“We wanted to make history”

This article on a strike at Bosch-Siemens Washing Machine Factory (BSH) in Berlin, Germany was first published in Wildcat no. 78, Winter 2006/2007:

The Prelude

"BSH will continue to manufacture home devices in Berlin - Planned closure for the end of the year is off the agenda". This was the heading of the Berliner Zeitung on the 29th of June 2006. The article continued: "The BSH-management, the works council and the IG Metall union representatives agreed to negotiate about a new concept for the production location in Berlin. 'The plan is that we keep parts of the production', said the head of the BSH plant Gunther Meier… in exchange 'considerable cost-effective concessions' would be expected from the employees… Arno Hager (a union chairman - see appendix) said: 'I believe that we will find a solution in order to keep the production running in Berlin long-term'. Hager did not want to comment on the concessions of the employees for the time being. Meier said that he expects 'a cost reduction clearly in the millions'".

At the beginning of July 2006 the works council rejected the cost-cutting plans. The works council first announced that "we are open for all plans", but some workers made clear that they were not. People want a high leaving package, but refuse deteriorations of the existing conditions in any way. They know that their struggle has become a reference point "Now They Call Us Heroes Everywhere!" [See interview with a BSH-worker in Wildcat no. 75, translated in prol-position news no. 5/2006]

On the 25th of July BSH announced the shutdown of production for the beginning of 2007. This would not effect the research and development department. The IG Metal union and the works council start to negotiate about a social plan for the effected 570 of 1050 employees. When negotiations failed in August a strike committee was set up and production was interrupted by a continuous “"extraordinary company assembly", starting from the 6th of September. On the 17th of September is election day in Berlin, therefore the entangled red-tape of SPD and IG Metall has to prevent any further public debates about the conditions of workers in the capital, particularly after the plant closures at Samsung, JVC and CNH, all situated in Berlin.

On the 18th of October the IG Metall and the BSH agree on the following collective contract:

* 400 blue-collar workers get a job guarantee till 31st of July 2010, meaning that they will not be laid off (270 jobs in the production department, 60 in the washing department, 40 in the logistics; 30 jobs are shifted to other companies belonging to the BSH group)

* In 2007 there will be no wage increases or other raises due to collective bargaining

* The performance bonuses that are prescribed in the collective contract are cut by 100 Euros per month on average (this would effect 500 workers)

* All workers who are not employed in the production department will have to work 40 instead of 35 hours, without wage compensation

* All workers have to work an additional hour per week (scheduled as "training time")

* The annual extra-pay ("dividend") is scrapped, which used to be about 1,500 Euros

* The holiday and Christmas money is cut by 20 per cent

* The half-day extra-holiday on the 24th and 31st of December are scrapped

* 216 workers will be sacked

The wage cuts of about 300 Euros per month (of total 1,500 Euros after tax), the sacking of 216 workers, who will receive a meagre leaving pay of about 1.5 monthly wages, is a shitty outcome comprising about 90 per cent of the deal which Meier and Hager initially aimed at in June 2006. But between these two dates the most important strike in Germany in 2006 took place! It can teach us how workers managed at least during a short period of time to turn a seemingly hopeless and badly prepared struggle into an offensive. And we have to learn from it why they did not manage to continue the struggle after the treason of the IG Metall, despite an impressive revolt of a lot of the strikers.

On the following pages we present a chronology which has been assembled from various report, then the article continues, at the end there are some collage-type interviews with workers – they are product of conversations with various people whose real names do not appear out of safety reasons.

[Before the chronology, here is a list of the]

Persons and Places of the Events

The Strikers

In total about 470 workers took part in the dispute; most of them belonged to the 620 “blue-collar” workers. Apart from very few exceptions the white-collar workers from the research and development department (about 400 employees) did not get involved.

Güngör Demirci

The chairman of the works council at BSH Spandau, Berlin. Since he got elected in the works council he has been off duty from the regular shop-floor work.

Luis Sergio

IG Metall secretary, responsible for the industry in Spandau, Berlin. He is the official strike leader.

Arno Hager

First representative of the IG Metall in Berlin. He is responsible, e.g. for structural and industrial policy of the IG Metall and crisis prevention for companies in the area. He defends the Hartz IV unemployment benefit reform. He is joint-owner of the employment transit company ABZ, which was formed as a temporary employment opportunity for laid-off workers from JVC and the Siemens Dynamo plant. After this constellation created a scandal at the beginning of 2006, it was decided that the laid-off BSH workers would be employed not by ABZ, but a different transit company called Weitblick. The laid-off CNH people are dealt with by Weitblick, as well.

Oliver Höbel

He is the IG Metall representative of the federal states Berlin, Brandenburg and Sachsen.

Berthold Huber

He is the second chairman of the IG Metall, he used to be a member of the KABD, the preceding organisation of the MLPD (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany). The renegades are always the worst. About the BSH conflict he said: "The production of home appliances in Germany has no future – I will not ruin a collective contract for this".

Günther Meier

Manager in charge for the BSH plant in Spandau, Berlin.

Osram

A light-bulb manufacturing plant (specialised in supply for the film and car industry), about 750 meters away from the BSH plant. The plant belongs to the Siemens group, as well. Berlin is the central production location of Osram in Germany, employing 1,900 workers.

BMW

A motorcycle plant of the BMW group situated about 2 kilometres away from BSH. About 2,200 employees produce about 92,000 motorbikes per year, up to 540 per day. A seventh of the total product is car parts.

CNH

Formerly Orenstein und Koppel, a metal plant about 6 kilometres away from the BSH factory. On the 1st of June 2006 after 102 days of strike, the longest dispute in the history of Berlin's metal industry, the IG Metall representatives (the same gang of people like at BSH) agreed on the following social plan: "The closure of the plant will be postponed by four months to the 30th of November 2006. The people effected by the lay-offs will be employed by a transit company for another twelve months". The transit company Weitblick belongs to the union umbrella organisation DGB, like the scandal-shaken ABZ. On the 100th day of the strike Höbel and Wowereit (mayor of Berlin) both make speeches in front of the strikers. These two gravediggers of the Berlin workers movement both belong to the SPD (Social Democratic Party).

BSH Bosch Siemens Hausgeräte (home appliances)

The company employs about 14,000 people in Germany, mainly in the seven manufacturing plants Traunreut, Dillingen, Giengen, Bretten, Bad Neustadt (Saale), Berlin and Nauen. Worldwide the group employs over 37,000 people in 40 countries.

BSH Spandau, Berlin

Since 1953 the factory manufactures washing machines. In 2006 there are 1024 workers in the Berlin plant, 566 in the production department, 345 in the department PW (Development, Quality Management, Purchasing and Information Technology) is situated on the premises, too. Further 55 employees work in the logistics department preparing washing machines and spare parts for the transport. There are many Turkish and Polish workers in the plant. It has a long history of militancy, with particular combative years during the 80s.

BSH Hausgerätewerk Nauen GmbH

The plan is located in about 35 kilometres distance from the Spandau plant. The location in Nauen was built in the 90s, receiving major subsidies. Formally the plant does not belong the BSH group, which means that the company does not have to pay wages according to the collective contract. On the premises there are two factories, manufacturing washing machines and tumble driers. In the long term the plant will more likely be a location for logistics.

BSH Dillingen (in the north-west of Bavaria)

About 900 employees, the location was founded by Bosch in 1960. Global centre for the development of dishwashers.

BSH Giengen

About 2,200 employees, founded in 1944. The production of refrigerators and freezers started in 1949. The location coordinates and supervises the worldwide research and development work for BSH refrigerating products.

BSH Bad Neustadt (in the north of Bavaria)

The factory was founded in 1937 and belongs to the BSH group since 1996. Bad Neustadt is the biggest vacuum cleaner manufacturing plant in Germany. The department also coordinates the global research of BSH into floor cleaning.

BSH Plants in Turkey and Poland

Since 2005 here is a BSH plant in Lody (Poland) and since the 90s there are factories in Istanbul and Cercezkoy (Turkey).

[prol-position news #8 | 4/2007]