 The previous two years have seen an explosion of working class struggle in Europe. The current upsurge began in Greece at the end of 2008, where Athens and other centres were paralysed by mass protests and riots after police shot dead a youth in the left-wing suburb of Exarchia. The protests became a focus for working class discontent in a country where unemployment runs at more than 10% of the working age population (and more than 25% for youth) while the government spends billions on bailing out the banks. The conservative government of Kostas Karamanlis was forced to resign and wave after wave of strikes followed as the new social democratic government attempted to implement austerity measures. Greek workers have continued to resist cuts to the public service, across-the-board wage cuts and attempts to rise the age of retirement and cut old-age pensions by walking off the job in a series of general strikes.
Next the upsurge swung to Spain. Millions protested in Barcelona and other cities for greater autonomy for Catalonia after the central government stuck out parts of a regional statute for greater autonomy, but this was only a prelude. The reformist Socialist Party government’s announcement of pension reform drew tens of thousands out onto the streets in February, resistance to the government’s austerity drive building to a one-day general strike on September 29th, in which 10 million workers participated. The strike was timed to coincide with anti-austerity protests across the European Union. 100,000 unionists marched on the European parliament in Brussels, while demonstrators shut down highways in Greece.The whole movement has echoes of 2006, when French workers and students took on laws designed to increase job insecurity and won. Further protests against the austerity demanded by the EU and national governments occurred in other countries, including Greece, Ireland, Italy and Latvia. As demonstrators clashed with riot police and forced the closure of stores in Madrid and Barcelona, it became clear that the mood was swinging away from the rhetoric of compromise and ‘reasonableness’ offered by union leaders.
Before the protests had even finished the tidal wave rolled on to Europe’s oldest republic, a centre of working class resistance with a long tradition of militant protest:
France. Protests began as the conservative government, headed by Nicholas Sarkozy, attempted to distract popular anger at austerity by victimising minorities. Members of France’s Roma minority, victimised along with Jewish people by Hitler in the Holocaust, were forcibly deported in their thousands in August, despite EU and international law. Street protests against deportation were held drawing over 100,000 people and forcing prominent European leaders to denounce Sarkozy’s racist policy.
Not content with victimizing the Roma, Sarkozy and his cronies aimed their fire at another minority: Muslim women. The introduction of a bill to ban wearing the veil in public was nothing more than an attempt to divide the left and present the French state as a defender of freedom and ‘secularism’.
But Sarkozy’s distraction tactics failed to work and the protests against the deportation of the Roma and the burqa ban were only a prelude. When the French government announced a plan to raise the retirement age – making pensions less available – a wave of strikes and protests engulfed France. Oil workers struck and blockaded refineries, ensuring that threatening to starve the French economy of fuel. Strikes by transport workers and blockades by protesters at toll points, bridges and airports paralysed the transportation system. So far, 8 national days of action have been held, including on October 12th and 19th, when 3.5 million people took to the streets against the proposed changes. High school students (who have a long tradition of militancy in France) took up the cause as their own, occupying and blockading over 700 secondary schools. The whole movement has echoes of 2006, when French workers and students took on laws designed to increase job insecurity and won. Strikes and protests have continued since pension reform was passed into law on October 28th. The 2006 laws, significantly, were only defeated after they were passed, so victory may yet be within the grasp of French workers.
London, Paris, Rome, Berlin...The wave of strikes and protests across Europe has occurred as workers have moved into action to defend their living standards against governments demanding austerity – cuts to pensions, education, services and public sector jobs. So far, governments have mostly gotten their way, despite massive opposition. But this hasn’t always been the case. By taking militant action, French workers were able to force the repeal of anti-worker laws in 2006, and defeated a neo-liberal austerity package again in 2008. The current struggles have spread like a wildfire from country to country because they are all fighting much the same thing. If any one of these struggles wins, it will inspire all the others. Workers would defeat their bosses in country after country, and will be motivated to fight for real gains: higher wages, better social security, a more liberal and a freer society. The decades-long domination of the right and their neoliberal policies would be ended.
That’s why the police came down on the radicals in Dublin so hard. They could not risk the radicals winning. But all the police forces in the world are not invincible. Just days after the police rioted in Dublin, 50,000 students descended on the headquarters of Britain’s Conservative Party in London, protesting rising University fees. The police could do little more than stand by as thousands of students smashed their way into the building, forcing the Tories to evacuate with many protesters remaining on the roof hours later. As workers and students everywhere become more organised to fight back against their ruling classes, an old slogan from the struggles in the 1960s and 70s is being dusted off once more – London, Paris, Rome, Berlin: We will fight, we will win! |
