Austria: one year of resistance to right-wing government
[ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt, Vienna]
One year ago the conservative ÖVP and the right-wing racist FPÖ took over power in Austria – an event which shattered the political foundations of the country. This was a decisive move of the ruling class as it represented that it had overcome its long-time internal divisions and was prepared to smash the decade-long traditional political system in Austria – the so-called social partnership.
And indeed it started straight away with a series of attacks. Already two austerity packages plus a reactionary pension reform in less than one year time are the legacy of this government. At the same time the coming into power of the FPÖ represented an enormous set-back as it legitimised racism.
From the first day this reactionary government provoked massive resistance. On 19 February last year 300.000 people took to the streets. Since than till today every Thursday night hundreds up to several thousands mostly young people are marching through the streets in Vienna without permission of the police.
However the government is still in power. Even more it has consolidated itself – despite a series of defeats of the ÖVP and even more the FPÖ at elections since than. Why? The main reason is that the reformist bureaucracy in the trade unions and the social democratic party is doing its utmost to avoid any real struggle against the government and it plans.
The bureaucracy desperately tries to retain the privileged positions in the social security institutions, the public sector etc. It wants to convince the government that it is not so bad.
However pressure from below is growing – particularly in the trade unions. The membership pushes the leadership against its will into some form of actions. So the railway worker union organised an one-hour strike on 28 June While this is not impressive compared with the German or the French unions it reflected that things are changing in Austria where there is absolutely no class struggle tradition.
In the autumn 22,000 teachers went on a one day strike which the trade union leadership was forced to organise in face of the existence of a rank&file movement at the higher school teachers. ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt is part of this movement and fights for a mass strike campaign – not only symbolic actions as it is the case at the moment.
ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt argues for a fusion of the movement on the streets and the working class resistance. Only mass strikes up to a general strike can stop the plans of the government and bring it down. But to bring down the government the working class has to get rid of its old, rotten leadership. This is why the ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt fights for the building of a rank&file movement in the trade unions and a political alternative to reformism – a revolutionary party.
