PUBLIC SECTOR strikers in Germany forced Helmut Kohl's conservative government into a humiliating retreat, as negotiators back ed down on their 'non-negotiable' pay offer.
leaders have recom mended asa per cent ocal prus various lump sum extras, many trade unionists are angry at thesmall increase in the offer, and want to stay out for a better deal.
In the biggest public sector decades, hundreds of have filled the streets for nearly two weeks, demandinga 9.5 per cent pay rise.
Workers walked out in airports and post offices, and left and rubbish carts standing idle. The strike cost hundreds of millions of marks.
Warning given
Private sector workers are sull in dispute, gineering workers in IC Metall urope's biggest union. Warn ing strikes' of more than 100,000 have already been called to show employers that the engineers mean business. Building workers have started a work to rule and look set to join the strikers soon.
Starting point
Private sector employers were quick to claim that 'the result of the negotiations in the public sector can and will have model for private business'. But the 5.5 per cent deal is likely to be seen as a starting point, whatever employers say.
Helmut Kohl's conservative government is faltering, hit not just by strikes but also by the resignation of Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. With Kohl in headlong retreat and private sector strikes mushUS society. A new bill before Congress would mean that capital punishment was available for a further 55 offences.
The American Civil Liberties Union says of current US thinking Toughness is the universal solvent to every the death penalty is a symbolic demonstration of toughness. They conclude 'there are over 2000 people on Death Row. If we were to kill them all... the US would witness the greatest slaughter of its citizens by a western democracy this cen'The prison and BLACKS Death Row are the sharp end of a systhat IF I SHI t i through and through. The surprise ИЖ И the exthe streets of and other US didn't come sooner. rooming, the time is ripe for public sector workers to stay on the offensive for a better deal. They have already made progress, but they could get We didn't go out on the streets for 11 days to get what wecould have got a month ago' was the strikers reaction. OcTV leader Monika could face real problems in comeen to back down without the best possible deal.
Power-house
Germany is renowned as the economic power-house of western Europe and also as the bastion of social peace. But the last few weeks' seen more days of action than any of the last five years. The social peace is no more It was founded on the classic deal of social democracy -COOTORS ›w unemployment and regular pay rises in return for compliant unions. With an economic boom throughout could afford Profits more than doubled, from 232 to 514 bi lion Deutschmarks Kohl Under attack Coupled with low unemployment and union laws that make Britain's look union-friendly, strikes were few and far be But now all that has It's not because Germany's unions have swung to the left, but because the economy is under attack - first from the international recession, second from the cost of unification.
"The economy going througha durable recession anc political confidence in the bourcois government is talling his was not a radical unior leader, but the head of the Ger" Germany is renowned as the economic power-house of western Europe... But the last few weeks' strikes have seen more days man Institute of Directors. After years of growth up until 1990, things have now changed. Since 1991, production has stagnated, orders have gone down and real income fell by at least 1.5 per That's bad enough for the the workers and the state, who have borne the massive cost of unification. The national debt has mushroomed and tax rates have increased for ordinary workers. Coupled with soaring unemployment in the east, that's a recipe for explosion.
Defensive
With the strongest working class in western Europe, and around a third unionised, German workers are well-placed to force Kohl on to the defensive Union leaders are beginning to Ker more ve. Monika WulfMathies, lender of the public sector of the negotiations 'We stood next to each other and did not have anything But while the workers are on the and Konts governmen is weak Bundestag (parliastrong- Bjorn Engholm's SPD, the equivalent of Labour, seems to have moved away from the idea of coalition with Kohl's CDU.
But it has no more answers to the destruction of east For the Germany's economy decline of wages in the west, than the CDU. The left is weak, and in its absence it is the extreme right Republikaner who gaining among the youth and the unemployed If the left can build out of the current wave of strikes, showing that workers' unity is a real alternative to the racism of the extreme right, it would be a real step forward for the German workers movement.