Conclusions

Twelve Concluding Points about the Strike

First. All union lead struggles end in an official victory - it is only the rank and file who might experience it as a defeat. The IG Metall arranged the struggle at BSH in a way ("against the plant closure") that would enable them to sell the outcome as a success: the BSH management never said that they wanted to shut down the plant completely! The research and development department was supposed to stay in Berlin and already as early as June 2006 the union and management agreed on a partial continuation of production. The fact that even two months after the end of the strike there has been no official IG Metall document hailing the victory means that something did not work according to the official plan.

Second. How to struggle against plant closures? What can be done once the strike in itself does not hurt the employer anymore? The workers' "march of solidarity" was a way to get out of the trap. The move to give the brand Siemens a bad name aimed at a vulnerable part: companies which threaten with re-location of production to other countries (two years ago it was Opel, at the beginning of 2006 AEG, now Siemens...) still depend on the consumer market Germany. Siemens paid a lot of attention to the so-called "AEG-effect" (double digit decline of sales after the strike in Nürnberg), after all their own brand profited from the AEG crisis.

Third. In a way the workers took the offensive behind the back of the official bodies. The IG Metall has sent them to Kamp-Lintfort (mobile phone plant threatened by closure), where we could see scenes of fraternizations on the street. A spark to the powder keg: an explosive mixture of downsizing and wage cuts on one hand; corruption and self-service-mentality in the boardrooms on the other. The march of the BSH workers started to bring together affected workers from the shop floor. A joint workers' action in Munich would have had a signal of enormous impact and attraction.

Fourth. During the days of the march the workers finally started to take the struggle in their own hands. In Berlin they refused to open an alley for scabs and trucks, against the court rule. In the buses they left the official route of the union, they formed a creativity collective. On the background of the dynamic of other workers joining the struggle in solidarity ("towards Munich"), these "little signs" of self-determination were strong enough in order to turn a seemingly hopeless struggle into a threat. By the way, any workers struggling against the closure of any plant is able to create these "little signs": a few thousand Euros for the buses and 40 people who are willing to have a one week trip to other workers in a similar situation.

Fifth. When twelve loads of BSH workers started their earlier trip to Munich on the 31st of May 2005 the management was afraid enough to cancel their balance press conference. In 2006 Siemens was under even greater pressure: the corruption scandal, the sell-out to BenQ, the 30 per cent income increase of Siemens board members... and in this situation they had to face a joint demonstration. During the strike assembly someone described the situation as follows: "We were about to grab the Siemens group by the throat when the union smacked our hand". The political function of unions is to take the brunt out of the direct confrontation between workers and employers. Secret ballots and statutes are part of the game, if they don't work there is still the option to black-mail or to enforce decisions: already during the night of negotiations point 9 of the agreement was implemented, they canceled the march to Munich, they called back the buses. "Munich" was a charged issue for the unions, as well. Immediately before the German wide union demonstration on the 21st of October the action in Munich would have become a guideline for the general struggle. Workers in struggle who combine their action spontaneously would create a dynamic difficult to control.

Sixth. As soon as the struggle increases its strength, the employers calls for negotiations and thereby divides the strikers. In a previous interview with wildcat [no. 74; also in prol-position news no. 4/2005] a worker said "only about 30 per cent would accept the deterioration of conditions [in order to save jobs]" - exactly these 30 per cent have won the ballot! As long as the company refused to negotiate they united the workers and it was possible to increase the demands for leaving pay. A conscious unity was a prerequisite for the struggle. Only the demand "No dismissals!" was able to create it. The bad thing about struggles against closures: a foreman or master has got more of an interest to save his job than an assembly line worker.

Seventh. How can you think that you can delegate a struggle "against dismissals and deterioration of working conditions" to the IG Metall, knowing that they always mediated job cuts and deteriorations of the remaining jobs (for example at BenQ)? Because at BSH there were hardly any independent organisational structures of the workers left! The active workers were busy stabilising the strike and had now energy left in order to take care of leaflets, a strike newspaper, demonstrations and so on. The union's legitimacy is based on this situation: their job is to defend weak workers (Sergio in the strike tent: "We doctored the numbers of participants"). On the other hand the union perceives the independence of the workers as a threat (Oliver Höbel: "If you won't cancel the strike we will never again call any workers who are threatened by closure of their plant to walk out").

Eight. The workers learnt a lot during the strike (therefore we limit our contribution to these concluding points and let them speak for themselves in the following interviews). But there is no way to condense these experiences if now mainly the active generation of workers leave the plant. "They will start working somewhere else and their experiences will contribute to the situation there", this hope expressed during a conversation would only become true if they would be part of a different struggle soonish. At least statistically the prospect that this will be the case has considerably improved (the numbers of strike have clearly increased).

Ninth. We can see the same problem like during the public sector strikes during spring 2006: The workers block production for seven and a half weeks and stand on the picket for nearly four weeks, but hardly anyone comes by in order to support them. Neither workers from other companies nor people from the Berlin radical left scene. (Struggles about) the conditions of expenditure of labour power are not perceived as something political. Strikes will have to re-open up this space. Only a "workers' struggle", which neither represents "the general interest" nor fits the paternalistic pigeonhole of "victims needy for support" would be able to break with the current understanding of politics. Only an offensive "egoistic" struggle for the interests of those fighting would have the potential to overcome the isolation of the various struggles and to change the world.

Tenth. The phase of "extraordinary company assemblies" and the first ten days of the strike have been wasted ineffectively. The workers neither established contacts to other companies nor created an external impact on possible supporters. The IG Metall gadgets and official leaflets and the self-painted banners ("We want to work") rather frustrated people who came to Spandau in order to support the strike. The brave rebellion against the agreement came too late, the workers would have needed months of preparation, of forming relation-ships with allies, establish contacts and so on.

Eleventh. Some simple rules which we always tend to forget: never send individual persons to the negotiations; never demand a strike ballot before you have lost the struggle; all workers should take part in the decision-making; contacts should be established by the workers themselves; paint the banners yourselves, write the leaflets yourselves... Who could write an "ABC for strike beginners"?

Twelfth. What can we do in order to support such a strike from the outside? Visit the people, talk to them. Offer support. Catch some ideas; make a leaflet out of it (give them a voice). Conversations also have the simple effect of serving as a mirror for the strikers. Whoever wants to do more: just go fly-posting, or put stickers on Siemens devices in sales rooms, leaflet in front of the job centre, on weekly markets, in the public means of transport. We can also get involved as "colleagues", students or professors can organise (nightly) courses (for the night picket) in front of the factory. School students can leaflet at their schools and call for visiting the strikers, for participation in their demonstrations (their have been huge school student mobilisations of school students in Berlin recently). People in other companies can establish contacts; drag their work-mates along to the gates...

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