Article from the March 2006 issue of the Socialist
newspaper of the Socialist Party, Irish section of the CWI
International Reports
Berlin - WASG to stand independently
By Matt Waine
THE BERLIN WASG (Party for Work and Social Justice - The Electoral Alternative) has voted overwhelmingly not to stand jointly with the Linkspartei.PDS (former Stalinist ruling party in East Germany). At a conference in Berlin on 25 - 26 February, WASG delegates refused to participate in a joint slate with any party that was involved in implementing anti-working class cuts. The Linkspartei.PDS is currently in coalition with the SPD in the Berlin state government carrying out attacks on workers and privatisation of local services.
The vote comes after an intense debate and massive pressure from the national leadership of WASG who want to fast-track a merger of the two parties. However the Berlin WASG has decided not to particpate in a joint slate until the Linkspartei.PDS abandons it policies of cutbacks and privatisation and coalition with the SPD that it has implemented up until now. 91 delegates voted to stand independently in the September regional elections, while only 39 voted against.
Socialist Alternative (SAV), the German sister party of the Socialist Party played a leading role in campaigning for the WASG to stand independently. As SAV member Lucy Redler said, "It is not trustworthy to stand together with a party that speaks of socialism on Sundays and carries out social cuts throughout the rest of the week." Instead, SAV has argued that the WASG needs to draw a clear line of opposition to all social cuts and mobilise the trade union movement and the working class as a whole to force back the SPD/CDU federal government from implementing its neo-liberal Harz iv and Agenda 2010 programme.
The vote of the Berlin WASG comes at a very important juncture in German politics. Firstly, the debate in Berlin has focused attention nationally on what the character of a new left should be. The significant breakthrough achieved by the joint candidacy of the WASG/Linkspartei.PDS in last year's federal election, winning 54 MPs and 8.7% of the vote, has shown the desire of many workers for a break with the parties of the establishment. But the question many are asking is, what is to replace the anti-working class policies of the capitalist establishment? In this sense many workers are looking to see if the WASG will provide a real opposition or will it be just more of the same. The genuine and principled stand taken in Berlin is to be welcomed as an important marker as to how the WASG will develop.
The new so-called "grand coalition" of the SPD and CDU has not meant a change of heart on the part of the capitalist establishment. Chancellor Angela Merkel has shown she is prepared to carry on with the former SPD government's policies of cutbacks and attacks on wages and conditions.
Unfortunately for Merkel, the working class has not given her a very long honeymoon period. On 6 February, the biggest public sector strike since 1992 brought local services to a halt in 9 out of the 16 regional states. Over 35,000 public servants are striking against employer plans to increase the working week by nearly two hours and over pay and working conditions for university health workers.
According to Ver.di, the public sector union, up to 250,000 jobs are at stake if a 40 hour week is implemented. Public servants have learned that previous concessions on the working week have not stopped the jobs cull. Over 100,000 jobs have already been lost over the last number of years in the public sector. Opinion polls show that 60% of people supported the strike. But it is not only in the public sector that the bosses' offensive is continuing. Workers in AEG in Nuremburg who make washing machines and dishwashers have also been involved in strike action since the beginning of February over plans to relocate to Poland.
It is clear that Germany is facing into a "hot spring." What is necessary is that a concerted lead is given to force the government and the bosses back, including joint strike action by public and private sector workers. In this developing situation, the WASG has an important role to play. The key role the WASG can play is to unite the political and social struggles fermenting in Germany and to provide the avenue through which the working class can drive back the capitalist offensive. But in order to do this, the WASG needs to advance a programme to challenge not only the effects of capitalism, but capitalism itself and offer a socialist alternative to the poverty offered by the present system.
Flint Michigan car-workers take action to defend jobs
By Laura Fitzgerald
THE US auto parts manufacturer, Delphi, is on a profiteering drive to lay off 24,000 workers and to cut remaining workers' wages by 60 percent. In Flint, Michigan, where the decline of the US manufacturing industry has had shattering social consequences for the community, militant trade union activists are leading a campaign to defeat the bosses' vicious attacks, despite the trade union bureaucracy's hindrance of the struggle.
Officials from the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 651 cancelled a picket in Flint East citing poor weather conditions as the reason. In reality, the UAW officials' act of sabotage aimed to cut across the influence of an opposition movement within the UAW, known as Soldiers of Solidarity (SOS), who initiated and did the ground work for the action. Despite this, a successful picket with 75 workers took place, most of whom were activists and supporters of SOS.
SOS is an important development for the workers' movement in the US. It is made up of militant rank and file union members and shop stewards, and is attracting a fresh layer of activists. The SOS has been holding mass meetings of Delphi workers across the region, demanding that the UAW organise its members to "work to rule". The aim is to prevent Delphi from stockpiling produce in preparation for all-out strike action.
An SOS activist interviewed by our sister organisation in the US, Socialist Alternative said, "It's going to take solidarity, real unionism from the bottom up, worker to worker, educating other union members on the shop floor."
With the ever-worsening situation in Iraq, support for Bush is at an all-time low. Workers are beginning to move into struggle in order to defend themselves against attacks on their wages and living standards, such as the auto-workers in Michigan and the transport workers in New York. It is abundantly clear that the working class desperately needs independent political representation, separate from the two parties of big business, the Democrats and the Republicans.
The drive for profit of the capitalist system is fuelling both the war in Iraq and Delphi's lay-offs and cutbacks. An independent party of the working class would challenge this system, support workers' struggle, and pose the need for a socialist sharing of resources to end the misery of imperialist war, racism and unemployment.
CWI conference in Moscow - Fighting for socialism in the land of October
MEMBERS OF the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), from across the former Soviet Union gathered in the historic city of Moscow to discuss the building of socialist organisations in their respective countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Moldova.
Moscow was the epicentre of the heroic victory of the working class, led by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution of 1917. Delegates and visitors to the conference stood in this proud tradition of workers' struggle and democratic socialism, prior to the gross destruction and perversion of the latter under Stalin. The restoration of capitalism has proven to be an unmitigated disaster for the region with the majority plunging into desperate poverty. Delegates discussed the need for independent representation of the working class to be built. The "colour revolutions" of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyztan, which brought a rival section of the ruling class to power, only served to illustrate that under capitalism, the decline of the economy are inevitable.
Delegates also relayed many examples of the inteventions made by CWI members in many workers' struggles. The miners strike in Kazakhstan and the battle of refrigerator-making factory workers in the city of Yaroslavl were two examples of the important role the CWI is playing in the workers' movement in the CIS.