Martin Suchanek
On the May Day rallies in Berlin and Leipzig, organised by the DGB, Germany’s TUC, the police and government received extra support in enforcing German foreign policy, from the DGB’s own stewards and organisers.
International solidarity that goes beyond the usual hollow and non-binding phrases, i.e. real solidarity, was summarily declared undesirable. In Berlin and Leipzig, the carrying of Palestinian flags was banned. Violators were threatened with expulsion from the demonstration, if necessary with the help of the police. That this was not an empty threat was shown in Berlin when comrades were arrested and expelled from the demonstration. In Leipzig, Palestinian and solidarity activists were only able to join the demonstration if they rolled up their flags.
But that was not all: in Berlin, the class struggle block was the main target of repression and harassment. Several times it was threatened with exclusion from the demonstration. A group of stewards, most provided by the Berlin DGB youth organisation, stood out in particular. These racist junior bureaucrats went all out in their efforts to oppose solidarity with the victims of the Israeli bombing machine and occupation and repeatedly tried to get the police involved. They even tried to prevent the anti-capitalist block from reaching the site of the final rally, but fortunately they were pushed aside.
To ensure that the final rally was not “disrupted” any further, the DGB organisers took it upon themselves to issue further bans to potential “disruptors”. Otherwise, as at DGB rallies all over the country, the “usual” programme of the trade union bureaucracy was reeled off from the stage. Nothing about the wage and income losses of recent years, which the DGB trade unions have helped to organise, nothing about the current and upcoming attacks – instead, lots of self-congratulation, praise for the social partners and speeches that were about as inspiring as the announcements at a train station.
A slap in the face
But back to the actual political scandal. For decades, internationalism has played no more than a decorative role in the social democratised, bureaucratised DGB trade unions. At the decisive moments of history, the leaders of the German trade union apparatus stood on the side of “their” ruling class or were paralysed by their policy of class collaboration in the fight against fascism. In this respect, the nationalist solidarity of the reformist-led organisations should not surprise anyone.
However, two aspects deserve our attention:
1. The offensive, reactionary character of the exclusion.
This was not only directed against class-struggle, left-wing and Palestinian activists, organisations and trade unionists. Above all, it is also a slap in the face to Palestinian workers and trade unionists themselves. Their call to “End all complicity, stop arming Israel!” was read out from the loudspeaker van of the class-struggle bloc. For the DGB organisers this statement of numerous Palestinian trade unions was enough to threaten to expel the bloc. For them, the text and the speeches, particularly the accusation that Israel was carrying out genocide in Palestine was “escalatory”. According to this pro-government logic, it is not the perpetrators of the genocidal attack who are escalating, but those who denounce it and want to stop it.
This absurdity is only surpassed by the racist and barbaric core of its content.
The DGB leaders are well aware that their position not only directly contradicts the demands of the Palestinian trade unions, but also the resolutions of international organisations. On 31 January, for example, several large umbrella organisations (Building and Woodworkers International, Education International, IndustriALL, International Federation of Journalists, International Transport Workers’ Federation, Public Services International, UNI Global Union), to which most of the individual DGB trade unions belong, published the appeal “Global unions call for unified action following ICJ ruling on Gaza genocide case”. In it, they call on Israel to comply with the decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), “to take immediate action to prevent genocide and punish incitement to genocide”.
However, the leaders of the DGB and the individual trade unions persistently refuse to translate, publish and comply with this and many other resolutions. Instead of international solidarity with the workers of all countries, the motto is “national interest”, common cause with the SPD, Greens, FPD, CDU/CSU and, if necessary, even with the AfD. The majority of the leaders of the German trade unions would prefer not to say anything about Palestine and thus only “passively” support the government by doing nothing. The pro-Israel “anti-German” upstarts from the next generation of bureaucrats, however, are focussed on an active opposition to solidarity, overtaking the majority of the apparatus on the right and recommending themselves for “higher” jobs in the state apparatus should a career in the trade unions not work out after all.
2) The stewards and the DGB apparatus effectively act as a political police force within the working class.
This is nothing new historically, either in Germany or internationally, but is actually a characteristic of the trade unions in the imperialist epoch. But the question arises why such repressive weapons are being brought to bear on May Day against a class-struggle left in the factories and trade unions that is currently weak and often even marginalised. After all, the apparatus could deal with the left in the trade unions with the usual policy of repressive tolerance that has been tried and tested over decades, allow them their speeches, banners and slogans while keeping everything under control.
The reason for this is that the trade union apparatus itself does not believe in its own self-congratulatory Sunday speeches. It is well aware that its own social partnership and statist policies do not bring any progress, but merely help to manage the deterioration for wage earners and at best balance things out more socially. Hence the bureaucracy’s constant mantra that trade unions and works councils must be “involved” in the “transformation” of the German economy. This mixture of admonition, reminder and pleading with the state and capital is no coincidence. After all, the sectors without trade unions and works councils are growing, and the divisions within the working class are deepening.
Instead of proactively counteracting these, the policies of the bureaucracies accept them or actively participate in the division.
This is the case with the opposition to solidarity with the Palestinian trade unions and with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim colleagues and, by extension, with all racially oppressed people. The trade unions are in fact echoing the utterly bogus “welcome culture” of German imperialist democracy, which for more and more people means the sealing off of Fortress Europe, disenfranchisement, camps for refugees and deportation. In return, the bureaucrats are hoping for a few social concessions for their core clientele and their social-chauvinist integration into the business and exploitation model of German imperialism.
The suppression of criticism of this policy manifests itself today above all on the question of Palestine solidarity, this is where the supposed “national interest” becomes more serious than in any other area. You have to show your colours here.
The trade union leaders know this. That is why they, like the governments, the forces of repression and the media, are launching a kind of pre-emptive strike at the legal, police and ideological levels in the trade unions and workplaces. No one should therefore be under the illusion that the actions of the DGB organisers in Berlin and Leipzig were a local event or only due to the “overzealousness” of anti-German, racist young functionaries, even if the actions were not reproduced across the board in other cities. In Munich, Nuremberg or Stuttgart, for example, no trade union stewards took action against Palestine flags or slogans; in Munich, DGB chairwoman Burger was content to distance herself from them, announcing that “these people” were “not part of our movement”.
The DGB leaders are undoubtedly aware that “unconditional solidarity with Israel” has no majority among the population as a whole, the working class or trade union members. This does not mean that there is any majority for a consistent anti-imperialist, internationalist class standpoint. On the contrary, the majority of workers are unclear about the history and causes of the war – and it would be a miracle if they could see clearly given the monopoly position of the bourgeois media and its counter-information. But they still cannot understand why more weapons and war equipment should be supplied to a state whose bombs have killed some 35,000 people, most of them civilians, within a few months, turned millions into refugees and is threatening the next major offensive.
In contrast to the lower ranks of anti-German upstarts, who, in the spirit of colonial German traditions, consider the pogrom a “civilising mission”, the trade union leaders and the majority of the apparatus know that the vast majority of trade union members and the working class have no sympathy for this racist nonsense. Rather, they want peace, a quick end to the war, a ceasefire and humanitarian aid. Even this essentially social-pacifist stance, however, brings them into opposition to the government and thus also to the policies of the bureaucrats. For good reason, they do not want to take the risk of an open internal trade union discussion on Palestine, so they rely on bans on speaking out, stifling discussion and, as on May Day, on internal trade union repression and threats of expulsion. Against this background, the hysterical behaviour of the stewards in Berlin and Leipzig is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. Of course, we should not delude ourselves. The arsenal of internal union repression is far from exhausted. However, the response to this must not be a retreat from bureaucracy and executive committees, but rather an offensive and organised response on the part of left-wing, class-struggle, internationalist trade unionists.
We must publicise the repression, flag bans, the scandalous exclusion of colleagues and their denunciation to the police and, above all, raise the issue within the unions, at meetings, on committees and in workplace groups. Stewards and officials who have excluded or tried to exclude colleagues from the DGB demonstrations for showing solidarity with an oppressed people and with Palestinian trade unions must be removed from their positions. Indeed, they should actually be expelled for behaviour that is damaging to the trade union, however, we are certainly still a long way from that and ultimately that is not the main issue.
However, solidarity with Palestine is also a decisive issue of struggle in the workplaces and trade unions. Firstly, because the workers there have the power to stop arms sales to Israel and other economic and political support for war, occupation and oppression. Secondly, because solidarity with Palestine is also a crucial issue to attack and weaken the subordination of trade unions to the bourgeois state. We must therefore try to bring together and coordinate the various trade union initiatives and petitions against the policy of the bureaucrats and their executives.