The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.21           June 1, 1998 
 
 
`We're Stronger Because We Stood Up' -- Workers and youth in Denmark assess two-week general strike  

BY MAURICE WILLIAMS, ANITA ÖSTLING, AND GEORGE WHITE
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - After a two-week general strike involving more than a half million workers, many unionists and young people here are weighing what was accomplished. The workers struck for a sixth week of paid vacation. A government-imposed settlement on May 7 granted two additional days, plus three more for workers with children.

"This was a strike about freedom, not about money," explained Soren Haar, a baggage handler at Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), as he and about 20 other workers ate lunch at the workers cafeteria at Copenhagen International Airport. Haar and his coworkers are members of the Specialarbejder Forbundet i Danmark (SID), the union of semiskilled and unskilled workers. "It was a matter of dignity. We have lives to live, not just be a slave for the boss. Sure we work, we work hard. But there's more to life than work."

Unemployment in Denmark stands at about 7 percent. The additional vacation time also would have forced Danish employers to hire more workers, Haar said.

While many workers expressed anger and frustration at the government's intervention to halt the strike, which involved industrial workers at privately-owned companies, an air of confidence and satisfaction pervades most of the workplaces these reporters visited. "When we stand together," said Glennie Tietze, a 25-year-old contract office cleaner at the Tuborg brewery, "we are much stronger than the bosses."

The strike came in the context of the drive by the European capitalists to patch together the European Union (EU) and the new currency, the Euro. This shaky alliance is designed to create a protective trade pact against Wall Street's dominance in Europe. In order to better compete with their imperialists rivals in the United States, the European employer classes seek to use this bloc to drive down the living standards and working conditions of workers throughout Europe. At every turn, however, this alliance has begun coming apart at the seams as a result of cutthroat rivalries between competing national capitalist interests in Europe and sharp resistance to austerity policies by workers and farmers.

Later this month a vote will be held here on whether or not Denmark should adopt the Amsterdam Treaty, the latest attempt to cobble together the European Union. Nearly all wings of the capitalist class and their parties have been campaigning for a "Yes" vote. So has the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), a party funded and based upon the trade unions, but which loyally conducts the business of the capitalist state. The Danish general strike struck a body- blow to the EU campaign.

In a stronger position to fight
"We are stronger now to fight against austerity measures," said Steen Lundgren, a construction painter working at a site at the Tuborg brewery. A half dozen of his coworkers gave their opinions to these reporters as they sat inside a trailer on the work site eating their lunch.

The work stoppage began April 27 after members of the LO trade union federation voted down a government-meditated deal that had been reached by the bosses and the union officials. That 55 percent of the unionists voted "no" clearly shocked both the employers and the union officials. The walkout, which was the first general strike in Denmark in 13 years, unfolded with little leadership offered by official union bodies. Government workers and others in state-owned enterprises were not part of the strike.

On May 11 workers returned to their jobs after the Social Democratic-led parliament voted to impose a modified version of the bosses' "final offer" that was earlier rejected by the unions. While additional vacations days were granted, there are many qualifications and exemptions. In addition, the previously agreed upon increase in employer payments to the pension fund was reduced.

"If we stayed out longer we could have won more," said Elvin Hansen at the gate to the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen. Hansen has worked at the plant since 1959 and is a member of the brewery workers union. "For many workers this was their first strike and the expectations were high. But the government, which is run by the Social Democratic Party, a workers party, acted as the errand boy for the employers."

Working-class votes in last March's general elections led to the re-election of the SPD government, which had been widely expected to lose. Many workers saw these results as a way to kick-start the negotiations with the employers federation, which had stalled. Glennie Tietze said, "If the unions had gone on strike even one more week, it would have made a difference. There was still gas and food in the stores. One more week and the whole country would have seen the workers' power."

This widespread feeling led to some workers walking off the job on Monday, May 11, the day they were set to return to work. These one-day strikes involved 6,200 workers in 96 workplaces. The biggest involved 800 workers at the Lindo shipyard in Odense, Denmark's second-largest city; 370 workers at Aalborg Boiler in Aalborg; and 350 at Radiometer in western Copenhagen. Two thousand workers protested outside parliament as the vote to intervene was taken and 400 more demonstrated the following Monday. Almost all of these protests arose spontaneously.

Other forms of protest took place. For example, the baggage handlers at Copenhagen International Airport decided to cut off their yearly, automatic contributions to the Social Democratic Party.

At Radiometer, a manufacturer of medical equipment, workers were eager to talk about their decision to hold a one-day protest strike. "We were angry at what the government did," said Soren Jensen, a worker in the forge and a member of the metal workers union. "There was a suggestion made by some of us that we protest this. So that morning we had a meeting of 300 workers. A majority voted that we go home."

Anger at gov't intervention in strike
"Our one-day strike was successful," said Egon Petersen, also a member of the metal workers union at Radiometer, "because it told the bosses and the union what we want."

Sune Skulund, however, wasn't so sure. "This strike hurt the shareholders," said the 24-year-old technician, "and many of us have shares, too."

Another view was put forward by Per Longren, the top local official of the metal workers union at the plant. "Whether the general strike was a success is difficult to judge. But surely it did give us some more space for local negotiations."

Almost every unionist these reporters spoke with said that workers will vote against the Amsterdam Treaty in the upcoming referendum as a measure of protest. "I think the government will get a nasty surprise on May 28," said Glennie Tietze.

Opinions against the treaty were strongly held, but the views expressed were often contradictory. Both the official "Yes" and "No" forces are running chauvinist "Denmark-first" campaigns with a distinctly anti-immigrant thrust.

Many workers in Denmark view the plans for the European Union as in direct conflict with their interests. They see the drive against wages and working conditions that follows in its wake. But many workers these reporters spoke with tended to echo the employer's propaganda that the way forward is to protect "national" interests rather than seeing workers in other countries as natural allies in a common fight.

Henrik Petersen, a young baggage handler at SAS said, "I will vote against the Amsterdam Treaty for two reasons: I want to punish the government for intervening in the general strike and I don't want open borders." Erik-Jan Boemaars, a young cleaner at Tuborg who is from Holland, put it this way, "Of course the European Union will be good for the eastern European counties, but this is the wrong way. We will lose our national identity as Danish or Dutch."

Often such views were expressed in nearly the same breath as explanations of the crucial role that unity across divisions in the workforce in Denmark played in the gains won in the general strike.

"I think the workers have grown closer," said Soren Jensen, standing in the parking lot at Radiometer and expressing his views at some length. "We're now standing together. Me, I'm a supporter of the SPD. But many of my coworkers support the conservatives parties. We're divided in many ways. But now we're united and getting stronger."

The gains won by the general strike are further illustrated by the splits and divisions that have opened up in the employer class. Some ruling-class layers are bitterly complaining that too many concessions were made to the workers. An opinion piece by leading financial analysts in Aktuelt, a Copenhagen daily, explained, "The intervention is expensive and counters the long-term economic strategy of the government that we should work more." Furthermore, the authors warn, "The extra free days will encourage groups in the public sector to make the same demands."

"Conflict might split the DA!" read a headline in the financial daily, Borsen. DA, the Danish Employers Federation, is the bosses' outfit that negotiated with the union federation. The Retail and Service Federation, the DA's third-largest division, is considering leaving the group because of dissatisfaction with how the walkout was handled.

EU campaign scapegoats immigrants
Fissures have also opened up among pro-bourgeois forces calling for a "Yes" vote in the May 28 referendum. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has the leading role in this campaign but strong opposition by tens of thousands of it members in the wake of the general strike has provoked a crisis. The Conservative Party and Venstre, a liberal party, have sharply criticized the SPD for "waging a weak campaign." Indeed the main slogan of the pro-European Union campaign - "The Safe Choice: Yes" - is hardly stirring.

The slogan of the official "No" vote campaign is, "If you're not sure, vote No." The political forces running this effort are a variety of liberals, leftists and rightists whose arguments are marked by demagogic attacks on immigration and appeals to Danish nationalism. Those in favor of the treaty have joined the chauvinist bandwagon. SPD prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was quoted in Copenhagen newspapers saying that a vote for the Amsterdam Treaty would lead to less immigration from Turkey, the Balkans, and the Middle East.

The united strike action by half a million unionized workers, on the other hand, and the tone of confidence and combativity it inspired, offers another way forward. Despite the lack of leadership by the existing union officialdom, workers have found a new confidence and sense of their own potential power. The door is now opened wider for a vanguard layer of workers to look at the world in a more conscious way and begin to chart a working-class road forward.

What the strike has opened up in politics was expressed by two high school students who stopped by a communist literature table at the University of Copenhagen. "I liked it that the unions stood up to the employers," said Ina Lingren. "It's changed a lot in Denmark now. Things aren't going to be the same." She and her friend then said they planned to visit Cuba in the next year or so in order to learn more about the socialist revolution there and its lessons for young people in Denmark.

Radiometer worker Egon Petersen's evaluation was, "We didn't get much in the general strike. But in the long term we will be stronger because we stood up."

Henrik Petersen at SAS urged these reporters to publicize the lessons of the 11-day general strike as widely as possible. "It's good that people learn about our strike. The boss's press doesn't want to write about it. That's because it's contagious."

Anita Ostling is a member of the Transport Workers Union in Stockholm, Sweden. Lars Erlandsson, a member of the Food Workers Union in Stockholm, contributed to this article.

 
 
 
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