European Dockers Strike Against Union Busting

On January 11, in the first solid strike since 1978, the cranes of the harbor in Hamburg, Germany stood still and nothing moved on the docks. The 24-hour “information event,” accompanied by a demonstration and march of more than 4,000 harbor workers through the city, was part of a series of Europe-wide strikes and protests against the proposed “Port Package 2” bill attacking workers’ wages and conditions. Strikes in Hamburg and other German harbors were followed the next week by strikes in Greece, Spain, France and Belgium that gave a taste of the enormous power of the dock workers to stop the flow of the bosses’ profits. They point to the kind of international class struggle needed to fight back against the European bourgeoisies’ broad attacks on working people.

In the face of the dock workers’ determined resistance, on January 18 the European Union (EU) Parliament voted down Port Package 2 by a large margin, indicating that the capitalists themselves are divided over the measure. But this victory does not put an end to the bosses’ plans for attacks on port workers. There are already rumors going around about “Port Package 3,” and many of the same measures are included in the “Bolkestein Guidelines,” an EU proposal for sweeping deregulation in the public services that will be decided in February. The German trade-union federation (DGB) and other European union federations are calling for national demonstrations on February 11 and a main demonstration in Strasbourg, France on February 14 against the Bolkestein Guidelines. However, the real power to stop the anti-union offensive of all the European capitalist governments lies in the ability of the working class to stop production through strike action. The class-collaborationist politics of the trade-union tops is an obstacle to this struggle.

Just two days before the EU Parliament vote on the Port Package, cops brutally attacked a demonstration of more than 6,000 dockers who had come to Strasbourg from all over Europe. Police cordoned off a section of the demo, clubbed protesters and deployed water cannons. The dockers militantly defended themselves. For this, 13 workers were arrested and charged with property damage, assault and resisting arrest. In accelerated trials, recalling the police-state justice meted out to North African youth following the November ghetto revolts in France, nine of these workers were sentenced to prison terms of two to four months.

In a wretched capitulation to the chauvinist violence-baiting of the workers attacked in Strasbourg, the bureaucrats of the German ver.di service sector union stated that the workers’ “action has elicited sharp criticism from the union” (Hamburger Abendblatt, 17 January). This has outraged class-conscious workers from the Hamburg port and undermines the international unity of the harbor workers, which is vital for defending their interests against the bosses. An injury to one is an injury to all! Free the imprisoned dockers! Drop all the charges!

We print below excerpts from a translation of a special 9 January supplement of Spartakist, newspaper of the Spartakist Workers Party, German section of the International Communist League.

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The European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) has called on port workers and seamen across Europe to protest on January 11 and 16. On January 16 there is to be a harbor workers’ demonstration in Strasbourg, France, where the EU Parliament will decide on the Port Package 2 bill on January 18. Port Package 2 would allow cargo handling by seamen or the ship owners’ own employees, who are not covered by the harbor union contract. It would also mean that when new owners take over a container terminal facility, they would not be obligated to retain the existing workforce and contract. Port Package 2 can and must be beaten back. The key to doing that is international class struggle, which must be independent of the interests of the bosses and their state. Shut the harbors down tight on January 11 and 16! Picket lines must ensure that no containers and no cargo move, that everything comes to a standstill.

The Port Package and Bolkestein are meant to play workers against each other all across Europe. In many West European countries, East European workers are brought in to undermine union wages and drive the wage level down. In Hamburg, young newly hired harbor workers are forced to work for lower wages. Attempts are already being made to bring in seamen to break union wage scales. And within individual countries they are trying to play workers against each other, as in France, where harbor workers on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts have different working conditions and are hardly ever mobilized in joint struggle. East European workers are used as cheap labor to suppress the wages of the existing workforce. The lowest-paid workers are being shipped all around Europe. These attacks, like the rollback of the “welfare state,” are being carried out across Europe by both “leftist” social-democratic and conservative governments.

When the trade-union leadership raises slogans such as “Harbor work for harbor workers,” we have to point out: This slogan is craft unionist in character and potentially nationalist-protectionist. In the U.S., it is a right won through struggle that seamen who unload ships in smaller ports are paid dock workers’ wages. Harbor workers must ally with everyone—seaman or immigrant—who unloads ships, and unionize them and fight for full union wages for all. The same applies to port truckers and everyone else who has to slave away in the harbor for wages below contract levels. Harbor workers’ wages for harbor work! This is the only way to spike attempts by the capitalists to pit different sectors of the workers against each other. The Port Package scheme means destruction of the harbor workers’ unions and even worse working conditions for seamen! Harbor workers must support seamen fighting for union wages! Organize all the unorganized working in the port! Defend the harbor workers union!

The international union movement must also mobilize against “anti-terror” measures like ISPS [International Ship and Port Facility Security], Port Security and security fences, which are aimed at massively restricting the freedom of movement of seamen, harbor workers, union representatives, including to and from seamen’s missions [service centers run by the church]. With their “war on terror,” the capitalists and their governments are taking aim at the multiethnic working class and seek to divide it. Down with the anti-Muslim witchhunt! For full freedom of movement of harbor workers throughout the harbor! Defend the right of seamen to unrestricted shore leave!

The bourgeoisie’s attacks can be thrown back only through class struggle! But that is not the outlook of the current union leadership. It is bound with a thousand threads to the SPD [Social Democratic Party] and in part to the PDS/Linkspartei. These social-democratic parties are bourgeois workers parties. That means that they have a capitalist program and pro-capitalist leadership, with a working-class base. For a class-struggle union leadership! For a multiethnic revolutionary workers party!

Resistance against the Port Package and Bolkestein affects the imperialist EU itself. The EU is a bloc of capitalist states for the oppression and exploitation of the working masses of Europe and other countries, mainly in competition with the U.S. While the individual EU countries can keep the lid on their mutually conflicting interests only with difficulty, the EU unites the ruling classes of Europe to exploit the laboring masses. Down with the imperialist EU! Down with racist fortress Europe! For the socialist united states of Europe!

It is necessary for workers to unite against the exploiters rather than be played off against each other. It is in the unions’ best interests to fight for the rights of every worker, wherever he comes from. On 9 December 2005, 150,000 workers demonstrated in Ireland in solidarity with seamen from Irish Ferries. The union members took to the streets in droves to support the Irish Ferries workers, who had occupied two ships to prevent the company from forcibly removing the mainly Irish crew and replacing them with immigrant workers at only half the Irish minimum wage. Dermot Meagher, one of those occupying the Isle of Inishmore, said: “We have no objection to any nationality working here—but they must be paid properly and given proper conditions” (Socialist Worker [Britain], 10 December 2005). The leadership of the union the seamen belong to, SIPTU, then accepted a contract for the East European seamen which instead of establishing equal wages only established the Irish minimum wage, thus sanctioning wage slashing. It is the internationalist duty of the West European unions to support the workers of East Europe in building powerful unions. Equal pay for equal work! Full citizenship rights for everyone who’s made it here! Stop deportations through workers actions! Down with all employment bans!

The millions in profits that make it into the pockets of a few port bosses and ship owners come from the surplus value created by the sweat and the blood of workers. In a socialist society with a planned economy social wealth would go to benefit all—for example, schools with enough teachers, free education, free medical care and generous pensions. But to attain that we need a workers revolution led by a multiethnic revolutionary workers party that smashes the capitalist system and replaces it with an international, egalitarian socialist society. The Marxist Spartakist Workers Party seeks to convince workers of the need to put an end to the system of exploitation, racism and war. Victory to the port workers!