200.000 German workers have been involved in protests defending jobs and wages.
Engineering and electrical employers have been trying to at on a Manch. 199. зereсmen: to increase wages in castern Germany to the level of the sec by next year.
sixes ica by ine sice and engineering union have spread to shipyards and to the west of the country. For workers in the cast, this is the first legal strike action there since before The German economy is in omy has shrunk by one and a fallen 80 per cent and figures for official unemployment have rocketed to nearly 2,980,000. Bosses expect to keep more than 3,350,000 workers unempioyed next year.
Inflation
in the eastem half of the country, reunited after the fall of the Berlin wall, conditions are worse. Inflation reached nearly 10 percent over the year there, in comparison to just four per cent in the west of Gemany.
in the east, where wages are 60 per cent of those in the west workers were promised a 26 per cent pay bosses attempt to not pay up has been taken seriously by union leaders. IG Metall union leader Franz Steinkhler said We do not want the emplovers to break the tradition of colleclive wage bargaining in eastern Germany, and then later, in western Germany. Union leaders have been pushed forward under the pressure of a 86 per cent vote for the current strike of 38,000 IG Metall members.
The recession have hit GerWhere they have brought long into the cast, such as in the car industry, they have been able to ger higher levels of productivity in the west. Despite the longer working wock and fewer holidays in the cast, productivity is ment. Heavy industry in the east west.
Working class action against the bosses attacks has been deepened by protests of 100,000 miners in early May and 200,000 workers on April 26. symbol.
In an attempt to distance himself and his party from the discredited image associated with years of abuse of power and involvement in the corrintion scandals he said: as possible - in other words before the next general electionsa new socialist grouping within a broad reangrment of tie seat which can present itself to run the country.' The appeal comes after a wave of protest against the party following the decision in perliament to block four requests by Milan magistrates to have the immunity of former leader Bettino Craxi waived to face corприх Слася Since the onset of the scanaal, unc party nas saricied a steady loss of members from the grass roots through to the top.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 42 May 15 1993. Page 5