Are British car workers cheaper to sack than German ones?
Dear comrades,
Having read your article "Strike back, occupy, keep Dagenham open" in Workers Power Issue 245 (July/August 2000) I would like to refer to one of your arguments which - in my opinion - is only partly true: the argument "that workers in Britain are much cheaper to sack than their European counterparts".
As you perhaps know, in Germany we have - besides the trade union structure in companies - a workers' representation body called "Betriebsrat" (works council). Its rights are set in a special law, the German Law on Co-Determination.
In case of mass redundancies the works council can force the employer to bargain a special company agreement, the so-called social compensation plan. Workers must not be sacked until a social compensation plan is agreed upon.
Insofar you are right: this is a factor the bosses have to calculate with - and they certainly do. (By the way: in companies where no works council exists no social compensation plan can be agreed upon and there is no legally fixed minimum compensation pay like there is in Britain. In these companies workers can be sacked without any compensation!)
The purpose of such an agreement is to compensate to a certain extent the economic disadvantages the workers suffer by losing their jobs.
The main subject of bargaining is a special formula according to which workers will get a redundancy pay for losing their jobs. It usually reads like this:
gross pay X years a worker has been working for the company
factor x
So the very crucial question is: how much is factor " x"? If it is a "130" the redundancy pays will be a very weak and cheap compensation, if it is a "50" they will be much better.
The question whether it is quite cheap or expensive to sack workers in Germany very much depends on the workers' strength, their will to fight and the actual balance of power in the company and/or in the region.
In addition - and this is probably the crucial point - it depends on the one hand on whether the works council is willing to co-operate with the local trade union branch and on the other hand whether the trade union bureaucracy is willing or can be forced to support the workers' fight for their jobs.
That is why I think the argument that workers in Britain are much cheaper to sack than elsewhere because of the erosion of workers' rights in Britain is a very dangerous one and can be (mis)used by your trade union bureaucracy to prevent workers from fighting.
How expensive mass redundancies will be for the bosses is not in the first place a question of the legal framework of the bourgeois state but is a question of organising the workers and fighting together in order to change the balance of power in favour of the workers.
Another point i would like to make: You call for the nationalisation of the Dagenham plant. But what should happen to a nationalised Dagenham plant? Should it go on producing the old Fiesta, while 3 other Ford plants in Europe build the new one?
Where will the components come from? Ford has just recently sourced out parts of their component production, but of course they keep control.
Is nationalisation an answer to the globalised car-industry?
I think an international debate among militants from the car and component industry is a way for finding better answers for a better fight-back.
Juliane Haber, trade-unionist from Stuttgart, Germany
Germany: GM and Fiat car workers strike 14 June
Solidarity with the workers of VW South Africa
Britain: Rover Longbridge plant could close