Europe

Altogether 55,000 people came out onto to the streets on March 28 in Berlin and Frankfurt/Main as part of Saturday's protests across Europe. The speeches and the comments of workers and shop stewards show that major class conflicts are being prepared in Germany in the coming period.

Austria is in recession, and it gets worse as each day passes. More and more workers are being hit hard, with sackings and cuts in hours and wages. On Saturday we had a taste of what is to come, with a successful demonstration which initially the trade union leaders refused to support, but were later forced to back as the pressure from the ranks built up.

The ICTU leaders have deferred the strike action planned for Monday 30 pending the outcome of negotiations. The problem is the government and the bosses have very little room for manoeuvre. The only way to stop the Fianna Fáil/Green Party government and the bosses in their tracks is through militant action.

Last week mass demonstrations involving more than 2.5 million people took place in France. In the face of constant attacks by Sarkozy on the working class the trade union leaders have attempted to hold the movement back, preferring a series of government “consultations”, but the pressure from below is becoming unstoppable. A new period of militant class struggle is opening up.

Union after union has been balloting its members over strike action and the message from the rank and file is clear. SIPTU, the teachers, the nurses, the TEEU are all coming out; in IMPACT, the biggest public sector union 65% voted favour and even in UNITE where there is a big private sector presence the votes are on a knife edge. The conditions are all there to transform March 30 into a full-fledged one-day general strike, if the trade union leaders were prepared to make such a call.

After displaying a high level of militancy and determination, the Waterford workers have ended their occupation after the union leaders brokered a deal with the owners of the company. This is a bitter blow for the workers, but it also highlights the need to struggle within the unions for a fighting leadership.

The chances of a referendum on Scottish independence appear increasingly distant following a Scottish parliamentary vote in favour of a resolution condemning moves towards one. This is a huge blow to the Scottish National Party but it has also done little for a Labour Party that has lost all sense of direction, as its leadership exposes itself as utterly unable to capitalise on the SNP’s fall from grace.

The economic crisis looks likely to hit Scotland as badly, if not worse, than the rest of the UK, and is already causing the Scottish National Party some major political headaches.

Sectarianism only serves to divide the working class. When in reality the conditions that Catholic and Protestant workers face mean that they have far more in common with each other than they could ever have with the bosses.

As we know there are indeed 40 shades of green in Ireland, but as the comrades of Labour Youth and the Connolly Youth Movement have explained in their open letter to the Green Party there is another one. The shade of green, that is, which justifies the Green Party’s ongoing support for the Fianna Fáil - which allows the latter to continue to hold a majority in the Dáil.

The workers of Britain are facing 20 years of austerity, not seen since the inter-war period. Whoever wins the next general election – whether it be Labour or Tory – they will be forced to go onto the offensive against the working class. But we can already see the outlines of the future class struggle in this country, which will create the conditions in which Marxism can gain the ear of the workers. [This text is based on a speech given by Rob Sewell at the recent conference of Socialist Appeal, the Marxist Tendency in Britain].

On February 21 some 200,000 workers and their families took to the streets in Dublin, to demonstrate their opposition to the government's decision to impose a pension levy on 300,000 Public sector workers. Apart from that, the most significant in recent months may have been the occupation of workers by Waterford Crystal.  The class struggle is growing in Ireland and the union leaders are under pressure.

Workers of the Prisme Packaging Plant in Scotland are occupying their factory since March 4 after they were told that they were to be laid off without any back pay. Since then the workers are fighting for their right to work and pay. This shows the growing radicalisation of the working class of not only Scotland but also of Britain as a whole.

Despite the fact that the leaders of the Spanish unions are still trying to maintain social peace at all costs and despite the psychological impact of the economic crisis, the whole social environment is heating up very fast, such that a sudden entry onto the stage of the Spanish working class as a whole is being prepared.

There is a burning anger in the workplaces against the bosses’ attacks. Pressure is mounting for the trade union leaders to act in defence of jobs and wages. Internationally, workers have taken to the streets, such as in the recent demonstration of 200,000 workers in Dublin. The British workers will inevitably move in the same direction at some stage.