Germany was in lockdown again for a day, angry capital representatives declared.
But on March 27, it wasn't a virus that paralyzed the country. It was the railwayand local public transport workers who went on a one-day nationwide warningstrike as part of their wage war. ---- It was essentially supported by the DGBtrade unions Verdi and EVG and gave an idea of the power of wage earners. "Allwheels stand still when your strong arm wants it," says a well-known song of theearly workers' movement from 1863. The saying has lost none of its meaning 160years later, and postmodern theorists still like it that way often bury the labormovement. We got a glimpse of the strength of organized workers during the March27 warning strike.In France, over the past few months, we have seen the country stand still asworkers become aware of their power. Hundreds of thousands have been protestingthere for months against the increase in the retirement age. If the right-liberalFrench President Macron thought that the resistance would collapse if he pushedthrough the increase in the retirement age without a parliamentary vote, he waswrong. The number of protesters has even grown again and their anger is great. Ina report in the daily newspaper Junge Welt you get an impression of this: Anemployee is quoted as saying: "This reform is rubbish and we will throw it in thebin!" The life expectancy of garbage workers is less than ten to fifteen yearsthe national average. "Toiling away for two more years means for many that theywill die before their pension." In general, it is now about more than "pensionreform": "We want a different society, it's enough that the same people alwayspay the bill while make a few super profits."Enough is enough - this could also become the motto of a workers' movement inGermany, which, especially in times of rising inflation, is no longer willing tocontinue paying for the crisis and accepting losses in real wages. The best fightagainst rising rents and energy prices would be strikes for more wages, whichalso hurt the bosses. Because only then are they effective. Our colleagues inFrance are way ahead of us.The fact that there is enough willingness to fight among colleagues in Germanywas shown at the beginning of March, when 86 percent of the unionized employeesat the post office voted in a ballot for an enforcement strike, with which theywanted to push through 15 percent more wages. With the good result behind them,the strike was not started immediately. Rather, the Verdi services union wentinto another round of negotiations and accepted a deal that certainly means someimprovements but also losses in real wages. Above all, however, an opportunitywas once again missed here for workers ready to fight to feel their own power anddefinitely achieve a better result."Hard, long strikes have one thing in common, they disrupt the usual dailyroutine," writes the 2022 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Annie Ernaux, in LeMonde Diplomatique. There she recalls the weeks of the great labor dispute in thewinter of 1995, which ended successfully. "For a week I was probably not the onlyone who believed that we were in a pre-revolutionary situation," Annie Ernauxrecalls of those winter days 28 years ago.At that time everything seemed possible because millions of wage earners said"enough is enough" and because there were militant unions that organized strikesand blockades. There is also a great opportunity here for the FAU to offer acombative alternative to the location logic widespread in the DGB unions.https://direkteaktion.org/alle-raeder-stehen-still/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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