Germany: union leaders surrender 35-hour week without a fight
25 July 2004

After 17 hours of "hard struggle" the leader of the Daimler-Crysler works council, Klemm, and Baden-Württemberg IG Metall leader Hofmann, on the one side and the Mercedes car group's bosses announced the result of their negotiations. The bosses won everything, the workers nothing – apart from a "job guarantee" until 2012.

Daimler had threatened to produce a new series of Mercedes outside Stuttgart - in "low cost areas" like Bremen in Germany (!) and in South Africa, if the workers would not agree to cut wage costs by 500 million euros. Mercedes claimed that at 3.5 bn, the Mercedes car group&Mac226;s profits are too little for Daimler, to little to improve their competitiveness against producers like BMW.

The sell-out was complete:
• a wage cut of 2.79 per cent in 2007 (ie. whatever the result of the nationals wage round in this year will be, the workers at Daimler will get 2,79 per cent less).
• some 6,000 non-assembly line workers (i.e. the staff in canteens etc.) will have a 39 hour week without any increase in pay.
• the research and development department will introduce a 40 hour week. The extra five hours work will be paid.
• young workers and apprentices will still be taken into full time contracts after apprenticeship, but can be forced to move to other towns, if access or shortage of labour demand that.

This result is a bitter blow for the working class in Germany – not only because of the result, but even more because of the way it materialised. Daimler-Crysler is not only the largest multi-national company, but also has one of the best organised workforces.

In the weeks leading up to the sell-out there were large-scale protests by workers from Daimler and some signs of solidarity action from other companies.

On 15July, there was a warning strike by 60,000 to 100,000 car workers from Daimler in Germany. In Stuttgart several tens of thousands came from the large plants in Sindelfingen and Untertürkheim. In the motor production site in Mettingen (suburb of Stuttgart) about 2000 workers blockaded the main road into Stuttgart.

In Bremen all the 20,000 workers took strike action for the day. In South Africa and in Brazil, the works also came out in solidarity with their fellow workers in Stuttgart. It was a very important first step in coordinated international action against the bosses&Mac226; offensive.

Daimler could have been the starting point for a successful defence against the attack on hours and wages and the starting point for a generalised fight back - both in Germany against the government&Mac226;s neo-liberal agenda 2010, but also for other countries.

But the treacherous, rotten role of the bureaucrats in the workers councils and the IG Metall prevented this from happening once again. This was a repeat of their actions last year when they managed to derail the momentum of the mass demonstrations between 1 November and 3 April 2004.

The IG Metall leaders acted as if they wanted to prove that social partnership with the government is still possible. And indeed, it is not dead – it's just that it is a partnership against the workers.

The IG Metall and works' council leaders justify the deal by claiming that they have achieved a "job guarantee for car workers" until 2012. What a joke! In a period of shrinking profit rates and increased competition, the IG Metall leaders – who just surrendered the "wage and working hours" guarantees – will just as readily negotiate away the results of this latest "guarantee" - a guarantee which is not worth the paper it is written on.

This fake argument certainly helped to convince the less confident and less class conscious production workers and a majority of the employees in the research departments and offices. It gave them the illusion of security for several more years.

Indeed, the sell-out will lead to another round of attacks in the whole industry - since large firms like Bosch, MAN, Continental, Linde, VW now clamour for the "same conditions" as those at Daimler.

Last month Siemens intimidated its employees into surrendering the 35-hour week with threats that they would move production to Hungary. Volkswagen may well be next. It issued a profit warning yesterday, saying poor market conditions made its earnings goal for this year unachievable.

Schroeder commented that the compromise reached by DaimlerChrysler boded well for upcoming talks between trade unions and Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car producer, i.e. he wished the management well in cutting the workers wages and lengthening their hours.

Schröder has signalled that the sector-wide management-union collective agreements will soon be a thing of the past. "Ideological fixations on rigid and schematic solutions are not meeting the different requirements in companies and sectors," he said. Many other politicians and companies have called for Germany's labour laws to be revolutionised, citing them as a main cause of Germany&Mac226;s economic problems.

On Friday, staff at the German owned travel company Thomas Cook also agreed to raise their weekly working hours for one year from August, with an option for a 12-month extension. And major retailer KarstadtQuelle, is eliminating 400 jobs and sought the concessions in order to reach a target of reducing costs by 25 percent and achieving greater flexibility in working hours at its department stores. Some 4,000 jobs are at risk and the company has said a working week of 40 to 42 hours may be necessary to save them.

A majority of the production workers at Daimler were openly against the sell-out last week and had demanded strike action. But they lacked, and still lack, the rank and file organisation and coordination necessary to counter the bureaucrats&Mac226; betrayal effectively. Anger and determination is not enough to be able to resist a sell-out including the many undemocratic, behind-the-scene manoeuvres which inevitably go with it.

What the workers in Daimler and other companies need in order to repel the bosses&Mac226; offensive is rank and file organisations rooted in the factories and offices. This can lead to a national rank and file movement to recapture their union and to replace the bureaucrats. It must be built now.

In addition those workers who are discussing the need for a new working class party to replace the SPD need to step up their efforts. But if Schröder is helping and encouraging the bosses offensive, the union leaders are helping sabotage resistance. They are leading a headlong retreat. For German workers to turn the tide and fightback effectively they will have to change both their political and their trade union leaders.


Now read: 100,000 protests as SPD backs Agenda 2010