For the Class Union

Quebec: FIQ Health Care Workers

On 6 August, the FIQ (Fédération interprofessionnelle du Québec) voted to accept a provisional agreement, the result of 18 months of negotiations. The three main unions arrived at the agreement united, separating the workers at the beginning of the negotiations. The pitting of the unions against each other, to the delight of the bosses and their allies in government, has led to heavy defeats over the years. It should be noted that the FIQ, which represents 76,000 nurses, nursing assistants and respiratory therapy technicians, has historically never formed a common front with the large central trade union organisations.

In the end, the agreement was accepted with a small majority of 54%, with low participation rates (between 32% and 44% depending on the region) and was pushed back in some regions. Surprising with regard to its content: a small wage increase of only 2% over the 3 years of the agreement, which is just above inflation. In addition, there is a 3.5% FIQ bonus, which will only be paid to members of that union and will increase the already existing gap between workers. Finally, there are retention and attendance bonuses, but in reality the government will never have to pay them because the working conditions in the field will not change for those who have to work compulsory overtime (OTT) or who cannot reconcile work and family.

The biggest problem are the salaries but the working conditions for nurses: too many patients, lack of resources, being constantly understaffed. These conditions make it impossible for health care facilities to retain staff or hire new ones. Throughout the dispute, the FIQ has not hesitated to reveal its reactionary nature through the agreement in principle, which shows little interest in its members.

In reality, the leadership of the FIQ wants to avoid the strike at all costs, because it prefers its position as a mediator between employers and workers, and simply has no interest in conducting this kind of struggle.

The weakness of the protest against the agreement unfortunately shows us that the majority of members are not ready to mobilise. Despite the heroic combativeness of a number of nurses, who have not been afraid to show their discontent and their will to fight, they are only a minority for the time being. Most of them have never experienced a strike, while another part is still de-moralised by the defeat of 1999.

Workers have stopped seeing unions as a powerful weapon in the class struggle, but rather as a kind of insurance they pay for certain services. This is certainly due in part to the opportunism of union leaders such as those in the FIQ, who prefer conciliation to struggle.

Moreover, provisions such as the Rand formula, which obliges employees in a workplace to pay for union membership even if they are not members, tend to lower the level of consciousness and leave the field open to opportunists. Workers must bear in mind that their economic situation means they have interests that cannot be reconciled with the bosses and their state, and that the class struggle will therefore inevitably lead to confrontation. They therefore need structures that enable them to fight effectively, which is not the case with their current trade unions. Money does not buy happiness, so the FIQ can call this agreement a success.

The meagre wage increases signed are not enough! It is not enough for nurses and it is not enough for the entire Quebec working class who must work in dilapidated facilities.

Nurses are now stuck with this terrible contract until March 2023. We need a fighting movement of health care employees who can fight for better working conditions. This must start with a mobilisation in the trade unions and the agreement to form a common front in order to arrive prepared for the 2023 contract.

Greece: New Labor Law

After the approval of the new labor law by the Parliament, the «Newspaper of the Editors», close to the position of Syriza and the Greek social democracy, was entitled: «Back to the Middle Ages for the workers».

Nothing more misleading! The law approved by Parliament in June, with the votes of the right-wing majority, responds to the most recent directives of all the bourgeoisies in the world, and also of the European Commission, towards ever greater flexibility and job insecurity and with further limitations on strikes and to the trade union organization. It is therefore the result not of «backwardness» but of a necessity and an explicit request of the most modern capitalist mode of production, increasingly in crisis and increasingly inhuman and anti-historical.

The government justified the law to allow Greece to «seize the growth opportunities» after the 2020 crisis and the pandemic, «improve competitiveness» and «create new jobs», attracting foreign investors for the reduced wage costs and general.

The new law firstly abolishes the 8-hour day and the 5-day week; it eliminates the obligation for entrepreneurs to pay increased wages for overtime over 8 hours and 5 days and provides that it is possible to work up to 10 hours a day without wage integration; overtime can be compensated with days off. However, the limit of 40 hours per week is safeguarded. Hours in excess of 40 will be counted as overtime; up to 150 hours of overtime per year are allowed, or even more for “urgent work”, with a 40% increase in wages, while currently the maximum is 120 hours and the increase is 60%.

Added to this is the abolition of compulsory Sunday rest and the introduction of tele-work. A «digital work card» is also activated to monitor the hours worked.

The raising of the working day to 10 hours knocks down one of the symbols of the international labor movement, the eight hours a day, the result of more than a century of hard struggles. But in practice a large part of the proletariat, even in Greece, is currently in such a condition of weakness that has to accept much heavier work situations, in terms of hours and wages.

But the worst aspect of the law is the attack on the role of trade unions, it gives space to individual relationships between the employee and the company, aiming at overcoming national collective agreements. The workers thus lose the possibility of asserting the strength of numbers and their organization in the determination of hours and wages. According to the new law these will be resolved in the framework of «individual contracts», bypassing the trade unions!

It could be the final blow to the recognition of collective agreements, already severely limited with the «austerity memorandums», after the 2010-2011 crisis, also with the collaboration of the Syriza government in the 2015-2019 period, which now pretends to oppose to the initiative of the right-wing government.

But the attack on the union is not limited to this. Now the unions are obliged to keep a digital «register of members», available to the Ministry of Labor and employers’ organizations. A strike decision must first be approved (by electronic vote) by 50% + 1 of all company personnel. In the critical sectors of public services (health, education, transport, energy, etc.) in the event of a strike, 35% of the workforce must continue to work, for «social responsibility».

In the event that the union does not respect these rules, workers will be subject to civil and criminal penalties. A system similar to the one that in Italy currently affects workers who perform so-called «essential» public services but not those of industry, commerce, etc.

In the months preceding the approval of the law, the main trade unions, the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), the Confederation of Public Employees (ADEDY) and the Militant Front of All Workers (PAME), held demonstrations and even a strike general 24 hours. But these struggles have highlighted not the strength but the state of weakness of the Greek proletariat which in recent years has had to swallow a series of burning defeats and has seen its living and working conditions considerably worsen.

According to OECD data for 2019, the average effective working time in Greece was 1,950 hours per year, lower only than in Korea and Mexico, while it is much higher, for example, than in Germany (1,386 hours per year). Real wages between 2008 and 2019 are estimated to have decreased by 30%, the average wage having gone from about 1,300 euros to 950.

The current government is also, in line with previous ones, drawing up plans for the privatization of the system. public pension and social security, as well as massive privatizations of all that is still owned by the state.

To this the proletariat is unable to oppose a single trade union front of class struggle, given that the two main unions have a policy of substantial agreement with the employers while PAME contributes to the division of the trade union front, tied as it is double-stranded with the opportunist boulder of the KKE.

The parties and political organizations on the left of the KKE, while they are agitated in the search for a phantom political unity, neglect to organize workers on the level of union demands, overcoming the divisions between categories, to try to reconstitute the indispensable unity of the class.

Pakistan: Recent Labour News

On 27th August, a fire broke out in a chemical factory named (BM LUGGAGE industry) in Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi, resulting in 17 workers being burnt to death. In classic fashion, there was only one entry point into the factory, windows were locked and all other exists were closed. This unfortunate incident, a crime of bourgeoisie world, is just one among many, in a similar particularly tragic incident, more than 250 workers were killed as a fire broke out in a garment factory in 2012, Karachi. Some trade unions have started protesting outside the chemical factory.

On August 17th 2021, 16 thousand active government workers from various departments, institutions have been sacked by a decision from the supreme court. In the 90’s all these workers had been also previously sacked during the governance of the Muslim league party, in 2010 the governance of the people’s party had reinstated these employees by passing a bill. The court now deems the bill unconstitutional, and the fate of 16 thousand workers hangs in the air, the court had already made its decision in 2019 and reserved in announcing the verdict, appeals from the various departments from which these workers belonged had also been rejected. Going on, workers committees have been formed, unions have started being involved. It is important to note, many government departments have been going through privatization, a process which many government employees have been actively opposing through strikes, protests etc. The people’s party making use of this opportunity participated in a worker’s convention in Tando Allahyar, Sindh province, announcing protests and “solidarity” with the workers, deceiving workers.

Germany: Railroad Strikes

There has been a series of strikes by the train drivers in Germany, the union is GDL (Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer) and its demand is modest, €600 bonus for the extra stress and work during Coronavirus and a 3.2% pay increase.

Train drivers are officially “civil servants” in Germany, members of the civil service confederation, but their formerly privileged position has been eroded.

The train drivers have had to do more demanding shifts and unpaid hours during coronavirus.

Moreover the “Tarifeinheitsgesetz” gives the main trade union confederation DGB a virtual monopoly over collective bargaining, which threatens concessions won by the GDL in the past. In particular, the drivers worry that Deutsche Bahn will get more leverage in changing shifts at short notice.

The pandemic has also created more work for train conductors as they often have to take care of 1,000 passengers on their own and are required to ensure that coronavirus restrictions are adhered to (which means they sometimes suffer abuse).

They are members of a separate union, the EVG (Eisenbahnverkehr Gewerkschaft) and the two union bureaucracies strive to prevent joint action.

Third German Railworkers’ Strike

A third strike by German railworkers took place between the first Thursday to Tuesday of September, with two large rallies of the Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokführer (German Locomotive Drivers’ Union, GDL) in Nuremberg and Essen on Friday, September 3. According to newspaper reports the strike was solid on Thursday and Friday, with just a quarter of trains running.

The day before, the Frankfurt Labor Court in the State of Hessen rejected an appeal from German Railways (Deutsche Bahn, DB), as the court could not determine whether or not the strike was illegal. DB has been desperately trying to divide the striking train drivers from other groups of employees by allowing their “representation” only by the in-house union the Eisenbahn- und Verkehrsgewerkschaft (EVG). DB continues to pursue legal actions in other jurisdictions.

DB has made a derisory offer of a Covid-19 “bonus” of between €400 and €600 and a wage increase of just 3.2% over 36 months, while inflation means this will be a severe cut in real terms.

The drivers are angry about the additional workload and poor sickness provision during the pandemic. Among other things, a lot of goods including vitally needed disinfectants have been moved to rail transport as a result of the shortage of truck drivers. Extra journeys are also impacting other workers such as maintenance crews. On passenger trains, attendants have also had to work extra shifts and faced the additional stress of enforcing Covid-19 rules.

There is a very strong feeling that the extra work should be recognized with a pay increase and not just ritual applause from management.

Apart from the issue of wages, the strike is about the proportion of so-called “disposition shifts” in drivers’ schedules. These are shifts outside of and beyond planned rosters, for example because of staff sick leave or other unforeseen circumstances. This currently stands at 20% of all shifts, and DB wants to raise it to 40%.

The militancy of the drivers and other rail workers is setting off alarm bells. Shift work and overtime are becoming more and more unbearable across many sectors while wages are getting worse, and the prospects of unemployment and poverty pensions are increasing.

German workers understand the need for greater union militancy. As a result of the strike, GDL has succeeded in recruiting and additional 4,000 members.

DB has therefore had no trouble mobilizing support from the government and the German media. There is a strong possibility that the September election will see a change of government, with the “left” party in the coalition, the SPD, becoming the dominant voice in a new multi-party constellation.

This is another reason for DB is pursuing the legal route, hoping to sue the GDL for damages. The SPD leadership has let it be known that they want to stick to the current law, which limits strike action and provides a framework for annual wage negotiations. The law is, in effect, a straitjacket on the working class.

Meanwhile the leader of the GDL, Claus Weselsky (who is actually a member of the governing conservative party, the CDU) is urgently seeking a compromise. He can see the railworkers’ militancy spiraling out of control.