By Jean-Jacques Boislaroussie
The German model of "a socialised market economy" has long been considered a benchmark in Europe. Strong points of this model were high productive output and a partnership between a well-implanted union movement favouring worker participation and employers who were willing to compromise on the reduction of working hours as well as on wages in the context of industry-based negotiations.
Today this model is being challenged in several ways. A large number of employers are trying to get out of the straitjacket of industry-wide agreements and are imposing cut-rate agreements at one enterprise or site. This is the case in the new states in the east. Also, there is strong pressure here as elsewhere to revise downwards the gains made by workers and to impose austerity on public services in the name of globalisation and the requirements of the Maastricht accords.
The Kohl government has been undecided about what action to take. At first it tried to go along with proposals from some sections of the union movement to achieve a "pact for employment".
The aim of this pact, drawing together federal and regional governments, the union movement and employers, would have been to trade off a stabilisation in the cost of labour against maintaining employment levels. But frontal opposition from employers in the metal industry and pressure from within government parties headed off this attempt at German-style compromise.
Now the line being taken is similar to that carried out in other European countries — wage austerity, halting any reduction in working hours and emphasising flexibility within workplaces, undermining sick pay and holiday pay, and putting back the age of retirement. The result of this new direction is, predictably, a rise in unemployment.
The holdup in wage negotiations in the public sector could act as a detonator as the DGB (the major German union confederation) undertakes a broad campaign of demonstrations against these anti-worker policies. Up until now, industrial conflicts have appeared as elements of a system for regulating social relationships.
Not any more. The challenge to the "German model" from attacks by partisans of radical neo-liberalism, and the social polarisation this could bring about, are causing disquiet even within the parties in power. Witness the reluctance of governments in the states, of whatever political colour, to apply austerity policies, or the criticisms coming from sectors of the CDU, which fear losing their last zones of influence among the working class.
"In Germany we will have a hot summer", predicted Dieter Schulte, president of the DGB. Here and there, demonstrators have been expressing their desire to follow the example given by the movement in France at the end of 1995. [Editorial from Rouge et Vert, May 22, translated by Brendan Doyle.]