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From Inprecor (International Press Correspondence), No. 52, 27 May 1975, pp. 8–13.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The struggle of the printing workers of West Germany, which lasted from April 29 to May 13, represents a turnin the class struggle in the Federal Republic of Germany.Since the strike of the public employees during thespring of 1974, there had been no further open confrontations between capital and labor until the beginningof 1976. The trajectory of the new rise of workers struggles, which had begun with the wildcat strikes of 1969, seemed to have been interrupted.
The wave of token strikes by 400,000 metalworkers, who used these strikes as a means of putting strong pressure on “their” employers during the March–April 1976 renegotiation of their national wage contract, had already indicated that a turn was in the wind. The struggle of the printers and typesetters, which was ended bya contract vote on May 18, constitutes the turn properlyso called. The very fact that the struggle took place isin itself of historic significance. But this observation acquires more importance when account is taken of the concrete form of the struggle and of the experiencesthe workers underwent during it. All this lends thisstruggle on exemplary character.
It is first necessary to rapidly sketch out the background to the upturn of class struggles in West Germany, in the framework of which the strike of the printing workers took shape. (See Inprecor, No. 27/28, June 5, 1975, for a fuller description of the West German economic situation.)
The principal experience of the West German working class since the recession of 1974–75 has been this: The Federal Republic of Germany is not an island in the capitalist ocean. The 1966–67 recession in West Germany was not a “freak accident.” It cannot be arributedto the “administrative errors” of the Christian Democratic government in power at the time.
At the height of the economic crisis of 1974–75 there were 1,200,000 people totally unemployed and nearlya million partially unemployed. May 1976 is the eighteenth consecutive month during which there are morethan one million West German workers unemployed.As in the spring of 1975, all the spokespeople of the bourgeoisie hove continued to pratter [?]: “The upturn ison the way, the upturn is at hand.” It must be recognized that this year these prophets were right. But theyare proclaiming only a half-truth.
It is true that the upturn has begun in terms of the increase in turnover, sales, production, and above all profits. The year 1975 saw the highest stock marketrises in many long years. A real growth of the gross national product of at least 5.5 percent is expected for 1976, and according to official estimates, profits willrise by at least 14.5 percent.
On the side of the working closs, however, there is little reason to rejoice in the sort of upturn that is nowgoing on. Unemployment has decreased slightly duringthe past several months. But it remains in excess of onemillion, and all predictions agree that the average number of unemployed will hover around a million throughout the year.
During the years 1975 and 1976 broad sectors of the West German working class suffered average annual declines of 2–4 percent in their real wages. Fundamentally, this situation has not been changed by the struggles that have occurred in the metal industry and amongthe printers during recent weeks. Only an upturn instruggles by broader layers of the working class duringthe autumn of this year could generate a turnabout inthe situation on the real-wages front.
The economic crisis hod struck the West German working class at a moment when it was not prepared – the lack of preparation was deeper than it was in most ofthe other capitalist countries of Europe. To begin with,the West German working class had accumulated fewer struggle experiences than the other working dosses inthe course of the two previous decades, for well-known historical reasons. Elements of a class-struggle leadership were even more cruelly lacking in West Germanythan in the other countries.
After the defeats of the 1948–52 period, the first great struggles – leaving aside the metalworkers strike of 1963 – occurred only during the years 1969–73, during an uninterrupted boom of the West German economy.The result of this has been that the West German working class, unlike the working class in other countries,was for all practical purposes not confronted with theproblem of massive unemployment during this period.Even the question of factory shutdowns did not play animportant role. The boom allowed many small and unstable enterprises to float on the waves of economicgrowth.
In addition, the change in government that occurred in 1969 (when the Social Democrats, in alliance withthe Free Democrats, took over) shook up the situationon the political field. The impression could have beencreated (and the Social Democrats did everything theycould to present things this way and to strengthen thisimpression) that it was the government of the CDU (Christlich-Demokratische Union – Christian Democratic Union) that had been responsible for the recession of 1966–67 and that a government of the SocialDemocracy, the “friend of the workers,” would pursuea policy capable of averting crises of this nature andcould in any event guarantee, or at least make possible,a constant increase in real wages.
In fact, West Germany remained an exceptional island in the capitalist world during the 1971–72 recession.Although there were a total of 10 million unemployedin the imperialist countries during that winter, therewos only very limited unemployment in West Germany (200,000–250,000 on the average). And there was alsoa palpable increase in the real income of the workingclass during those years.
The workers thus hod relearned how to struggle, but they did so only under conditions of economic boom.the leaders hip that began to crystallize in such a situation had experiences limited to this type of struggle.And above all, this leadership was still tightly linkedto the trade-union bureaucracy, which, during the period 1970–74, hod succeeded in maintaining controlover the workers struggles thanks to an active tradeunion policy. (The 1973 wildcat strikes were an exception to this rule.) So long as the trade-union bureaucracy still hod some margin for maneuver, that is, solong as the Social Democratic government accorded thebureaucracy this margin, the problem of a conflict between rhe new leadership of workers struggles at therank-and-file level and the trade-union bureaucracycould nor immediately come to the surface.
With the beginning of the international economic recession and the outbreak of a more serious crisis in West Germany itself, this period come to an end. The employers laid down the rules to be followed in overcoming the recession. The SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – Social Democratic Party of Germany) accepted these rules and transmitted them to the trade-union leadership, itself closely linked to the SPD. The public service strike of 1974 and the manner in which then Chancellor Willy Brandt intervened indicated this clearly and publicly. The turn was too sharp, however,and trade-union struggles broke out nonetheless andeven won victory. But this was the final point of thewhole 1969–74 phase.
From that time on, the trade-union leadership capitulated before the SPD government. The working class was drawn into the whirlpool of massive unemployment – and with no organized response. The leadership ofthe struggles, which had crystallized on the factorylevel and among middle trade-union cadres, was disarmed in face of this new situation. Hence, there wasa prolonged halt in workers struggles.
It would nonetheless be erroneous to believe that the period from 1974 to rhe beginning of 1976 meant that the development of new leaderships at the factory leveland the assimilation of new experiences had also beenhalted. Ferment continued under the surface. In someplaces important changes were heralded, the occupationof a factory in Erwitte in the state of Westphalia beingthe clearest sign of this. In certain cases this subterranean evolution led to ferment within factories and trade unions on the brink of open struggles (DVA in Stuttgart; Audi/NSU in Neckarsulm; VFW in Speyer). But in general the working class was not prepared to break out of the trade-union framework. Because of the weaknessof any alternative leadership, rhe workers were also unable to risk an open struggle. And precisely such open struggle would have been necessary in order to overcome the alliance between the trade-union bureaucracy and the government, an alliance under Social Democratic leadership.
The rapidity with which the working class responded when the recession ended in 1976 and the comparison with the reactions of the workers to the crisis of 1966–67 enable us to detail the changes that have occurredin the combativity and consciousness of the West German workers.
The 1966–67 crisis ended for the employers at the beginning of 1967. A comparison in purely economic terms would permit the identification of February 1976 with February 1967. But the wage agreements for 1967 and 1968 remained very low, in part linked to contracts of particularly long duration. Simultaneously, therewas a boom of capitalist profits that could no longer be hidden. But it was only in September 1969 that the working class responded in the form of a wave of wildcat strikes. These strikes undoubtedly were of exceptionally great political importance, but in terms of thenumber of fighters involved, they represented only a fraction of the mobilizations of the spring of 1976.
This year things went much differently. Scarcely was the crisis of capitalist profits over and scarcely had thefigures for predicted economic growth for 1976 been published, but the struggles broke out. Moreover, aslong ago as autumn 1975 a brood layer of trade unionists affirmed that a “second helping” would be neededfor those sectors of the working class that had beenforced to conclude their negotiations too early and oftoo low a level, for they had to be satisfied also.
It must be recognized that from their own point of view the capitalists were not wrong when they complainedthat this threatened to put the screws on profits, evenif this is in contradiction with the “left Keynesian”theory that exercises some influence in West Germantrade-union milieus.
What made the employers uneasy was not so much the absolute figures on the increases in nominal wages asthe fact that the workers had been able to win thoseincreases. What bothered them was above all the factthat the struggles had started up immediately. For the West German capitalists, this represents a negativesign for the coming stage of interimperialist competition on the world market. The employers had counted very heavily on this new stage. They wanted a new rise of exports of both commodities and capital, both to bemade possible by the reduction of the real wages of theWest German workers and by a very low rate of inflation compared with the rate prevailing in the countriesthat are West German imperialism’s major competitors.But the workers struggles that broke out again right atthe beginning of the economic upturn and the prospectsthat may be traced out by such a dynamic threaten toplace a question mark over the capitalist predictions,or at least to render them problematical.
The upturn in struggles in West Germony was initiated by the trade-union bureaucracy, first of all by the metalworkers union. In this case, the leadership of theunion around Loderer was opposed to a combative lineduring the wage negotiations. But such a line was imposed by the regional bureaucracy under Steinkühler(in Baden-Württemberg) and by the rank-and-file mobilization that followed. To be sure, superficial observerswith short memories would be tempted to hail the panegyrics of the trade-union leaders after the token strikesof the metalworkers and the strikes of the printing workers. Weren’t they sly to wait for the end of the crisisand then to trigger off struggles as soon as the crisisended? Such a judgment would be erroneous. This becomes clear precisely on the basis of an analysis ofwhat has really happened so far this year.
It is correct, on the other hand, to stress that within the working class and among its leading cadres on thefactory level, the experience of the economic crisishas been assimilated and that in certain places this hasled to consciousness of the fact that struggle can bewaged, albeit indifferent forms and for different goals,even during a period of crisis. It is likewise correct tonote that for broad layers of the working class the endof the economic crisis has been the signal that the pausethat had been imposed on them is over.
The trade-union bureaucracy has followed this evolution closely. It has constantly measured the pulse of the working class, although not necessarily with noble intentions.To this it must be odded that the trade-union leadershipdrew its own conclusions from the wildcat strikes of 1969and that it does not want to live through a second experience of struggles breaking out beyond their controlin such a manner that the leaders are forced to spend long years regaining the lost confidence of the workers, as happened after 1969.
Obviously, it would be an exaggeration to claim that the trade-union bureaucracy as a whole had graspedthis new situation. Such an interpretation would implya static view of the trade-union bureaucracy. Therewere only parts of the leadership that understood thedanger of continuing the practice of signing wage contracts that meant reductions in real wages under conditions of the end of the crisis and the beginning of anupturn. This applies to the regional leadership of IG Metall (the metalworkers union) in Baden-Württemberg,which is led by Steinkühler, and to the national leadership of IG Druck und Papier (the printing and publishing workers union). It is difficult to believe that it was Mahlein, the official leader of the printers union, notorious for his repressive attitude within the union, whoreally represented this coming to consciousness. In fact,while he appeared as an individual during the contract negotiations, he occupied a purely symbolic position, even within the leadership of his own union. The decisive influence toward a combative attitude within the leadership of IG Druck und Papier was exercised by Hensche, editor-in-chief of the union newspaper. In fact, the well-informed sections of the bourgeois press attacked him as the “hidden orchestra conductor” of the agitation in the book publishing industry.
This reflects an interesting evolution within the tradeunion bureaucracy, an evolution that cannot yet be evaluated definitively. In both cases in which a toughconfrontation occurred between the unions and the employers during the spring of 1976:
One must be very cautious about this evolution. It is not a matter of differences or of a splintering of the trade-union bureaucracy. The pressure of the rank and file is still too weak to provoke such differences. Itcould, it is true, be a matter of precursers of a processof differentiation within the bureaucracy. The differentlines proposed in the wage negotiations by Loderer und Mahlein on the one hand and Hensche and Steinkühler on the other hand reflect the twofold character of the union bureaucracy: linked to the bourgeois state on the one hand and to the rank and file workers on the other hand. Steinkühler and Hensche acted very clearly in the interests of the union bureaucracy as a whole,perhaps even more so than Loderer himself. They better understood the danger the massive attack of the employers against the working class can represent even for theunions themselves. They foresaw better than Lodererthat a capitulation of the trade-union leaders to theemployers could once again provoke a loss of control over the workers.
“We discussed with all the great (!) trade-union leaders before the conclusion of the wage contracts, but not with the little (!) printers’ union of Mahlein,” declared Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who was irritated when the printers strike broke out. Leaving aside the arroganceexpressed in these words, Schmidt’s interpretation is profoundly “idealist.” It reduces the problem of theprinters strike to the question of whether there was a tête-à-tête between Schmidt and Mahlein or not. Thedevelopment of the strike, however, indicates to whatextent rhe personality of Mahlein as president of theunion had little to do with the conduct of the fight. Inthe final analysis, it wos the rank and file that drovethe struggle forward.
The struggle possed through several phases, which sowed some confusion among uninitiated observers. This is explained above all by the hesitant attitude of the unionleadership, especially Mahlein.
Two conclusions may be drawn from the zigzags of the struggle in the printing industry.
The first concerns the attitude of the employers. They called for a lockout of all workers Immediately afterthe proclamation of the partial strike on April 29. They thus made their own contribution to radicalizing the struggle. Their plan failed. But it was not a plan of desperados. It had a precise aim. On the one hand, it was necessary to erect a backstop to wage increments beyond what the employers considered acceptable inthe framework of their basic plan to increase profits.The token strikes of the 400,000 metalworkers had already won an increase (6 percent) that slightly surpassedthis limit. On the other hand, if was necessary to givea clear warning to the union bureaucracy as a whole in order to curb excessive hopes concerning a “second helping” of wage increases during the autumn of 1976.
In this sense, if was not the industrialists of the printing sector itself who aggravated the conflict. It was the personal intervention of Schleyer, head of the employers’ association, who piessured the industrialists of thissector to show maximum firmness. The violence of theemployers’ reaction clearly indicates how important it remains for the West German capitalists to limit anynew wage increases during autumn 1976.
It must be added that the employers in West Germany have traditionally resorted to the lockout much morerapidly than their colleagues of the neighboring capitalist countries (in which the lockout is often illegal). This weapon was previously used in the metal industryin 1963 and 1971. It was used this time in the printingindustry. More than any other “legal” weapon of theemployers, rhe lockout confirms that there is a small class of owners who hold a monopoly of access to themeans of production and defend this monopoly toothand nail.
The second conclusion concerns the relationship between the union bureaucracy and the rank and file. In an exemplary manner, the strike in the printshops showed the difficulty met by the bureaucracy in conserving controlover the rank and file during a tough union struggle. During the phases of “halting the strike” and of “transition from the total strike to the partial strike” there were many open conflicts, in the course of which the union bureaucrocy had to yield rapidly most of the time.
The result of the May 18 referendum reflected these difficulties met by the union leadership. Only 55 percent of the membership accepted the content of the final agreement reached with the employers. And evenmore important, the majority of the workers of the big companies, the companies in which combativity hadbeen very pronounced, rejected the final accord andvoted to continue the struggle.
But these conflicts were only one of the aspects of the relations between the leadership and the ranks. Theother aspect is equally significant: There was no emergence of organizational forms outside union control.All the struggles in oil phases of the conflict unfolded within the narrow framework of the unions. One sentence that appeared in the official strike newspaper of IG Druck und Papier is extremely significant in this regard: “Monday, when the central leadership had decided to interrupt the strike, it was often necessary towait for hours before the striking and locked-out comrades were willing to go back to work. ‘The comradescried,’ reported a desperate shop steward in one plant.” Translated into clear language, this means: The workers acceded to the instructions of the union leadership,but they did so with grit teeth.
If is an important characteristic of the West German working class thot it chooses insofar as possible to struggle with the aid of the trade-union organizations and that it tries to avoid struggles not sanctioned by the unions (wildcat strikes), especially after the negative experiences of 1973. The basis of this behavior mustbe sought above all in the weakness of the workers leaderships and of the elements favorable to determined class struggle at the factory level. The high degree of trade-union organization, higher than in most of the other big capitalist countries of West Europe, also contributes to this.
The experiences of the printers strike are extremely important. Although it was a question of a struggle organized on the trade-union level, which is “legal” even from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, in the course of the struggle there were violent physical confrontations between the strikers and the police. In several cities (notably West Berlin, Frankfort, Stuttgart, and Reutlingen), the police intervened with clubs against strike pickets and assemblies of strikers. The aim of these police interventions was most often tomake possible the appearance and distribution of bourgeois newspapers or to club open the way for trucks loaded with papers produced by strikebreakers. Often it was only necessary for a strong police contingent to arrive on the scene and form up into ranks in a threatening manner for the same result to occur. Since the trade-union leaderships in all cases called upon the strikers not to resist the police, the pickets often remained passive.
The massive intervention of the West German police in this strike, usually with helmets, clubs, sticks, and so on, deeply impressed the printing workers. Up to now, this sort of open state repression has been usedonly against “anarchists,” the far left, or, in the worst of cases, wildcat strikers. The attempts of the left parties to explain that all this repression was in fact directed against the workers movement as a whole remained abstract for the broader masses of workers. The experience of the printers strike has now provoked clear fissures in the ideology that presents the police as the”friend and helper” even of the working class.
A second important experience for a part of the strikers was the solidarity of other sectors of the working class.On the whole, this solidarity remained at the level of resolutions adopted in factories and various trade-union organs. But in some cases there was direct support to the strike (in the Stuttgart area, for example). This is especially important in that the leadership of the DGB (the national trade-union federation) did all it could to prevent such practical solidarity.
A third important experience of the printers strike was the punctual collaboration between the strikers on the one hand and the students and other non-proletarian sectors on the other hand. In various cases, for example the Mercator printshop in West Berlin, strike pickets were composed of both workers and students. In Berlin there was even a massive confrontation between a massof printing workers and students against the police. Similar incidents took place in Reutlingen in southern Germany.
It is important to insist on the fact that with a few exceptions (Kiel in 1969 and Merck-Darmstadt in 1971), there has never been such a massive intervention of students in a strike, an intervention accepted by the workers. The separation of the mobilizations of the students, high-schoolers, and apprentices on the one handand the struggles of workers on the other hand had been one of the negative characteristics of the upturn in workers struggles in West Germany during the period 1969–73.
A fourth experience of the strike was the effective organization of strike pickets that did not have a purely symbolic character. In some places, for example, flying squads were formed that functioned day and night, and the strike pickets were often involved in physical confrontations. When one knows of the restorationist ”social law” that prevails in the Federal Republic of Germany (there are, for example, court decisions declaring the formation of chains of strike pickets illegal), one can understand the importance of these experiences.
Schleyer, chief of the employers, declared in regard to the printing strike: “Manifestly, it is not a questionof wage increases, but a conflict of a political character.” (Der Spiegel, No. 20–21, 1976.) He is right. From the purely quantitative standpoint, the balance-sheet for the printing and paper workers boils down toa clear decline in real wages (and the workers knowthis; at the beginning of the conflict their own union indicated that at least a 9 percent wage increase wouldbe needed to preserve buying power). It would nevertheless be quite erroneous to measure this strike purely by the material results. Its political character was moreimportant. The strike broke the wage policy called for by the government, its “experts,” and the employers. In the final analysis, this is expressed in the desperate attempts made by both sides. The union clearly tried to break the wage framework (at least once a day Mahlein insisted on the necessity “of there being a 6 before the decimal point”), while the employers tried to hold the nominal wage increase below 6 percent (during the final negotiations, they proposed 5.9 percent severaltimes, plus various supplementary benefits that, taken together, would have brought the package to 6.5 percent; this was rejected by the union).
The fact that the workers broke through the maximum wage increases set by the accord between the government and the employers is undoubtedly the most important success of the printing workers. Another factor alsogives this strike a very great political importance. The printing workers showed that it is possible to successfully struggle under conditions of economic crisis, evenwhen one has to confront an alliance of all the bosses,the government, and “public opinion” (apparently indignant over the “attack on freedom of the press”). The fact is that the printing workers were strongly isolated. The trade unions of other industrial branches did not declare themselves prepared to support the printers financially with the money in their strike funds. On several occasions Mahlein repeated that the international printers union was behind the strike, but no mentionwas made of aid from the DGB.
It may be supposed that the West German working class understood the signal to struggle from the printing workers. The bureaucracy certainly has. It has already begun to pour water onto the fire. “One must not talk somuch about a hot autumn in such a way as to provoke in advance what will be regretted later,” warned Loderer, chief of IG MetalI, an allusion to the hot autumn of 1969, the wave of wildcat strikes.
The uneasiness is also great within the Social Democracy. Nothing is more disagreeable for Helmut Schmidt than on important workers struggle on the eve of legislative elections. That would damage his “image” before the employers, the image of the man who brought profits out of the impasse by lowering real wages, while still remaining capable of maintaining rhe workers and the unions in a passive attitude. Some bourgeois newspapers reported immediately after the printing strike thatSchmidt was now trying to convince the employers tovoluntarily grant a new wage increase after the summer in order to avert struggles that are now probable.
Whatever the maneuvers of the trade-union bureaucracy and the Social Democratic leadership, the printers strike constitutes a turn after two years of halt in class struggles in West Germany. Other parts of the working class will certainly interpret this strike as a sign that struggle is possible and that if can lead to success even under conditions of economic crisis and under unfavorable initial conditions. After two years of reductions in real wages, the slogan for the coming struggles must be: “We must make up the ground we have lost because ofthe crisis.”
May 22, 1976
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