02.03.1995

Workers’ unity in Europe

STRIKERS in France seem to set up the barricades at the drop of a hat. The recent ferry workers’ strike was no exception - obstructing motorway traffic, throwing paint over buildings and fighting the riot police. In part this reflects France’s revolutionary tradition, but it also reflects the weakness of French trade unionism. French union organisation is divided between three competing politically committed bodies, none with more than a few hundred thousand members. Strikes are therefore often unofficial, unrestrained by legal threats, but - despite their overtly political demeanour - usually isolated and short-lived.

This contrasts with the less spectacular IG Metall strike for a six percent pay rise presently likely to escalate in Germany. Here the union organises the entire industry. It is massive and well funded. The workers are disciplined and united in action. The employers will be forced to negotiate. Yes, it is bureaucratic and rightwing and will not drive a hard bargain. But it has the power to win: that is the point.

Both strikes have important international significance. French ferry workers are blockading channel ports to prevent a British company using cheap Polish labour. French workers earn about £1,250 per month, the Poles £310. The non-striking British workers get about half the French pay; the French also have the best working conditions. The employers have retaliated by re-routing their ships to Belgian ports. The case for a single union for all European workers is obvious.

Our argument of course is not against Polish workers, but the conditions and pay they are working for. It is absurd that French workers fought an isolated battle which should be one for all British, French, Polish and Belgian workers.

As the Tories squabble over the European Union, the need for workers’ unity is clear. Despite the reactionary bigotry of the Tory Eurosceptics, whom Major has been leaning over backwards to pacify, the European economy is merging and Britain cannot isolate itself from that.

High profile cases like BMW’s purchase of Rover in England and VW ownership of Seat in Spain demonstrate the way in which capitalism produces without regard to frontiers. Workers must do the same or be played off against one another. Engineering Workers, for example, could unite their struggles on a European-wide basis, linking up with IG Metall.

We need a single TUC for the whole of Europe and international industrial unions on the German model if workers are to be able to compete with their bosses. Communists must also look beyond the industrial struggle. To the extent that the bosses come together under an EU state we will have to be united in a Communist Party of the European Union to smash that state.

Phil Kent