Trade Union Royal Commission signals new attacks on workers’ rights

On May 19 the Abbott government’s Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption released a 116-page discussion paper (PDF) of potential law reforms, recommending a swathe of new attacks on union rights.

The proposals in the paper give the clearest indication so far of the likely outcome of the expensive inquisition into the union movement when the Commission releases its findings in December.

The document presents little more than a sweeping wish list of restrictions on the rights of union officials and the ability of unions to carry out their work to benefit members.

Among the ideas presented for “discussion” is further restricting right of entry provisions, making it harder for unions to enter worksites to investigate safety and other breaches by employers.

In this, as well as other proposals, the pro-employer bias of the commission is clear. Rather than the importance of union right of entry in preventing workplace deaths and protecting work conditions, the paper is concerned with union right of entry powers as a “serious encroachment upon liberty” to be curtailed.

Directly targeting union militancy, the paper also suggests new police “move on” powers to break up picket lines and protests at construction sites.

Under the proposed new laws, anyone who failed to leave an area within 15 minutes of a police direction would be guilty of an offence, and conviction would be grounds to automatically ban a person from holding any union office.

Germany: Record rail strike brings country to a halt

Striking GDL workers

On May 5, thousands of German train drivers and railway workers embarked on a week-long strike, the longest rail strike in the country’s post-war history, after fraught industrial negotiations broke down again.

Approximately two thirds of Germany’s long distance trains and a third of regional trains have been cancelled, with trains in the eastern region around Halle, Leipzig, and Dresden reduced to around 15 percent of services.

Some subway systems were also affected, including those in Hamburg and Berlin.

Deutsche Bahn accounts for about a fifth of Germany's freight transport – around 1 million tonnes per day – as well as moving 5.5 million passengers daily.

During earlier railway strikes, economists from the Federation of German Industries estimated that extended train strikes could cost Germany's economy "up to 100 million euros per day", and German industry has, predictably, condemned the strike.

In November last year, train drivers announced an until-then-unprecedented four-day strike, but then shortened it to three days, the longest since a GDL-led national strike in 2007.

Germany: Blockupy protests target Europe's financial hypocrisy

Tens of thousands protested in Frankfurt on March 18

The protests that met the official opening of the new European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt on March 18 were largely symbolic – not only because bank staff had already moved in last November, but also because the building itself represents the ugly hypocrisy lying at the heart of the European project.

Over 20,000 anti-capitalist protesters took to the streets of Frankfurt last week to coincide with the heavily-policed opening, taking part in mostly peaceful protests in the German financial capital to oppose the ECB’s “asphyxiating” economic policies.

Included in the ranks of the protesters were representatives of Germany’s main opposition party, the left-wing Die Linke, German trade union Verdi, the Greek ruling party SYRIZA, and Podemos from Spain, as well as unions, NGOs and grass-roots activists from 39 European countries.

Across the Eurozone, the ECB – part of the “Troika”, along with the International Monetary Fund and the Eurogroup – is playing a central role in forcing national governments to cut public spending, privatise infrastructure and push down wages while unemployment and poverty continue to increase.

These policies have caused untold misery and suffering for millions of Europeans in order to maintain a system of corporate profits and a false sense of economic order in the name of “austerity” and “growth”, but have also given rise to powerful popular resistance movements across Europe – particularly in Greece, Spain and Ireland.

Ireland: Massive water protest keeps pressure on government

Water protesters in Dublin, March 21

On March 21, nearly 90,000 people took to the streets of Dublin, in an unprecedented fifth mass protest in six months against the introduction of water charges by the Irish government.

Protesters from across the country gathered at three different locations in the city, before converging on O’Connell Street, home to Dublin’s iconic General Post Office – site of the Easter Rising in 1916 that began Ireland’s War of Independence nearly a century ago.

The human sea of flags, banner and placards was addressed by a range of politicians, community activists and union leaders. Between speakers, the crowd chanted slogans against water charges, including “Can’t pay! Won’t Pay” and “From the rivers to the sea, Irish water will be free”.

The protest was organised by the Right2Water campaign – a broad coalition of community groups, NGOs and political parties, led by some of Ireland’s largest unions.

Since October last year, Right2Water has coordinated a series of massive protests in Dublin and across the Republic of Ireland, involving hundreds of thousands of people in what is being described as the biggest mass mobilisation of people the country has ever seen.

Ireland: Sinn Féin fights welfare attacks in the north

Sinn Féin MLA and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

On Monday March 9, Sinn Féin announced it would oppose the new welfare reform bill in the northern Irish Assembly, accusing its government partners – the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – of acting in bad faith on protecting welfare recipients.

Sinn Féin is in a power-sharing arrangement as part of the Good Friday peace agreement signed in 1998, which sought to end the violence that had wracked Ireland's north since the late 1960s, known as The Troubles.

The same day, Sinn Féin moved a Petition of Concern — supported by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) — in the Assembly to prevent the passage of the bill, which would impose cuts to welfare. This forced the DUP Minister for Social Development, Mervyn Storey, to withdraw the bill and re-enter talks to resolve the stand-off.

The welfare reform bill forms part of the recent Stormont House Agreement (SHA) – a five party agreement covering national identity issues, welfare reform and government finance in northern Ireland that was agreed to on December 23 last year, after several months of fraught negotiations.

Throughout last year, disagreements between Sinn Féin and the DUP on a range of issues escalated dangerously, and there was growing risk that failure to arrive at an agreement on the SHA might bring down the Stormont administration.

Germany's ‘hot autumn’ of protests

Germany’s centre-right government is facing what many have dubbed a “hot autumn” of protests, as conflict over a range of social, political and environmental issues come to a head across the country.

As the governments of Europe attempt to offload the costs of the financial crisis onto working people, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has initiated a series of “austerity” measures aimed to undermine Germany’s social welfare system.

About 100,000 trade unionists took to the streets on November 13 to protest cuts to social welfare, including government plans to raise the pension age from 65 to 67.

On November 15, Merkel was successfully re-elected leader of her party - the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - with the support of over 90 percent of the party conference.

Facing criticism from the party's influential right-wing, Merkel has shifted her rhetoric rightwards, claiming that multiculturalism had "utterly failed", and calling on Germans to return to their "Judeo-Christian values".

The day before the CDU conference began, tens of thousands of protesters in Stuttgart, Dortmund, Nürnberg and Erfurt came out to oppose her government’s cuts.

Minister for labour Ursula von der Leyen has tried to defend the attack on pensions. Claiming it was necessary because of Germany’s low birth rate and high life expectancy, Von der Leyen described the move as “a question of fairness”.

Protesters, led by Germany’s largest union IG Metall, rejected the claim. They condemned the changes as an attack on working people designed to maximise corporate profits during the German economy’s current upswing.

Berthold Huber, head of IG Metall, told demonstrators in Stuttgart: “We don’t want a republic in which powerful interest groups decide the guidelines of politics with their money, their power and their influence.”

Germany: Rail strikes bring country to a standstill

Rail workers from the German train drivers union, the Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer (GDL), have repeatedly brought the country to a standstill in recent weeks, with rolling strikes against the state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn AG.
The immediate cause of the nation-wide rail strikes — the biggest in recent German history — is a dispute over wage increases. The 34,000-strong GDL has turned down a 4.5% pay rise plus a one-off pay-out of 600 euros that was accepted by two other unions covering rail workers, and is demanding an increase of up to 30%, claiming that German train drivers are paid less than their European counterparts. The 4.5% deal would also represent a net decline in wages, which have stagnated and dropped in recent years.

At the same time, Deutsche Bahn, which was corporatised after merging with East German rail company Deutsche Reichsbahn, is expecting up to 2.4 billion euros in operating profits in 2007. Since German unification in 1990, over 400,000 rail workers have lost their jobs — 100,000 alone under the current management of corporate hardliner Hartmut Mehdorn. In July, right-wing German Chancellor Angela Merkel lent further support to Mehdorn's management when her cabinet approved plans to privatise up to 49% of Deutsche Bahn, plans that the current strike may place in jeopardy.