Where is the European general strike? Understanding the challenges of trans-European trade union action against austerity

Introduction

In September 2012, Vasco Pedrina (2012), the then representative of the Swiss Trade Union Confederation (SGB/USS) at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), recalled that the 2011 ETUC Congress in Athens had accepted a proposal by the two Spanish confederations – Comisiones Obreras (CC. OO.) and Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) – which had called on the ETUC to examine the possibility of undertaking coordinated European strikes, including a European general strike. At the same time he was very cautious about the likelihood of the ETUC calling such a strike in the near future. He also thought that the political will at least to consider seriously the implementation of the 2011 decision was lacking. In addition, there was a marked gulf between the different responses to the ETUC European Day of Action and Solidarity, held on 14 November 2012, which has been evident with regard to all ETUC Days of Action called since 2010 against the EU’s approach to the crisis. On the one hand, in Portugal and Spain a first ‘Iberian general strike’ was declared, in Greece and Italy strike action – which was to some degree synchronized – took place and unions in France, Belgium and some eastern European countries at least organized large-scale demonstrations. On the other hand, unions in northern Europe and in Germany had not ventured beyond largely symbolic actions and declarations of solidarity (Dufresne and Pernot, 2013).

Starting with some theoretical assumptions about the roots of solidarity and union mobilization, this article explores why a European general strike against austerity is so difficult to organize. Two successful transnational union campaigns serve to illustrate the argument that trans-European union mobilization requires both a shared perception of conflict and appropriate union action. The argument is based on the assumption that union action is influenced – though not determined – by cultural, economic and institutional frameworks (see among others Erne, 2008; Horn, 2012), although there are also limits to voluntarism.

The argument will proceed in four steps. It begins with an overview of the concept and foundations of union solidarity, based on the literature. In the second step, it explores the preconditions of successful social and union mobilization, drawing on classic and more recent approaches in trade union research. These initial theoretical considerations are then, in a third step, viewed within the framework of the campaign against the EU Directive on port deregulation and the protests against the so-called Bolkestein Directive. In a fourth step, and reflecting the experience of these two cases, the article shows that, so far during the euro crisis, a number of key preconditions have not been met for transnational mobilization, let alone for a European general strike. The article concludes by briefly surveying the prospects for international union action against austerity policy below the threshold of a ‘European general strike’. The article has a German focus because not only is this the country with which the author is most familiar, but also because its economy and government are at the core of the debate in the eurozone and German unions are key players within European trade unionism. Nevertheless, the author aims to contribute to a better understanding of the problems of transnational union action in general.

Foundations of trade union solidarity

Solidarity is a core principle of trade union activity. Diverse notions of solidarity and what it might still signify for unions have figured as recurring themes of trade union research (see, for example, Zoll, 2000; Hyman, 2002; Zeuner, 2004; Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013). The key concepts that characterize solidarity that emerge from this literature are mutual obligation, common interests, mutual support and mutuality based on freely given consent. An important additional element is the expectation that solidarity is not only a one-way street, but will also be enjoyed by the ‘giver’ at some point.

These general principles are enshrined in statements such as ‘We achieve more together than alone’ and ‘Unity is strength’. Association in a trade union makes it possible to pursue workers’ interests more effectively than would be possible individually: more precisely, it is only by means of collective action that it becomes possible at all to defend and advance certain interests in relation to employers or the state. Collective action – in theory – is advantageous to workers in general, but also to individuals. Trade union solidarity differs from altruism or charity in so far as it has both a normative and an instrumental dimension. Helping others is also self-help, with an expectation that assistance will be provided in the event, for instance, of a dispute.

Union solidarity is based on the assumption of conflicting interests within an asymmetrical power relationship between employers and employees. There is both solidarity ‘with’ and solidarity ‘against’ (Hyman, 2002). Typically, the counterpart to trade union solidarity is either capital owners or the government.

Union solidarity aims to minimize, if not remove entirely, competition between those who offer their labour power on the market (Zeuner, 2004: 328). The guiding union principle of inclusive solidarity, in which the strong carry the weak, is principally the product of the practical realization that few groups of employees can prevail in isolation. Experience also teaches that safeguarding standards of pay and working conditions against undercutting is best achieved if they have been implemented to such an extent that they no longer figure as an element in economic competition. Kurz-Scherf and Zeuner (2001) have also drawn attention to the fact that union solidarity always has both an inclusive and an exclusive side. No collective agreement applies to everyone and the aim of taking wages out of competition is, if ever, achievable only for limited periods of time and space and the control over the labour market that unions aspire to may also entail problematic limitations on access, for example for migrants.

Beverley Silver (2003: 20–25) recalls that the building of solidarity has to take into account the existence of boundaries between workers. Based on an argument put forward by Giovanni Arrighi (1990), she stresses that, in contrast to the Marxian assumption in the Communist Manifesto, capitalist wage labour does not automatically lead to a uniformity of interests and actions on the part of employees. ‘[Modern] subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany’, claimed the Manifesto, has stripped the proletarian of ‘every trace of national character’ (as quoted in Arrighi, 1990: 33). For Arrighi the error in this is to assume that because workers appear to capital owners merely as interchangeable instruments of labour they are willing to view themselves in the same light. In fact, and by contrast, those dependent on wage-labour frequently insist on drawing boundaries in order to use non-class based identities – such as gender, skin colour, religion and nationality – to demand more favourable treatment from capital.

For its part, capital has an interest in lifting certain barriers, such as those restricting the mobility of labour, but also makes use of these divisions and will actively promote them if it will gain from this. In this sense, these boundaries are never static and can be shifted from both parties to the wage-labour relationship. Building inclusive solidarity will be more difficult the more employees are put into new forms of national and international competition over issues such as the physical location of economic activity and the consequences of local changes in how corporations are taxed. Since the advent of neoliberalism under Margaret Thatcher, there have been an increasing number of legislative interventions by governments aimed at decollectivizing employment relations (Williams, 1998: 13) and weakening the capacity of unions to pursue interests collectively (see Kelly and Waddington, 1995). Current examples of this can be found in the conditionalities imposed by the troika and the austerity policy pursued in the ‘crisis countries’ (Clauwaert and Schömann, 2012).

In particular, in situations in which the room for manoeuvre is constrained and the cake appears to have become smaller, exclusive solidarities can become much more important. The discussions around the free movement of labour within the EU (see Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013: 179–181; Hardy et al., 2012), as well as many collective agreements and ‘two-tier’ plant agreements, in which wages and conditions are retained for existing staff but lower standards set for new hires, are practical illustrations of this (Zeuner, 2007). None of this is desirable from the standpoint of inclusive solidarity, but is neither untypical nor readily amenable to moral appeals.

Society and the world of work have also evidently become much more diverse in recent decades. Phelps Brown (1990) spoke of the ‘counter-revolution of our time’. In his view, individualization would culminate in a breach with the former collective agenda of the labour movement and ultimately promote its progressive dissolution. Lévesque et al. (2005: 402) noted a ‘radicalisation of difference’ that challenged established understandings of collectivity and the frame of reference. However, these authors considered that unions could influence these developments and, as a consequence, ultimately argued in a similar vein to Zoll, who has long emphasized that the key issue is how unions respond to social modernization (see Valkenburg and Zoll, 1995). Individualization, Zoll argued, is only one aspect of societal change and its character is multi-faceted and does not necessarily prevent the building of solidarity. Zeuner (2004) also stressed the need for ‘unity in difference’ and Hyman also (2011: 65) referred to ‘mutuality despite diversity’ and suggested referring to ‘solidarities’, in the plural. Organizing diverse and on occasions competing individual interests represents a permanent challenge to unions (see Hyman, 1996: 55; Zoll, 1990).

If international solidarity is to be more than an abstract ideal, it requires appropriate union action. Like other union ideals, it emerges through contestation and struggle (see Hyman, 2001: 175). In Section 3 we thus explore the preconditions of union mobilization.

Preconditions of trade union mobilization

Three preconditions of union mobilization can be distinguished in an ideal-typical way, all closely connected. ¹ The first is a shared sense of conflict, something denoted by Kelly (1998) as ‘perceived injustice’. This is not related to the objective nature of a conflict, problem or other social grievance but is a function of how workers perceive this. The key aspects of this are the location of the cause of the problem or grievance, who is responsible (an identifiable employer, government, or an anonymous force such as ‘Europe’, ‘capital’) and who should remedy it. A key role is played here by the capacity of formal or informal union leaderships to interpret, categorize and assess conflicts or problems, and to propose actions that will be seen by workers as an adequate response to the problem (Kelly, 1998; also Darlington, 2009). It is also important whether different problems can be aggregated into a common set of demands (see Regalia, 1988: 351; Gajewska, 2008: 108). All these factors together will determine whether workers will perceive a problem as being resolvable.

The second precondition, closely related to the first, can be denoted as ‘perceived effectiveness’ (Kelly, 1998: 59; see Boxall and Haynes, 1997: 571; Cregan, 2005). Employees have to be convinced that there is a feasible solution to the conflict or problem and that they will, in fact, be ‘stronger together’. In turn, this is closely connected to whether the unions concerned are perceived to be strong and effective. In this case, too, the emphasis is on subjective perception, which is influenced by individual workers’ previous experience, the situation at the workplace, press, TV and social media, and discussions with family and friends. Collective successes and defeats, but also experiences with the extent to which past protests actually effected change, also play a key role, as does the stance and behaviour of the union in the specific conflict.

Finally, in the case of international mobilization, a third, structural precondition needs to be met: the existence of unions that are able to mobilize. This may seem trivial, but in view of the weak anchoring of unions in many countries and branches, it is not a condition that is always met. Furthermore unions require an appropriate strategic capacity, which following Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman (2013: 193), ‘can be understood as the ability to assess opportunities for intervention; to anticipate […] changing circumstances; to frame coherent policies; and to implement these effectively.’ Furthermore, individual unions and national union confederations generally focus on their respective countries. They are characterized by diverse traditions, political alignments, institutional frameworks and repertoires of action to which these have given rise (for western Europe, see Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013). These repertoires of action, however, are seldom targeted towards international action (Turnbull, 2006).

This is the starting point from which transnational activity has to be developed. Nothing can be taken for granted. Economic internationalization by itself does not generate union internationalism. The form that international solidarity takes is also influenced by the underlying problems that have to be confronted (Umney, 2012).

Examples of successful European mobilization

The campaigns against the EU Directive on port services, as well as the one against the so-called Bolkestein Directive are two examples of unions successfully challenging EU policy (Leiren and Parks, 2014). In both campaigns, core preconditions of solidarity and mobilization established the basis for a positive outcome.

ETUC actions against austerity policies

As yet, no comparable European-wide union movement has emerged to oppose the EU’s austerity policies. The massive disjunction in terms of the scale and intensity of union activities exhibited by the European Day of Action on 14 November 2012 (Dufresne and Pernot, 2013), to which the German Confederation of Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB) had attached the slogan ‘For work and solidarity – “no” to the social division of Europe’, was less a powerful expression of pan-European solidarity and more the reflection of precisely the social division that it was mounted to combat (see Erne, 2012a; Hofmann, 2014).

No common perception of the crisis

It was not possible to identify any common perception of the conflict on the part of workers at European level in 2012. Citizens in different countries had very different views of the underlying economic situation. A representative survey commissioned by the European Commission in November 2012 (Eurobarometer 78, 2012) at the time of the ETUC Day of Action revealed a range of, on occasions, very divergent assessments of the economic position on the part of individuals. Whereas citizens in countries such as Greece, Spain, Romania, Italy and France were almost unanimous in the view that the economic situation was ‘poor’, the majority of those asked, especially in the northern countries, judged their economic situation to be ‘fairly good’ or ‘very good’; in Germany, almost three-quarters of those asked gave this response (see Figure 1). The latter was confirmed in October 2013 when in a national survey nearly three-quarters of respondents considered themselves not to be personally affected by the crisis (Lemb and Urban, 2014: 49).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Eurobarometer survey, autumn 2102: How would you judge the current economic situation? ‘Rather good’ and ‘very good’ as a percentage of all responses, autumn 2012.

Furthermore, not only do individual perceptions differ but also the economic situation in the various countries of Europe. Whereas employment collapsed in Greece and Spain between 2008 and 2012, other countries registered only moderate downturns or, in the case of Germany, even a positive trend. The same applied to developments in real wages and other economic variables.

Unions have also been affected by the crisis to differing degrees. While unions in the ‘crisis countries’ of southern Europe have had to confront direct – and for them deleterious – interventions by the EU and the troika in relation to wage setting and industrial relations (Schulten and Müller, 2013), trade unions in the so-called ‘surplus countries’ have either been spared such interference entirely or have experienced it to a much more limited extent.

Interpreting and categorizing the conflict

The crisis has often been seen, also within the unions, as the outcome of financial markets that careered out of control, with the primary targets identified as ‘finance and speculators’ (DGB, 2012). However, the fact that the deregulation of financial markets appeared to enjoy broad political support (Cioffi and Höpner, 2006) and that large corporations in the ‘real economy’ are important players in financial markets has had much less salience in popular views of the crisis. Consequently, governments, companies and employees are all seen equally as victims of anonymous market forces. In 2008/2009, both the government and the corporate sector figured more as allies of German unions than their opponents. Although virtually all unions called for internationally coordinated measures to discipline markets, it was principally the national level that offered unions more immediate options for action (see Bernaciak, 2009). In general, the focus of union crisis management lay in securing and strengthening their own country’s national competitiveness and that of the industries they represented (Gumbrell-McCormick, 2013: 125). This also applied in the case of Germany (see Dribbusch, 2012; Urban, 2013).

For employees in Germany, there was more of a tentative stance, heavily influenced by the very different impacts experienced at industry and workplace level. There was a muted response to the demonstrations organized by various political initiatives and union sections in 2009 under the slogan ‘We won’t pay for your crisis’. The purport of this slogan, of course, was that the costs of the crisis should be borne by those who had caused it, but many employees knew from experience that this was unlikely to happen. Agency workers and those on fixed-term contracts had quickly lost their jobs while core workforces in crisis-hit manufacturing sought immediate shelter by way of short-time working schemes or company-level agreements and expected their unions to act accordingly. Those in less affected sectors hoped the storm would soon pass. The issue of a long-term international resolution of the crisis shifted to the background, as began to be evident in 2010 when the German export industries driven by demand from Asia recovered more quickly than expected and employment began to move in a more positive direction than many had feared (‘the German jobs miracle’).

It was only during the second wave of the crisis from 2011 that the European dimension began to acquire a higher profile. However, once again the way in which the problem was viewed in Germany was less conducive to international mobilization. The fact that the current crisis was widely cast as a ‘debt crisis’ (in the sense imposed on the phrase by the financial sector and those under its sway) meant that the programme of public spending cuts (termed ‘savings’ in financial-sector parlance) acquired an apparent justification: the conventional wisdom is that those with debts should pay them and thus Greece and all the other ‘crisis countries’ were – also morally – to blame for their own perilous state. This view was also used to underpin the neoliberal austerity policy, which had already been elevated to constitutional status in Germany in 2009 with the required two-thirds majority in the German parliament, and which, from 2011, was then forcibly exported to the rest of Europe. Dissident voices, such as those within and close to the trade unions (see ver.di, 2011; Horn et al., 2012), faced a hard task. It was especially hard to communicate the fact that the Germans are not ‘paying for the Greeks’ and that the German economy, up until the crisis, had gained enormously from the economic imbalances in Europe. Finally, it was not a straightforward matter for German unions to single out an identifiable opponent.

For example, whereas for Greek and Spanish unionists the EU, the troika and possibly also the German Chancellor, along with their own governments, represented an identifiable enemy towards which they could direct their demands, the matter was not as simple for unionists in Germany. The troika did not constitute an immediate threat and German efforts with regard to Europe to ensure that the ‘burdens’ placed on ‘German taxpayers’ were kept as low as possible were widely supported. The difficulty of mobilizing against austerity was highlighted when the leadership of ver.di strongly supported the action named ‘Three-State Weeks’ (Drei-Länder-Wochen) in the context of the European mobilization in autumn 2012. The attempts by ver.di and its Austrian and Swiss sister unions jointly to stage actions in various towns and regions largely failed to find active support among local union organizations in Germany (similarly in Switzerland).

The trade unions

As a confederation of confederations, whenever it calls for mobilization the ETUC is dependent on the willingness of its affiliates to put this into practice. However, these organizations are characterized by widely differing political views and interests, depending on their country, tradition and the industries they represent (see Hofmann, 2014). It is also difficult for the ETUC itself to offer a principled critique of the EU’s neoliberal line. This has probably less to do with the fact that important ETUC institutions are co-financed by the EU – although this should not be entirely discounted – but mainly because of the previous stance of the social democratic majority within the ETUC’s affiliated unions (see Hyman, 2009). Their closeness to social democratic governing parties has been a major factor in the ETUC’s support of the so-called ‘European processes’, from Maastricht to Lisbon. The basic position of the ETUC, supported by the large German industrial unions, was for a long time a ‘Yes, but …’. However, calling for a more employment-friendly approach without being willing – or able – to say ‘No, not unless…’ has effectively reduced unions to mere petitioners of the European Commission (Hyman 2009: 29). In recent years, the ETUC has moved towards a more critical stance towards the European Commission, as in 2012 when it rejected the Fiscal Compact (Horn, 2012) and in November adopted a Keynesian European investment programme largely based on proposals made by ver.di economists. Difficulties in finding common ground on whether and how to mobilize against the EU’s austerity policy remain (Bieler and Erne, 2014).

Prospects

With some rare exceptions, ² European policies play only a marginal role in the everyday operations of national unions. In Germany, aside from a few small working groups, there is no form of grass-roots internationalism (Dribbusch and Schulten, 2011). For almost all unions, ‘Europe’ is basically and mainly the business of a small batch of full-time specialists or the national top leadership (Hyman, 2005). At the same time, unions are moving towards better mutual understanding of the nature of EU policies and their effects (see Pedrina, 2013). The campaigns against the Port Packages I and II and the Bolkestein Directive suggest that successful mobilization does not necessarily have to encompass all EU countries and all unions to the same degree. What is decisive is who participates and whether the issue can capture attention. Major protests against troika conditionality policies in France, and in particular in Germany, would have a much more unsettling impact than further ‘general strikes’ in Greece or Portugal. As such, German unions play a key role not least because it is German politics which currently sets the pace in Europe. The debate on Europe has been pursued with a critical edge in the DGB, ver.di and IG Metall (Buntenbach, 2014; Bsirske, 2014; Lemb and Urban, 2014). However, as yet, these critiques of austerity – which demand a profound revision of neoliberal policies, insist on more, not less European democracy and reject populist calls for a national retreat from Europe – have remained a minority view, both socially and within these individuals’ own organizations. The same, however, also formerly applied in Germany with regard to the minimum wage and agency work. In both cases, a complex process of public debate, contestation and struggle has led to the emergence of majorities both within the unions and in the wider society for action in these areas. As yet, no comparable process has been set in motion on the issue of policy responses to the crisis, at least not in Germany. This is not contradicted by the fact that Spanish or Greek unionists who report directly on the dramatic effects of austerity in their everyday lives encounter widespread sympathy.

At the same time, the above-mentioned examples of successful international union action also indicate that a critique of the consequences of the European economic governance might be easier to develop through individual campaigns that focus on very specific concerns. One instance of this would be the successful petition for the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ‘Right2Water’. The campaign was co-started in 2012 by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) and in Germany has been supported by a broad range of initiatives against the privatization of water provision, as well as by the large United Services Union, ver.di. In this instance too there have been massive differences in the scale of the actions undertaken. Of the 1.9 million signatures collected by the time of the deadline for submission in September 2013, 1.38 million were from Germany alone. It remains to be seen whether the ECI will now be taken into the ETUC’s repertoire of action, something that has previously foundered on the reservations of French and German unions (Pedrina, 2013).

The prospects of transnational trade union action are closely linked to the debate within unions on their future strategy on Europe, a debate that is located between the contending poles of supporting their own countries’ attractions as locations of economic activity and trans-European cooperation. Not least, any international or European critique of austerity faces the difficult task of developing alternatives conducive to mobilization that offer a convincing counter-narrative to the economic fatalism of market-based societies (Erne, 2012b).