Gruppe Arbeitermacht, Berlin
On 16 March, five German trade unions merged, to found the "Vereinigte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft" (ver.di = United Public Sector Union). The public sector union ötv, the banking hbv, the post and telecom workers union (DPG), the media workers union IG Medien and the employees union DAG (which has been outside the DGB till the foundation of ver.di because it refused to subordinate to industrial unionism after the second world war) dissolved themselves to become ver.di.
The founding congress of this largest trade union inside the DGB (German TU congress) with about three million members gave already a taste of what the bureaucracy wants it to be like. It was held in the largest five star hotel in Berlin, the Estrell. It was a media event with little politics and even less debate.
Ver.di has been announced as a necessary and forward looking response to the changes in the economy, restructuring of capital, the expansion of the "service sector" and the development of new professions in the "new economy". It would be more powerful, more flexible, more ...
But the political and organisational basis of ver.di hardly corresponds to the need for re-organising industrial unionism in order to maximise fighting strength. Quite the opposition. The creation of ver.di is a response to declining membership and to the unwillingness of the unions ötv and DPG (who have organised large parts of the public sector) in particular to fight privatisation. Indeed further privatisation of public services and their transformation into a "service industry" is regarded as a fait accompli by the leadership of ver.di.
Ver.di is also a further break with industrial unionism. Of course, the restructuring of capital also makes a rebuilding of industrial unions necessary. But ver.di rather reminds us of "general" unions rather than the principle of "one enterprise, one union".
So there will still be competing DGB-unions in the transport sector (rail and street transport), in the public sector (teachers), energy production, in the service sector since both ver.di and the large industrial unions like IG Metall (metall and engineering) and IG Chemie (chemical, energy and mining workers) claim the "service emplyees" in "their" industry as their recruiting ground.
New economy = new union = new centre
Despite all the talk of "a larger union means more fighting strength", the incoming ver.di leadership – based on proportional seats for the merged union bureaucracys on all levels, ver.di is a bureaucratic creation to avoid struggle. There has been hardly any debate in many of the unions amongst the membership.
There are not elections of regional or local posts of the merged unions in which the rank and file has any meaningful word to say since all posts have been divided up between the bureaucrats from the different unions in advance, so that every bureaucracy has got a share of the leadership positions corresponding to its seize.
Bureaucratic structures are not bureaucratic just for their own or the privileges of the apparatus sake. The bureaucratic form of this merger also has a political content: political subordination to the SPD-led government.
The bureaucratic structures shall also isolate opposition and ensure the subordination of the traditionally left reformist IG Media and the hbv (who make up about 22% or the total membership of ver.di).
With ver.di the "new centre" has got a potentially strong bastion now in the German trade union movement and thereby a counterweight to the "traditionalist" IG Metall. All the TU-leaders assured Gerhard Schröder and the government that they will stick to the "pact for work, training and competitiveness", a kind of tripartite body between the government, the unions and the bosses associations, which has been instrumental in pushing though wage restraints and lots of other concessions from the unions since the Red-Green coalition is in power.
Of course, even in such a selected body of bureaucrats as the founding conference of ver.di Gerhard Schröder is a rather dubious figure, so that he only received lukewarm applause and even some booing when he dealt with social issues in his address to the founding conference. The "Genosse der Bosse" (the bosses comrade), as Schröder is called, did his best to avoid such "delicate" issues.
Schröder received ovations, however, when he praised the trade unions anti-racist and anti-fascist credential – i.e. the bureaucracies support for the governments popular frontist "anti-fascist and anti-racist" campaigns – and when he promised that EU-enlargement will go hand in hand with racist restrictions of the labour market for workers from Eastern Europe! Sometimes applause is a very telling thing!
In order to make clear where things shall be going according to the new ver.di leadership, the chairman of the new unions (and former ötv leader) Frank Bsirske had some open words for his "dear Gerd (Schröder)" and the "befriended government": "Let’s us be open, we have an interest to have a chancellor like you." Let us be open Frank Bsirske: with such "friends" (and their friends) we are not short of enemies.
Where now?
The creation of ver.di has been met with significant opposition, however, in the hbv in particular, but also in the ötv and the IG Media (hardly any in the DAG and the post). Whilst some of this opposition was itself motivated by bureaucratic interest, it generally was a correct response because of the bureaucratic nature of the merger, the rightward move in political terms and because it does not at all address/solve the real needs of reorganising trade unions according to the changing composition of German capitalism (which indeed has undermined industrial unionism via outsourcing, mergers and acquisitions, development of new industries etc.).
But ver.di in now a reality. It is no use in hoping for the "return" of its component parts. Quite the opposite: whilst the creation of ver.di is certainly a victory for the "new centre", it will itself face enormous difficulties to balance the needs of different parts of the bureaucracy, to stop membership decline and to control the larger membership.
All those who opposed ver.di because they want a fighting trade union which takes on the bosses and the state, pulls out of the "pact for work" and organises against privatisation, redundancies, further increase of precarious work have to come to together to build a rank and file alternative, a movement in the unions and work places to oust Schröders friends and replace them by leadership three million ver.di-members deserve.
