metal workers' union in West Germany.
his replies.
cross national frontiers.
THE BRITISH steelworkers, just like those in France, are told that they should raise productivity the achieved by the steel industry in West Germany.
Yet it was in West Germany, the country which is held up as the model for 'social peace", and in that branch industry which determination' said pacified the working class and put an end to class struggle - steel workers engaged in a bitter six-week strike to demand a 35-hour week.
When the steel crisis 1974, cut-throat competition out between the giants in the West. 1978, some 100,000 steel workers in West Europe lost their job, and a further 100,000 were put on shorttime working.
Production dropped by 20 per and prices climbed by 50 cent. It was not long before the EEC inter ere The reached between the steel producers allowed them to raise prices and at the to safeguard their profitability by introducing protectionist measures, particularly agallist imports of steel from Japan. Plan The plan for rationalisation and new investment puts profits first, so that the victims of the technological progress' are the steelworkers, who are robbed of their job: In country after country, they are refusing to pay that price.
In West Germany, IG-Metall the Metal : Industry industrial union with 2.6m members, which the organised.- declared that it would take up the fight for a 35-hour week in 1978. The union aimed to show that possible unemployment by sharing without loss of pay, so that work can be distributed to everyone instead of imposing unemployment.
Strikes West decided by secret ballot. 155,000 steelworkers entitled to vote (only union members are allowed to vote) 95 per cent took part in the ballot, and 87 ner. cent strike. Only 8 per cent voted against.
With such overwhelming support for action. backed by meetings which over 120,000 workers attended the steel barons ottered Su socki paid leave. They refused to Eak: any concession on reducing the Offer Tie aques of meani an adbronzi three days ieave for those aged over 30, and as much as an extra interist Challenge 7. Febraary 1980 FOR 16 years, Jakob Moneta was editor of Metall, the journal of the When he spoke last week to 500 electricians on strike at the Port Talbot steel works they gave him an ovation. The electricians asked him about the kind of demands they should be raising, and applauded Here Jakob Moneta, a member of the West German section of the their levels + that began in broke steel-producing 1974 to per 'understanding' meeting in Sheffield last week the union turned it down.
As . one. Of leaders put it: against more paid leave. ¡Unian, an steelworkers went on strike. barons retaliated are had not involved in the strike.
The strikers' thousand pickets work to hold out.
Germany are Out of Barons win this voted Ic 'taboo catalogue' mass forbidden to concede.
government shown Stat *74, Hiesi supposed economic miracle employers, JAKOB MONETA - speaking to the steelworkers at a Socialist Challenge nine days for those under 21 - but the regional union "We are not at all But we did hot start this battle in order to win a few more pleasant hours under the arilly. marvelous! sun in spain and come back to find that we no longer have a job. We are fighting to keep our job!
On 28: November: 1978, 40,000 the The steel •Dy • but way. 30,000 steelworkers whom the union spirit magnificent. On Christmas eve; four covered the They set up Christmas trees hung with Easter eggs to show how long they were prepared •But the steel barons decided to and they had common strategy worked out by the employers" association. It included a unemployment has a positive benefit - it weakens the working class.
This is what a meeting of the steel FRENCH steelworkers -their resistance to closures last year gained support from Ger much less determination employers. But it would be a wild exaggeration to say that the strike led to defeat. leave. The however. is that the 4u-nour remains in the contract until the end • of 1983, and this applies to the whole metal industry.
In a secret ballot of the workers, 50 per cent voted to accept the new agreement and 41 per cent voted against it. But of those steel workers actually strike, there was a majority of No votes.
Studies Meanwhile studies about a third of the 8m jobs industry in West Germany could be replaced by robots and computers in the coming years, and the recession is now deepening. show that the growth rate will tend towards one per cent a year in the advanced capitalist countries, which means even more unemployment.
The fight against unemployment, which began in West was then taken up in France, is now happening really needed is for us to go into this fight together, internationally The 100,000 workers who demonwhich than the steel We won six weeks paid well. flaw in the agreement, week they welc The and the CGT, steel was engaged in the Europe metal • show. that multinational in Block us out. bosses out?' Germany and ployed in But and this strated in Paris early last year against the annihilation of jobs in the French industry understood this very When a small delegation German steelworkers from the Ruhr Valley appeared at the demonstration greeted with mighty chorus of the 'Internationale'.
: French Communist Party the CP-dominated union, had argued that the reasen fol the crisis in the French steel industry German competition. One of their slogans was: 'No to a German We are all organised is the same and international, and we must see to it that it starts to be as effective as the corporations, which are acting on a world-wide basis for their interest and arainst ours.
When the steelworkers in West Germany were locked out, they pu posters saying: Now the bosse When do we throw the If we start to plan in common not only the steel industry but the sort of society we need; if we explain what a crime it is to have 17m people unemthe advanced capitalist countries, then we might in common find the way out of unemployment capitalist which endangers the future of humanity.
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Fourth International, describes the strike for a 35-hour week in the West German steel industry, and how the struggle over jobs needs to