that Japan is India’s fourth biggest foreign investor and about three quarters of all Japanese companies in India are situated in Gurgaon. The AITUC is the most important union in Gurgaon, it is supported by the CPI(M). The Communist Parties of India have a difficult role to play. On the one hand, they have to make an effort to appear to support the workers, including by ”patriotic propaganda” against foreign investors. On the other, they have the duties of governing parties. West Bengal is a CP-led state and attracts the second greatest amount of foreign investment of all Indian states. Shortly before the incidents in Gurgaon the government of West Bengal signed a 500 Million US-Dollar deal with Mitsubishi.

The Situation in the Modern Industrial Sector
The struggle in Gurgaon took place against the background of various conflicts within the modern industrial sector which often resulted in significant wage improvements for the workers. At HMSI the management claims that the workers already received a 100 percent wage raise in the previous year. In June 2005 the workers at Toyota in Bangalore demanded a 100 percent wage increase. The management promised 25 percent and was able to avoid industrial action. At the car part suppliers Speedomax, Hitachi Electrics and Omax Auto, all situated in Gurgaon, industrial disputes were only settled a few days before the police attack on the HMSI workers. Apart from a booming, but still modest, automobile export industry more and more electronic device companies (mobile phones etc.) are opening their factories in India. Companies like Solectron and Flextronics have recently increased their investment in the sub-continent. The individual ownership of mobile phones has increased from 6 million in 2000 to 50 million in 2005 and is supposed to grow by 20 million each year. The automobile export sector is still confined to a few companies and models (Toyota, Hyundai, Ford, Fiat, Skoda, Suzuki and Mahindra), exporting about 130,000 cars in 2004, but the sector, particularly the car component industry, is growing.

About the factory
The factory is modern, only four years old. The plant churns out 2,000 scooters per day and employs about 1,900 to 2,500 workers. In 2004 HMSI is said to have sold 550,000 scooters in India. Scooters and other two-wheelers are still the most important means of motorised transport in India. In 2003-04 about 5,625,000 motorcycles were sold, compared to 850,000 cars. Most of the workers are hired by subcontractors or only get daily contracts. The wages are poor, securing mere survival. A lot of workers come from the surrounding small villages or even from other states and they rely on the company’s bus service.

The Cause of the Conflict
The conflict began in December 2004 after a manager allegedly hit a worker, who was said to be engaged in organising a union within the plant. Another four workers were sacked after they expressed their solidarity with their workmate. The official justification for the dismissals was "undisciplined behaviour in the factory”. The whole situation came to boiling point when the management sacked another 57 workers and nearly all the workers in the factory reacted by going on strike in June 2005. At the end of June 2005 the management replied by officially sacking 1,000 workers and locking out the strikers.

About the Strike
27th of June: Workers from the surrounding villages are not fetched by the company buses. The management wants to force them to sign a declaration saying that they renounce further demands and strikes.
10th of July: According to media reports, about 38 percent of the workers are still working, some of them are recently hired temps and redeployed office workers. For two days different sources speak about 200 workers still producing. The production is said to be down, only 30 percent of normal volume. In June the total sales of the scooter Unicorn decreased by 66.5 percent compared to the previous month.
13th of July: The employers’ association of the automotive supplying industries (ACMA) demands that the government takes steps against the strike at Honda, complaining about the negative impact on the situation in other plants in the region.
17th of July: The media reports that the company has already lost 200 Million US-Dollars due to the conflict. There are also reports on large numbers of police troops being deployed in Gurgaon, arriving from various nearby towns. Unionists talk about the first acts of intimidation from police and management. The management offers to let 100 locked-out workers return to work.
25th of July: Between 2,000 and 3,000 workers of the Honda plant demonstrate in Gurgaon, supported by family members and employees of other factories. Near the factory some initial scuffles break out, but the demonstration continues. Workers are said to have tried to occupy the nearby Highway 8. Allegedly without warning the police attack the protestors with long bamboo batons, tear gas and rubber bullets. The television shows pictures of policemen hitting already unconscious workers. One worker is said to have died right on the street. The reported number of injured people varies between 300 and 800 and a lot of them have serious head injuries and broken limbs. The fights continue, people start to riot, burn police cars and buses and loot shops. There are pictures on telly showing groups of women chasing policemen with their own batons. About 300 workers are arrested, about 60-80 are still in custody at the end of August, some charged with attempted murder.
26th of July: Workers, family members and friends search in hospitals and police stations for protestors who are still missing. Later on a union lawyer claims to have seen police beat an arrested demonstrator to death and then burn him. On the
26th of August Indian newspapers announce that 28 workers are still missing. More riots break out which continue the following day.
28th of July: A solidarity strike takes place in Gurgaon, called for by left parties. The participation is low. An India-wide day of protest is announced for the 1st of August.
1st of August: Production is officially resumed, but only 800 to 900 scooters are produced per day. Arbitration proceedings take place, but no representative of the workers is admitted.
About the Results of the Strike
In total the company lost about 1.2 Billion Rupees due to the strike. The media presented the result of the strike as following: All dismissed workers are re-hired, under the condition that they sign a so-called ‘good-conduct’ declaration promising to abstain from further demands and strikes. The workers are granted a wage increase for the year, although we couldn’t find any info on the exact amount. There is contradictory information on the question of whether the days of the strike will be paid or not. Some sources say that all strike days in May and June will be paid, others say that they won’t. The AITUC demands the release of all workers still in custody and union recognition in the company.

About the Reaction to the Strike
The strike and the police attacks got huge public attention and caused diplomatic tension between India and Japan. Prime Minister Singh met representatives of the left parties in a special session in order to consult over the strike and its consequences. On the second day of rioting the chairman of the governing Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, came to Gurgaon for mediation talks. The Japanese ambassador told the media that the strike would endanger future investment by Japanese companies.
Managers of automobile companies operating in the region expressed their concern that the strike could have negative effects on the production climate in their plants. On television there were hundreds of SMS messages expressing solidarity with the Honda workers. The daily newspapers and political magazines published several articles asking whether the strike is a prelude to a wave of new struggles in the multinational companies, after a general decline of strike activity since 2000. The Hindu nationalist opposition party BJP talked about "national security”, which according to their opinion would be harmed by foreign investment. The CP was also trying to play the patriotic trick and announced a general strike against the changes in the labour law in September. Against the background of the strike the bosses were publicly discussing the need for reformed labour laws. They demanded, amongst other things, that strikes would have to be announced three weeks beforehand and that an approval of 75 percent of all workers in the plant would be required as the legal precondition for the dispute. In addition, for each day of wildcat strike the bosses want to make the workers pay a fine of eight days’ wages!

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net

It’s been three weeks since this article was written but the strike of the Gate Gourmet catering workers in Düsseldorf is still going on (22nd of November). In August Gate Gourmet workers had been on strike against sackings at the airport in London-Heathrow. They were soon supported by British Airways groundworkers so the airport was broad to a standstill for almost two days. The management accepted to reinstate part of the sacked workers and pay higher compensations to others. Unfortunately, the workers in Düsseldorf do not have that kind of support, yet. But there are still fighting and hope to organize enough pressure. Read the following article and the up-date to find out how to support them...

Acts of Solidarity are needed – and possible: in Atlanta, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Karachi, Madrid, New York, Paris, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo and more places in the world...

The catering company Gate Gourmet became known worldwide through a spectacular strike at London Heathrow Airport which caused turbulence in international air-traffic. (see also here)

Since October 7, workers in Düsseldorf of the worldwide multinational (according to a self-portrayal: “150 branches on five continents, with 26,000 employees”) are on strike. Out of 120 employees, 85 are actively on strike and stay at their strike-tent in front of the company’s gate around the clock. A saying against the strike breakers written with white paint on the street of the company’s ground (“Schleimspur für Streikbrecher”) loosely means continuing to work is the slimy way for scabs to kiss up to management. Passing strike breakers get cat-calls. But visitors who come in solidarity get coffee and rolls and information about the course and background of the strike.

The strikers are an outstanding, strong group and they point out that now they have gotten to know each other much better during the strike than before, despite the fact that some of them had worked together for sixteen years. Because they didn’t have common break-times, and enormous amounts of work to do there was no time for conversations during work. More than half of the employees are migrants, most of them coming to Germany from Turkey, but also from Poland, Morocco, Croatia, Greece, Sri Lanka or Brazil. Obviously this has no negative affect on their solidarity.

“It was just enough!”
The main reason for the strike was the steady growth of stress at work and new impertinences by the management. They had no increase in wages in three years. In the last two years, the workers had given back half of their Christmas bonus. Now the management wants to enact deeper aggravations: extensions of the weekly working hours from 38.5 to 40 hours, shortening of the yearly vacation by about five days to 25 days, more flexibility with working hours and a reduction of bonuses for night shift, Sunday work and holidays. The counter offer of the union, NGG (Nahrungsmittel, Genuss, Gaststätten, union for the food industry and restaurants), to compensate for the changes is a wage rise of 4.5 percent. When the negotiations failed, 93 percent of the workers voted for the strike.

The business in Düsseldorf, formerly LTC, was taken over by the multinational Gate Gourmet. The company agreement after the takeover had already worsened the working conditions. Since then, the work became more and more intensified. On the line, where they equip 10-15,000 food trays a day, they don’t have any breaks anymore. The drivers, who bring the catering/meals to the airplanes, by their own estimates figured that they walk 15-20 km and move 10 tons per hand per shift. The workers get a lot of pressure through the threat of layoffs without notice, formal reprimands for the smallest things and home calls when they are sick. In summer, they have to work 10-hour shifts to compensate for the fact that there are not enough workers. The works council agreed to the longer hours. Most of the workers are between 50-70 hours ahead on their work hour accounts. The strike is not only about the 4.5 percent wage increase, but about the whole situation – a situation that is not uncommon nowadays. It is uncommon that the workers are fighting back.
Organized break of the strike

The strike has cost the company a lot of money already and has disturbed the service of the airlines. Gate Gourmet serves LTU, Air France, Iberia, Air Maroc, Turkish Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines, Deutsche BA, Egypt Air, and others. In the beginning, flights had delays which caused enormous contract penalties. Towards the official claim that the work is running normally despite the strike, the strikers report that the strike breakers have huge difficulties in coping with the unknown work. From the viewpoint of the airport, they observe that the delivery and loading of the catering into airplanes doesn’t work as smoothly as before. Nevertheless, the company succeeded in half way maintaining their production for 23 days. To weaken the impact of the strike, the company invests in strike breakers and additional security to protect the gates and the strike breakers from the rage of their colleagues.

Beneath the little strike breakers for Gate Gourmet in Düsseldorf, there are three of nine works councils members who refused to strike. That includes the former shop chairman and his deputy, both were deselected three month ago. “They’d rather represent the company than the employees,” reported a worker at the strike tent. Even some of the bosses are forced to now work in production. But most current workers are from other Gate Gourmet locations (Frankfurt, Munich, Stockholm...). The union NGG, which had organized the strike in Düsseldorf, can’t do anything against it because those workers are organized at Ver.di (service union)!? Additional strike breakers are coming from two different temp agencies, Tertia from Krefeld and G+A in Duisburg. Also, a few Chinese students are still working, yet the strikers have some understanding for their situation: “They depend on that job, they can’t do anything.”

A big part of the loss of the production is balanced by deliveries from locations in Frankfurt (Zeppelinheim and Kelsterbach). On October 19, a delegation of 25 workers went to Frankfurt to talk to their colleagues. They couldn’t get into the location because the executive producer and a works council representative stopped them in front of the gate.
Solidarity

The strikers demonstrated at the airport compound two times and distributed leaflets to passengers. Another demonstration, maybe in downtown Düsseldorf, is under discussion (see: www.ngg.net). But Gate Gourmet is present at many airports around the world, so it presents plentiful opportunities to get active. We can show this multinational that we are everywhere as well and we can inform workers at different locations who probably face similar problems as the strikers in Düsseldorf. The further course of the strike will particularly depend on the success of preventing the strike break. When the strike at the catering division affects international air traffic, which happened massively in Heathrow due to the solidarity strike of the ground staff of British Airways, then the workers will succeed in their struggle.

By now, many solidarity addresses for NGG arrived at the strike tent, including international ones, even a letter from IWW in Australia. The works council of the temp agency G+A came over and promised to try to talk their management into not sending workers anymore. If you want to visit the strikers: go to Bahnhof Düsseldorf-Flughafen (not terminal), go downstairs and walk along the sky train in the direction of the terminal, shortly behind the LTU-plant you will see banners and the strikers’ tent. (October 29th, 2005, 23rd day of strike, Wildcat Köln, [email protected])

Gate Gourmet locations worldwide under here

From prol-position news #4, 12/2005

Monet in the Duisburg Docklands

Hewlett Packard has recently been in the public spotlight due to its management’s announcement to dismiss several thousands of workers in Europe and because of the resulting strike of HP employees in France.

What follows is a report on the work situation in HPs central packaging plant for printer cartridges in Duisburg, which is run more or less entirely by subcontractors. The report reflects a two weeks stay in the plant and can be read as a call to confront the rather abstract and often ideological debate on precarious work with a discussion based on concrete experiences and (small-scale) inquiries...

Looking for Work

For Germany we can say that in addition to the reformed unemployment benefit scheme (Hartz IV), which standardised the level of benefit after one year of unemployment, there is another recently standardised level of income for proletarians: the wages for temp workers according to the collective contract. During the last years this contract was negotiated between the unions and most of the bigger temp agencies. It doesn’t matter if the job is to assemble mobile phones at BenQ in Kamp-Lintfort (see ppnews #3) or car seats for General Motors in Bochum, the wage level for unskilled work is 7.02 Euros/hour (before taxes). For skilled work, e.g. mechanic or electrician jobs, you get 8.92 Euros/hour and sometimes 1 Euro bonus or ‘food money’. At least in the area around Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Cologne you will hardly find an electrician job within the industry which is not mediated through a temp agency. The (skilled) workers I met during the job search and at work said that the collective contract lowered the general wage level. If you don’t mind the wages and conditions there are plenty of jobs available (at least in this region, for job seekers of medium age and qualification): Siemens/BenQ hires lots of people via several temp agencies, at the same time as announcing dismissals of ‘their own’ workers. A temp-agency in Krefeld wants to hire 200 people for the mobile phone plant, in both Düsseldorf and Duisburg they are hiring at least 25 each. The general gateway for all temps is the test of manual capabilities organised by Siemens. A temp-agency guy in Duisburg told me that he can’t give me the job, because the wages are too low. If I had to drive the way from Düsseldorf to Kamp-Lintfort, which is about 70 kilometers, I would have to spend 350 Euros per month on petrol. The wage at Siemens (40-hours week, night-and day-shifts) would amount to 820 Euros after taxes. You wouldn’t be able to afford to work, although the distance of 70 kilometeres is ‘reasonable’ according to the Hartz IV dole-regulations: formally you would be obliged to accept the job. The same is true for jobs at the Nokia plant in Bochum and a lot of jobs in the car part supplying industry around Velbert/Heiligenhausen. The job ads often already exclude people who don’t live in the direct catchment area. The limit to which workers are able to pay an extra part of their wages on travel costs is reached, their demanded job mobility is fucked up by the petrol prices...

The Hewlett Packard Packaging Plant in Duisburg

The first hurdle when starting the job was to understand who is who and who owns what. The huge complex of storage halls belongs to Kühne & Nagel, a global transport, logistics and ‘supply-chain service’ company. The machine workers and fork lift drivers are employed by Kühne & Nagel, as well, or by Dekra temp agency. The machines and packaging lines belong to HP. The workers who maintain and repair the machines (officially and in the following called ‘skilled workers’, although the concept is a rather capitalist/fetishised one) are hired by HSG and Personal AG temp agency. HSG is a facility management and service company with about 4,500 employees in Germany. Amongst others they organise the facility management (security, general maintenance of the buildings) for Citibank in Duisburg and various train stations. HSG was a subsidiary of the construction company Philip Holzmann, but after the bankruptcy of Holzmann it was bought by the construction firm Bilfinger und Berger. Apart from the electricians and mechanics of HSG there are also specialist from various machine constructing companies (Jones, Schubert, Koch) running around on the shop floor. They come for temporary visits in order to solve special problems of ‘their’ machines.

Some of them are sent from the USA, most of them from the south of Germany. Hewlett Packard has their own engineers, who come for visits mainly in order to check the precarious administration software system (PAMA) responsible for the control and tracking of the whereabouts of each single printer cartridge. Their main problem consists in reconciling and interlinking their admin software with the various production softwares of the different packaging machines.

The whole complex and all the different people are brought together and to the brink of nervous collapse by five more or less completely automated packing lines, composed by quite modern robots, different conveyor belt systems, machines for plastic and carton packaging and stupid names (Lava, Monet, Moneypenny). The lines are meant to run on-line, meaning that ideally HP people in the USA could follow the packaging progress, can check and theoretically change certain machine settings and get an overview of recorded production mistakes. The lines are also meant to run on-demand, meaning that they package cartridges after they have been ordered. Actually everyone, or at least the HP management, is quite happy if the machine’s maximum capacity is utilised by 50 percent, which depends rather on the (technical) production process than on the customer’s wish. On each line they have easily noticeable computer monitors with different graphs and stats and colours, indicating the momentary efficiency of machines and workers. Each line can theoretically package 100,000 to 200,000 printer-cartridges of different types per shift. I couldn’t find out how expensive the machines were. A robot-station at the head of one line, only picking up bulk-trays from pallets, putting them on a belt, was supposed to be worth 150,000 Euros. The work could have been done by two workers at the same speed. On each line and shift work four to five women, there are two fore(wo)men for the machine workers. There are two to three skilled workers per shift taking care of the machines. Their main job is to get rid of production flaws, but sometimes they also have to supply machines with material (heavy coils of plastic foil etc.). The cartridges are produced in Singapore, Puerto Rico and Ireland. In Duisburg they are packaged for the European, Russian and African market. Kühne & Nagel is said to get 7 cents per packed cartridge. There is another smaller packaging plant in Amersfoort, Holland, but the main storage depot and the most modern lines are supposed to be in Duisburg. The plant has exisited since 2000 and has expanded since then. The plant runs two shifts, night- and weekend shifts only happen in exceptional circumstances. The machine workers who are directly employed get about 10 to 11 Euros (before tax) per hour, but only 20 to 30 per cent of all women have a permanent contract with Kühne & Nagel. At the moment people are only hired via temp agencies. Their wage is about 6 to 7 Euros. The turn-over of staff is extremely high, due to often arbitrary seeming management decisions and the frustration of the workers themselves who aren’t granted a real training period and who therefore often don’t cope with the work stress. It’s a similar situation for the 20 fork-lift drivers. A work-mate told me that about 100 drivers were herded through the company during the last two years. The machine workers are between 20 to 50 years old, of German-Turkish-Polish origin. Most of the women are divorced and/or single-mothers, so their wage is not an additional income. Some of them have a second job, meaning that after their shift they work in a shop, in a solarium or as cleaners, which adds up to a 60 hours week. The skilled workers get about 15 Euros/hour (before tax), for most of them that is less than they earned in their previous job. The skilled workers hired by the temp agency get about 9.50 Euros. HSG is not part of a collective agreement with the unions. Most of the work contracts are individually negotiated. Officially the skilled workers have the status of employees, meaning that they get a fixed monthly wage which leads to the fact that over-time is often not paid for or that people are sent on home ‘over-time holiday’ if there isn’t that much to do.

The main work of the maintenance workers, but to a certain extend also of the machine workers themselves, is evolving around the flaws of machines and products. It is rare that a machine is running for more then 5 minutes without an interruption due to flaws. The more or less complex packaging process (punching, folding, sealing, labeling etc.) and the flexible material (cardboard, plastik foil) are not made for the high speed, so the whole process gives the impression of a (rat) race of high speed making up of the time lost due to stoppage due to flaws due to high speed. The fragility is aggravated by untrained and over-burdened workers and the control-mania of HP to bar-code scan each single cartridge at each completed work-step. Often the lines get hick-ups because the production software has communicative problems with the admin-software. Therefore one of the main tasks of the machine workers (besides the re-filling of the different stations with cardboard-boxes, labels, foil) is to re-work the faulty products. If there isn’t any total machine collapse the women have no breaks during their work, apart from the official ones. Some of the machines are very noisy and the work-stations are several meters away from each other, so often there is no chance for a chat during work-time. The maintenance workers are called once a machine worker can’t solve the problem herself. The relationship between machine worker and maintenance worker is a contradictive one, in this case additionally shaped by the gender division. The maintenance workers solve problems, they get the machine going again and often blame the alleged technical incompetence of the machine workers for the flaws. The machine workers aren’t given any tools or technical information, apart from the ones necessary to operate the machines. On one hand the flaws cause the only additional breaks for them, on the other hand they feel their foremen and the demanded numbers of packed cartridges at their backs. They sometimes make jokes during the smoke breaks that they ‘already killed two lines today’. They often blame the slow maintenance workers for delays, or the awkward new work-mates. The maintenance workers are caught between the front-lines of the battle over responsibility, competences, decision-making waged by the management of HSG, Kühne & Nagel and HP. New maintenance workers are only hired by temp agencies although it is clear right from the start that they would have to work there for about a year in order to be fully effective and profitable for the company. New employees don’t get time to get familiar with the machines, they are expected to work right on their first day, although everyone admits that it takes at least half a year to know the machinery well enough in order to work independently. Stress and low wages cause a high turn-over of maintenance workers as well.

The union is only officially present at Kühne & Nagel, they have a dull notice board. The works council was formed by some engineers who feared their dismissal and who thought that by getting elected as a works council member they would have more job security for themselves. One of them is a hated foreman. I haven’t heard of any past collective conflicts in the plant. People didn’t know about the strikes at HP in France and they didn’t feel too threatened by HPs plans to sack workers. There weren’t many discussions about the recent German elections, only sarcastic and gloating comments on the post-ballot chaos. HartzIV is a topic, of course. People blame the reforms for having to keep the job or for having had to take it. Apart from the old work-mates everyone in the maintenance crew talks about quitting the job, some are actively seeking an alternative employment.

The most impressive character and revelation of the job was to see how HP tries to make all kinds of different companies (officially all ‘service companies’) and (artificially) divided workers cooperate by keeping the control over fairly modern and expensive machinery. They are able to bring together former miners from the Ruhr area, IT specialists from the US, proletarians (ex-) Polish women from Duisburg’s run-down areas and Turkish students. Despite all the problems and across all the barriers of subcontracts and out-sourcing, HP manages to get a fair share of its world demand of printer cartridges packaged by two dozen women and their fork-lift driving friends in some rented concrete halls in the Duisburg docklands. The significance of these ‘fordist’ central depots has recently shown up during the strike at the central storage of H&P in France and the conflict at the Tesco depot in Ireland, where young workers knew how to make use of their central position...

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net

The defeat of Rafsanjani and the election victory of Ahmadinejad might surprise outside observers, but only if they had ignored the growing economic and social misery in the country or had considered the development a result of the “politics of the mullahs” and their economic compartmentalization against the West. In Iran itself even conservative intellectuals assess the social situation as much more explosive. In his campaign against the millionaire Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad promised to let the poor share the oil wealth. In fact, as mayor of Tehran he had the opportunity to win over the poorer layers. For years his conservative party dominated the city councils and was at odds with the “reform-camp.” Ahmadinejad’s party had a parliamentarian majority and against the opposition of Khatami’s governement had pushed for price stability policies. The party influenced and cooperated with the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) and the paramilitary Basij, which had manipulated and shaped the election results, based on these group’s stances against U.S. aggression.
The highest authority in Iran (responible for foreign policies, the head of the judiciary, military leaders. And the head of radio and TV and Friday prayer leaders) is not the state-president, but the non-elected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Moreover, Rafsanjani, the West’s favorite, wields major political influence as chair of the powerful “Expediency Council.” However, with Ahmadinejad, the powerful in Iran now have a devoted appointee as president. Therefore, government will rule more effectively.

Great Game
The U.S. strategic goal in the Middle East is a change of regime in Iran, either through war or a Ukraine-style Orange revolution. Le Monde diplomatique (January 14,2005) rightfully called U.S policy “Haunt, Encircle, Isolate.” The Iranian ruling class has no doubt that an Iran without nuclear weapons cannot act as the region’s dominant power and oppose Israeli and U.S threats. The question is just at what price i.e. risk of US embargo or war. With U.S. troops stationed in almost all neighboring states, economic and geo-strategic constraints show that in the long run, the Islamic Republic will not act as the regional hegemonic power without U.S. tolerance. In both the war against Afghanistan and Iraq Iran avoided a confrontation with the United States; in nuclear politics, it relies on cooperation with Europe.
The EU, Russia, China and India are major players in that game. The EU is Iran’s largest commercial partner. Forty per cent of all Iranian imports come from EU countries, with German imports alone estimated at a volume of more than four billion US dollars this year, and 35 per cent of the exports (80 per cent of which is oil) go to the EU. After negotiating with Germany, France and Great Britain, Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s additional protocol on October 21, 2003. One week later French corporation Renault decided to invest 700 million Euros in a car factory, the first involvement of a foreign company since 1979. In July 2004. Volkswagen too jumped into the growing Iranian market. In the economic zone Arke Jadid, (close to the southeastern city Bam, still in ruins from an earthquakes in 2003); as a start Volkswagen is supposed to assemble 20.000 vehicles a year. The factory belongs to the Iranian company Kerman Khodro. Kerman Khodro had assembled cars for Daewoo until General Motors took over Daewoo and ended the contract because of the US embargo against Iran.
On the question of nuclear energy a triangle of China, Russia and Iran are positioned against the US. China and Russia deliver equipment and know how; in return, China now already gets 13.6 per cent of its oil imports from Iran. Last October China signed a contract with Tehran for about 100 billion US dollars to deliver 10 million tons of liquid gas (that is 150.000 barrels day). Recently Iran secured observer status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a relatively young confederation made up of China, Russia, and four Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan). The SCO has started demonstrating greater independent polities; recently it asked the USA to shut its Central Asian military bases. Also India has started negotiations with Iran over long-term gas delivery. Despite threats of U.S. sanctions, both countries want to invest in oil field exploration. (The U.S. wants to prevent a 2600 kilometer-long gas-pipeline from being built from Iran through Pakistan to India.)

The boom and its social undersides
As a result of the Iraq War, not only has Iran increased its influence over Iraq, but the war has also generated increased revenues for the Iranian government because of higher oil prices. In 2004, economic growth was above 7 per cent, 90 per cent of that caused by rising oil prices. Petrol dollars still allow the regime the means to pacify the middle class. “Unemployment, Street Kids, Drug Abuse” was how “Die Zeit” (German liberal weekly newspaper) from June 1, 2005 described the “dark sides” of the boom. Real wages have declined since 1988 (at the moment, the average wage is roughly 110 Euros a month). The fifth Parliament abolished the labor laws for companies with less than five employees. In 2002, the sixth Parliament decided to do the same for the 300.000 rug makers. With the enacting of a law to adjust and modify the labor force (“Ta’ diel e Nirooy e Kar”) the textile companies just laid off 100.000 workers. Now, the seventh Parliament wants to remove labor law protection from workers with limited working contracts; this is the half of all workers! According to official statistics, in 1996 1.4 million were unemployed, today that figure is 3.2 million (independent sources count 4.3 million unemployed); that means a population growth of 18 per cent is coupled with a 130 per cent increase in unemployment.

Pragmatism instead of reforms
Both outside conflicts and internal frictions in the country are often described as a fight between conservatives and reformers, as “tradition against modernism.” Behind that lies divisions within the ruling class over the question of how to guarantee conditions of exploitation. Khatami’s motto: “political development first, economic development later” was an attempt to intensify and control this exploitation by involving more groups from the bourgeoisie. In Iran all kind of NGO’s are allowed and supported. Now, 15.000 groups are operating. They are desperately needed to deal with, for example, the growing drug problem.
The reform movement became, so to speak, nationalized: bought off and influenced by the state; the radical movement ended up isolated and defeated. During the “power struggle between the conservatives and the reformers”, an agenda arose backing pragmatic collaboration between the ruling classes and the bourgeoisie from abroad. The women’s and students movements got stuck in the dead end street of the reform movement, their hopes for state concessions disappointed and their spokespersons disillusioned.
The ruling class cannot and does not want to forbid the little freedoms, for example, the everyday criticism of the regime that goes on in the markets, buses and other public places. Today in Iran, such criticism can be freely made. However, the state reacts mercilessly if people act against the system. Recently riots among the Arab population, who live in deep poverty and are discriminated against, were brutally suppressed, leaving 50 dead while the predominantly Persian human rights activists watched silently. Since Reza Shah and the beginning of the oil production, the policy of the ruling class toward the Arab population is resettlement, underdevelopment and eradication. The Arabs remain mostly poor peasants and unskilled seasonal workers living in villages and slums.

The union movement
For years, Iran attempted to cooperate with the International Labor Organization (ILO). The ILO provides technical and consulting help, especially in overcoming unemployment, and it tries to adjust Iranian labor law to international standards. In June 2002 at the 90th ILO conference, the Iranian labor minister demanded that the ILO should help remove obstacles to Iran’s admission to the WTO. On May 26, 2005, after years of veto, the US accepted Iran’s membership in the WTO, this happened one day after new negotiations opened over nuclear weapon program between Iran and three European countries. The delivery of spare parts for Iranian airplanes was also discussed. The ILO demands free elections of workers representatives, but still accepts the Islamic labor councils and the “Workers House” (something like an Islamic workers party) as legitimate representatives of the Iranian workers. In July 2003 the ILO and the Labor Inspection Department of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs declared that trade union free activity and independence should be guaranteed which caused protest from the Islamic labor councils and the “Workers House.” Soon the ILO wants to re-open its branch in Tehran, which was shut down 24 years ago.
Since the end of the workers councils, which arose during revolutionary times, worker activists and the left have argued over the “right” workers organization. During the Shah’s regime the trade unions were henchmen of the state. Workers at the big companies grasped this role of the unions, so no one spoke about founding trade unions, but instead about starting independent workers organizations. But practically every workers organization was outlawed anyway.
The trade union movement appeals to the “free workers” of the world respectively the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), to supply the solidarity missing from the inside with help from the outside. Also those workers opposing trade unions and for councils (in fact, German-style work councils, not workers councils) pin their hope on political influence from the ICFTU and protection by the ILO. Many party leftists and worker activists now see a historic opportunity to form free independent workers organizations. Not only because of pressure from the outside and acceptance of trade unions by the state and parts of the bourgeoisie, but also because of the weakening of the power of the Islamic labor councils and the “Workers House”, a weakening of power that was noticeable on this year’s May 1st. The May Day rally with a lot of propaganda and 12.000 workers in Tehran ended as an embarrassment. When the organizers started promoting Rafsanjani’s election campaign, the workers protested loudly. They shouted against Rafsanjani and the election, and left the demonstration. Rafsanjani could not speak at all and later he said that he cannot speak at a rally where anti-state slogans are shouted. He is seen as the architect of the “liberalization” and responsible for the wave of lay offs during his time in office.

Committees
In February 2005, the “Committee to follow up creation of Free Labor Organizations in Iran” emerged. More than 2371 workers signed a letter addressed to the Iran’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the Labor and Workers Organizations throughout the World and the ILO demanded accepting workers’ rights to build independent organizations and remove existing obstacles to their formation. A second committee named “Coordinating Committee to Form Worker Organizations” called for workers to self-organize and build a workers organization through their own power. The ILO would have the duty to force the Iranian government to put an end to the suppression of the workers’ activists and the Islamic Republic has to guarantee the security of the workers activities. Copies of the 3029 signatures went to the ICFTU and the ILO. Many unionists and a political spectrum from the Tudeh party to Worker-Communist Party of Iran support the first committee, which at the end of the day wants to found one big trade union like in Germany. Others see in the second committee a power which is far more left-wing and against wage labor, with the goal of founding a left political union or even workers councils. The two committees might differ in theory, especially in their political spokespersons and supporters. Nevertheless, practically one sees little difference by now. Both organize from above, collect signatures, and hope foreign trade unions will support them. Both have modest demands and use symbolic actions like May Day, which itself has a ritual character.
In the run up to May Day 2005, the representative of the Coordinating Committee, Mohmood Salehi, addressed himself to the president of the ICFTU. The ICFTU then announced that they will watch events in Iran, in particular the government’s actions at the May demonstrations. In contrast to last year, this year all events and demos in Tehran and other cities ran without incident, despite red banners and singing of the Internationale. However, not only was the state restrained, so were the workers representatives. The bakers trade union in Sagges, with Salehi as spokesperson, participated in a rally with the “Workers House,” where first the governor of the city, then the chief of the job center and finally Salehi spoke to 1500 workers and their families. The more these activists negotiate officially with the government, the more they abstain from independent and radical actions.

The first legal trade union
Bus drivers are poorly paid and work in bad conditions. On top of driving they have to collect tickets and take responsibility for enforcing gender separation inside the buses, which is mandated by law. In 1970 a bus drivers union existed, but after five years of the Islamic Revolution, it was dissolved. For a long time, union activists tried to re-organize this trade union. When they gathered on May 9, 2005, they were attacked by the Islamic council, management and security and some unionists were hurt. On May 13, a second attempt to meet failed because of intervention by the secret police, security and a part of “Workers House.” The same day 3000 workers got together and demanded the disbanding of the Islamic Council. On June 3 there was another appeal for a work meeting. This time security forces prevented workers from getting to the meeting place. During the day, roughly 500 workers got together with banners. The police then gave orders to go back. Later on, during the workplace meeting, the Tehran Union of Public Transportation Workers was founded. Supposedly 5000 (of 14.000) workers participated in founding this first legal union.

Workers getting active
In 1997 2000 oil-workers had demonstrated in front of the oil administration in Tehran. The regime crushed the movement, more than 100 workers were arrested, and many activists were laid off. However since then strikes and spontaneous demonstrations have taken place, especially among textile workers fighting for their jobs and back pay. More than 80.000 workers in roughly 1400 factories participated in strikes, hunger-strikes in their factories, road blocks, spontaneous demonstrations in front of company offices and parliament and riots in cities, which mostly ended up defeated by the authorities.

One example: Shahr Babak
In January 2004 workers at the copper mines and copper processing facility in Khatoon-abad in Kerman province protested against lay offs and for several days organized sit-down strikes with their families in front of the mines. Security forces attacked and shot them, wounding several workers and their family members. members were wounded and arrested. In the city of Shahr Babak, where many of the miners live, a large wave of protest and solidarity against these attacks emerged. The inhabitants demonstrated in the streets and threw stones at banks and company offices. Security also used helicopters to open fire on protesters. At least four workers were killed and many more wounded and arrested. There is a new form of workers resistance: single workers kill their factory bosses with a gun, there is sabotage in the factory and so on...

Detroit of the Middle East
Since the mid-90s, the Iranian auto market has grown around 30 per cent a year faster than the Chinese. This year, car production in Iran will rise to roughly 1 million vehicles. After 38 years, production of the national car, the notorious Paykan, was discontinued. After the joint venture with Renault, the factories of Iran Khodro and Saipa are supposed to produce 300.000 Logans in 2006. The vice-president of Iran Khodro, the biggest car factory of the country says Iran will be the “Detroit of the Middle East”.
However, when compared internationally, the Iranian car industry is seen as outdated and unproductive. The industry’s boom is built on workers’ bones. Workers call Iran Khodro in Tehran a slaughterhouse. Last year at least eight workers died of work-related stress and accidents. The company is the biggest producer of vehicles in the Middle East and with more than 30.000 employees, the biggest plant in Iran. Since 1997 no workers are contractors anymore, but they sign only limited work-contracts. The sub-contractors and service companies which work for the company, pay poorly. The company forces the workers to work longer than ten hours a day and cuts holidays.
More and more workers die through accidents, hard work and over-time. Despite meetings and strikes being forbidden, now and then workers protested and went on short strikes. In September 2003 a worker at Peugeot assembly died from exhaustion in front of his coworkers. The workers on the line struck. After the strike, working conditions improved. During New Year (March 21, 2005), the management demanded workers come to work during the holidays and on the weekend to avoid lay-offs. Management canceled the yearly bonus and because of the shut-down of Paykan production, laid off the employees of line one. The workers protested and went on strike. On April 12, the electricity was cut off on assembly departments 1 and 3 and production interrupted for a few hours. The Harasat (factory security) detained one protesting assembly worker, Parviz Salarvand. The Harasat interrogated Salarvand in the factory basement and removed him later to an unknown location. He was accused of protesting against the wages of the temporary workers. After three weeks, word spread that a warrant was issued for Salarvand’s arrest on charges of “deliberate violation and sabotage” which he had confessed to. In a statement on May 18, 2005, the Coordinating Committee supported him, but rejected sabotage as an “adventurist tactic against workers’ interest.” According to a message from a group of workers at Iran Khodro, Salarvand was released after the protests of his coworkers and the efforts of foreign worker organizations. Because of the workers protests the management had to declare May 1 a holiday.

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.Prol-Position.net

“...the only thing they can expect from us...”

How quickly things change. It was only 40 years ago that major household appliances were mass-produced in Western Europe, but there are already few factories left and most have been shut down or relocated. It’s nothing new that almost entire branches go abroad. What is new is that no new branches arise which hire significant numbers of people. Between 1990 and 2003 roughly 330,000 jobs were relocated from Germany to Eastern Europe. This was around 25,000 per year. Through the worldwide relocation of production, Germany loses up to 50,000 jobs each year. With around 38 million employees in Germany this is a little more than 0.1 percent a year. In comparison, the little cyclical boom in the year 2000 increased employment by 700,000.

The first washing machines, refrigerators and stoves were produced as industrial mass-products in Italy for the (West-)European market in the late 50s and early 60s. Before the 70s, companies which were limited to “their” national market were more productive than afterwards, when all of them had to expand. They were threatened by companies which tried to compensate massive class struggles in production with aggressive price competition. As a result Bosch/Siemens (BSH=Bosch Siemens Hausgeräte) became a “cheap Jack”, churning out low-grade products at discount prices. In the second half of the 80s the factory in Berlin/Spandau (Hausgerätewerk Berlin, HWB) had to deal with product return rates of 15 per cent and a similar degree of sick leave. We often wrote about struggles in this factory in Wildcat, and some of us had worked there. Now this factory is supposed to be closing.

A branch is migrating
More people work in industry in Germany than in the most developed capitalist countries. 27 percent of German employees worked in industry in 2003, five percentage points above the numbers in France and ten percent above the numbers in Great Britain; in the USA even less people work in industry. This is the fundamental reason why Germany has always been the export world champion. But like elsewhere in Europe in Germany the numbers sunk steadily in the past 15 years (in 1992 it was 35 percent). In the German electrical industry the amount of employees sunk in the past 15 years by about one fifth (1991 1,087,331; 1993 980,000 with less than 74,000 in East-Germany; by June 2005 less than 810,000). But the electrical industry means everything from the production of a hair dryer to a generating plant. More important are the movements in between the generic term “electrical industry”. For example the relocation of consumer electronics had already started to take place in the 70s and 80s, during the heyday of the major household appliance. Today conventional telephones, small household appliances like mixers, and consumer electronics in general are no longer produced in Germany. The rationalization in household appliance production in the second half of the 80s and the increasing internationalisation and concentration of the sector since the 90s lead to the steady decline of jobs in Germany (in the beginning of the 90s the turnover was getting higher, since then that too has sunk). The production of washing machines in Germany increased from 1.6 million pieces in 1982 to 2.8 million in 1992 (record rates during the re-unification boom). Between 1987 and 1989 US companies got into the European production of household appliance, for example Whirlpool had taken over Phillips and Bauknecht. In the beginning of the 90s Bosch/Siemens had bought Spanish and Turkish household appliance producers. After that Electrolux took over Italian companies and AEG in Germany and has since been the world market-leader. BSH is number three in the world ranking (worldwide 34,000 employees, 14,000 still in Germany; 16,000 three years ago) and makes more than three-quarter of its turnover (of 6.8 billion Euro) abroad. Of the 42 factories, seven are still in Germany, the others in Spain, Greece, Latin America, USA, Poland, China and Turkey. In the last few years Turkey has become probably the most important location for production of major household appliances in the world. In 2002 the Turkish Arcelik group took over Blomberg (the last German producer of household appliance except Miele), two years later Blomberg stopped the production of washing machines in Germany. Miele too, which had marketed its expensive products with the label “Made in Germany”, is going to get rid of every tenth employee of the 11,000 in Germany until 2007. The core segments of the household appliance sector have being shifted (i.e. for 15 years there has been no development in cooling units and no big progresses are expected; the lowering of consumer prices, the increase of laundry and the shift to electronic control was for washing machines a key development in the last few years, in the future there will be only gradually advances). What happened with electrical goods in Germany is now taking place in the production of top loader washing machines; in about two years no top loader will be produced in Germany anymore. It happened in France with the production of refrigerators, in 1960 there were 20 producers of refrigerators, in 1967 only Thomson-Brandt was left, and since 1993 no refrigerators are produced in France anymore. Except the Miele factory in Gütersloh there are only three and a half washing machine production locations in Germany: Bauknecht in Schorndorf - “threatened”; AEG in Nürnberg - “threatened”; Bosch/Siemens in Berlin and Nauen close to Berlin. The plant in Berlin is supposed to be closed by the end of 2006. Officially the plant in Nauen is suppose to produce the new generation of washing machines, but it has been made known that doubts exist over the continued existence of Nauen as a location for production. The decision “for Nauen” depends on the increase of subsidies through the provincial government in Brandenburg.

Crisis of production
In the production of household appliances in the last 40 years the typical mass-production worker compassion was employed: unskilled assembly workers who were hired from rural areas. Maybe one forth were women, up to 90 per cent migrant workers. This reservoir of labor is exhausted in Western Europe. Significantly no workers with Turkish descent of the third generation are working at Hausgerätewerk Berlin. For them this kind of work is completely uninteresting. The employer is able to get a little time advantage when they build factories in rural areas with high unemployment rates in Eastern Europe. But these areas are in industrially shaped regions. The situation they are attempting to escape appears quickly. In general the employers are looking to leave those regions in 10 to 15 years, when the wages will be “too high” or no “appropriate labor” will be available.

Crisis of consumption good
In general the employers make the “cost pressure” responsible for relocation. In 1992 40 per cent of all washing machines sold in Germany cost less than 600 Euros, by 2004 it was over 80 per cent! In 1987 1300 DM represented the average delivery price of a washing machine in Germany, in Italy it was 580 DM. Correspondingly in Germany in 1987 there was 12.3 billion DM worth of major household appliance in Italy, in it was Italy only 7.3 billion but Italy produced double the amount of washing machines than Germany (in Germany over two million, one third of those in HWB!). Not many people pay these high prices: firstly because “cheap brands” like Eko and LG deliver almost the same quality, and secondly because the German brands lost their leadership in technology (they had it with ecological criteria but they didn’t develop new ones). In the past years this development was aggravated, because of sinking wages and shrinking domestic markets in Germany. There is no “national protection for brands through label oriented behavior of consumers anymore”, not only because of the processes of industrialization in Turkey, but also because of increasing single-households and increasing rates of divorces: a washing machine is no longer a long term purchase.

The household appliance plant in Berlin
From 1960 to 1980 the amount of employees working in electrical plants in West Berlin halved to 66,000. But it was still the biggest branch in West Berlin. After re-unification and after the decline of the “re-unification boom” a clear structural change of industry in Berlin begun. In May 1992 the whole of Berlin had 223,000 industrial employees; this was less than 21.4 per cent a year before, in April 1993 only 152,900. The developments lead to a strong increase of the unemployment rate. Since January 1992 the Western part of Berlin has the highest unemployment rate of former West Germany.

History of the plant
For about 50 years washing machines were produced in Berlin/Spandau, at first little units together with other household appliances. With the acquisition of the Constructa Company and the amalgamation of Bosch and Siemens in 1966, they began to produce only washing machines in Berlin/Spandau. In the mid 70’s 2,100 workers produced 450,000 machines a year. In the mid 90’s 2,500 workers produced more than one million washing machines and more than 200,000 tumble- dryers. The increase in unit-production took place in the 80’s: from 600,000 devices in 1982 up to one million in 1986. The units of washing machines and dryers produced per year per worker doubled from 1978 to 1988 (from 205 to 442). In the beginning of 1987 young second-generation Turkish workers organised a slowdown strike against the steady rise in unit-quotas at the assembly line. They did this so well that that the employer couldn’t enforce the new quotas, not even with foremen, spare men, snitches and forced transfers of workers around the factory. After a while the workers even reduced the quota. Finally they agreed on more spare men at the line. The workers learned a great deal during their struggle, they could flip the cooperation at the line at their will. When they had idle time during reorganisation they could force their ideas about how many machines they wanted to produce. Since fall 1987 they didn’t need to protest against legally obligatory overtime: they just subtracted the machines they had produced in overtime the days after from the “normal units”. “If we wanted to, we just reduced the units anytime”. At this time the vanguards of the struggles became, in their own words, “professional saboteurs”. More and more machines had scratches, planned or “just because” (it was possible to buy such machines on a discount at the factory-shop). Once the early shift came to work and every single machine was scratched. Now and then the line stood still because of sabotage of the “robots” or because of a cut drive belt. Despite the fact that a spare man (a worker who replaces other workers when there is a problem) supervised the drive belt it was sometimes broken three times a day. “Then they put a security guard at the line for three weeks, he was walking around the belt. He had to listen to a lot of stuff from the workers! But it didn’t help. They just didn’t understand how we did it.” At late shift the spare man had to stay until every worker left the factory. Nothing worked. In spite of repeated transfers of the suspects, nothing helped.

The management never tried to raise the quotas at this line; instead they transferred the workers through the whole factory. In 1992 they decreased production. In the three years which followed more than 1000 workers left the factory, mostly with very good compensation payment.

Since the mid 60s the HGW in Berlin was now and then an object of investigation for industrial sociologists and work scientists. In the end one had the impression that they became desperate: all attempts at “humanization”, “team-work”, and all of those buzzwords failed. Today when a system of team-work rules the line which largely corresponds to those dreams of the work scientists, the plant is in line for closure.

“In sum one can assert that almost all serious difficulties with personnel are caused by the execution of the Taylor System.” Wexlberger, former director of industrial science at HWB

This is an article from Wildcat no. 74, summer 2005.

[prol-position news #4, 12/2005] www.prol-position.net

In the last newsletter we published an article on the plan to close down the Bosch-Siemens household appliances factory in Berlin/Germany. This is an update from Wildcat #75, Winter 2005/06: A conversation with a worker from that factory.

"Now They Call Us Heroes Everywhere!"

Last time we talked, I said: "If the negotiations end without result, it would be the best thing that could possibly happen to you: then you’ll have the same conditions for the next year and a half and you won’t have to work your ass off... you can call in sick now and then."
That’s what we do now! (Laughs)

At that time, Bosch-Siemens wanted to close the factory and your assessment was that they wouldn’t negotiate over it. Now, everything's turned out different...
We formed a bargaining committee and drew up a list of demands: three month's severance pay, two years work in a rescue company,1 full pay for any worker over 50 years old until they retire, and 700 Euros payment per child... In all, our demands added up to 140 million Euros (140 Millionen). The works council started negotiating with this list. At the end they couldn’t reach an agreement. Saturday morning the negotiations failed. They decided to meet on Monday for the last time, at that point the works council said: Monday morning we're announcing our bargaining demands, Wednesday we're going to hold an assembly with the strike ballot, and Thursday we will go on strike. Monday morning the site manager announced that the factory would stay open. This was a shock for the workers! (Laughs) "Really!? " "Here it is on paper." Since then it’s been pretty normal, but no one knows for how long. It's just like nothing happened. Management had said: "We're not going to leave the plant like it is, we need to have the books in the black!" But they didn't do anything.

Why were they so afraid of a strike?
I think they had prepared for the strike and had stocked up on Premium washing machines – we can’t control how many of them sell. But we knew that they had a higher production of units for the factory in Nauen (the factory delivers units to Nauen, Germany and Lodz, Poland). I don’t think that we could have hurt them with a two or three week strike! Instead, I think there was political pressure: for one, it was during the election campaign and two, many companies are having the same conflict and we could have become an example for other workers... It's not like the bosses of Bosch-Siemens decide on their own! For example the bosses of Bosch and Siemens got involved. Finally, our demands were pretty expensive compared to the costs other factories are closed with: 140 million Euros for 700 people. They were willing to pay two months wages, but wanted to put only one month down on the social plan and declare the second month a bonus. They're afraid this would set an example for other plants! Because in the next two or three years other sites are threatened: now the production runs in Poland (dryers and dish washers), and in Turkey they want to set-up a line for another dish washer, so soon Dillingen will be closed. Then they are opening the refrigerator factory in Russia and so Giengen is threatened...

The situation, as you explain it in many ways addresses the company's concerns, which is to cut jobs: Telekom, Allianz, Daimler Chrysler and so on: they have a lot of money, but they've been in the red for years with what they call their "operative business." A struggle like yours could set an example others would follow: "let them cut jobs, we want big compensation payments that will last until we retire."
We were strong-willed, everything was ripe. Almost everybody participated in the actions. I think this was crucial. In addition, we had an action at the front gate and for the first time in the history of Siemensstadt (the section of Berlin where this factory is located), workers at other Siemens plants came over to the gate. Also, for the first time, we went together to the headquarters in Munich and workers from all other Siemens plants came too. We could have been an example! For Bosch-Siemens it's cheaper to let the factory run for another two, three years and run-up a 10 million deficit. But they save on the benefits: everybody who leaves now doesn’t get a job at a rescue company and so on, so the company saves money... The most active workers are leaving now.

And if they decide in the summer to close at the end of 2006, they might be hoping that you won't be able to mobilize massively like you did this time...
There is also a difference in the media coverage! It makes a difference if they close a factory or just lay off 300 people.

What's it like now in the factory?
During the struggle the quality of the washing machines we made was very high, it hasn’t been that high in a long time! The number of staff out sick was never that low; maybe it was because everybody was curious. And there wasn't any sabotage or anything like that. After it was clear the plant wasn't shutting, the number of blue-collar workers calling in sick rose to 17-18 percent and that’s where it remains. Temp workers had to be hired again. And they can’t motivate people anymore. The workers say: fuck it, sooner or later they're going to close down anyway. Many thought they'd get the three month severance, that would have been more money than they'd see in their whole life. Few workers were happy that the plant isn't closing! Management has now started acting against the sick workers, with meetings at human resources, where workers calling out sick get threatened with lay-offs. They're using the doctors at the health-insurance plan to monitor if a worker is truly sick... But people are fed up with this work, almost everybody has worked here for 18-20 years, they're really fed up with the assembly line! They’re pissed-off.

That’s a strange standoff: the company can’t hire new workers either!
Yes, and if they don’t find enough volunteers who want to quit and who can be fired according to the social plan, then we'll be a plant where everybody on the line will be over 50 years old. Now, the average age in production is already 47. Recently we found out that everybody younger than 40 has some sort of protection: as back up members of the works council or something else (Laughs). In addition there are Siemens work rules which state that after 25 years of seniority workers can’t be fired by operational lay-offs unless they're given a job at a rescue company, retraining, and other benefits. That’s roughly 300 people, these people have to be shifted to different departments if they close the plant. During negotiations, the works council said they wouldn't negotiate over those 300! I guess this was another point, which weakened them: this problem exists in many Siemens-factories and they don’t want that shouted from the rooftops.
And now we're called heroes everywhere! Samsung workers invited us; they want us to explain how to obtain jobs. Yes, really! (Laughs) "The struggle was worthwhile"... I wouldn’t say that, but it wasn't bad! Politically you can say: we fought and turned back a company’s decision, okay! This gave people courage which was needed in fighting against the closure. Now negotiations with the works council are starting. Mid October, Gutberlet (boss of Bosch/Siemens) gave an interview in a daily newspaper under the headline "Hope for plant in Berlin" in which he claimed to be negotiating over working hours, year end benefits (Christmas benefits) and midterm benefits (vacations benefits)...
The works council wants job protection for five years, so they are willing to talk about "everything." But in my opinion, extending people's working hours isn't possible. And wage cuts, hell no! People understand that the less money they earn now, the less compensation and unemployment money they will get later. The works council’s hands are tied. I guess, the IG Metal (union) would sign anything to keep the plant in Berlin. But they wouldn't convince the workers.

November 2005

[prol-position news #5 | 2/2006] www.prol-position.net