GERMANY: New Committee & more – 21st Mar 2024

Hallo from BA! This is the Rorshok Germany Update from the 21st of March twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Germany.

We are back! Let’s start this week off with news from the Tesla Gigafactory in Brandenburg, just outside Berlin. On Thursday, the 21st, the workers in the factory voted on a new works committee to ensure safe working conditions, better wages, and an overall fair working environment. The Tesla factory already has a works committee. However, unlike the new committee, the current one was not elected by the factory workers but rather by the management staff before the plant even opened. Tesla is known for its union-busting activities and the current works committee is part of these tactics. They have also tried their best to impede the vote on a new committee, but as things stand now, a new works committee by the workers and for the workers will be elected.

As Tesla workers are fighting for their rights, just a few kilometers away in Berlin the neoliberal Free Democratic Party, or FDP, is pushing for a new law to restrict strike rights. Following protests in several sectors across Germany, the FDP and the conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, have emphasized their intentions of restricting the constitutional right to strike. Their demands include strict limits on the length of work stoppages, obligations for unions to engage in arbitration before going on strike and even a complete ban on protests in certain sectors, such as transportation. Whether implementing these demands is even constitutionally possible remains unclear. The head of the Confederation of Unions has, unsurprisingly, announced her organization’s resistance to the calls for restricting the right to strike.

In more news about protests, the labor dispute between the union of locomotive drivers, GDL, and the national train company, DB, is still ongoing. There are labor negotiations in the public sectors of several states. The security personnel and the ground crews were on strike on Friday the 15th at several airports, and thousands of employees of the Postbank, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, staged a protest from Thursday the 14th to Saturday the 16th. During the pandemic and the gas crisis of twenty twenty-two —caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine—almost all major unions have abstained from striking, which means that now millions of employees across the country are still on pre-pandemic wages and have suffered heavy losses in buying power due to inflation. All major strikes now are basically just aiming at righting this wrong.

Moving on, the CDU is doing its best to block the partial cannabis legalization, which is planned for the 1st of April. Although the national parliament passed the law and it does not require the approval of the Bundesrat, CDU-led states might block it there. The Bundesrat is the second legislative organ next to the parliament. It’s made up of the governments of the federal states and if laws are in the special interest of the federal states these bills require the approval of the Bundesrat. The conservative state governments have announced that they are planning on holding up the implementation by sending it into review. If they send the law to review, it might get stuck there and the law might be held up forever

From Germany to Israel, chancellor Scholz traveled to Jordan and Israel to meet with the Jordan King, Abdullah the 2nd, and Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister. In a press conference with Israel’s prime minister, Scholz made a statement in stark contrast to his previous rhetoric regarding the Israel-Hamas war. In the past, his statements, and the majority of statements from German officials, expressed unwavering and unconditional support for Israel. However, that has changed. During the press conference, Scholz questioned the Israeli tactics, insisted that more aid needs to get through and said: “We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians risk starvation. That's not us. That is not what we stand for.”

Shortly before the chancellor’s trip to Israel, the German Air Force participated in air drops of aid packages over the Gaza Strip. According to the military, the Air Force dropped around four tons of flour, rice, and other food items. Recently, the American Air Force began supplying the Gaza Strip with aid packages. While officials of both the American and German governments have called it a big step in the right direction, humanitarian organizations have deemed it a drop in the ocean. According to the UN, there are currently over half a million people on the brink of starvation in Gaza.

Back to Germany: Ahead of the elections in the state of Thuringia, which will take place on the 1st of September, at a party assembly, the prime minister of the ruling party, The Left, tried to prepare his party for the coming elections. Bodo Ramelow, The prime minister, said that they are not fighting against other parties, they are fighting against facism. The strongest opposition party in Thuringia currently is the right extremist Alternative For Germany, of AFD. The fascist Bernd Höcke heads the state chapter of the AFD in Thuringia, which is widely regarded to be the most extreme of all the state chapters of the AFD. A state chapter is the regional branch of a political party that operates within a specific state. At the same time, Sarah Wagenknecht, a former politician of The Left who recently founded her own party, founded a state chapter in Thuringia called BSW, Association Sarah Wagenknecht. This party will be something like a wild card in the state elections as nobody can yet predict how strong or weak their result will be.

Now, somewhat curious news from the radical right: The AFD is considering suing the Compact magazine for illegal election campaigning. The magazine is a far-right publication which regularly spreads conspiracy ideology and supports the AFD at every turn. Most recently, they launched a donation campaign to fund events and publicity for the AFD. The head of the national parliament then started investigating whether this campaign could be considered as illegal party donations. In response, the AFD saw itself forced to consider legal steps against the magazine.

From one election with a possible detrimental outcome for democracy to an election without democracy: The people of Russia “voted” and German politicians are commenting on it. Baerbock, the Foreign minister, has called the “elections” in Russia a vote without a vote and said that it was neither free nor fair. A speaker of chancellor Scholz called Russia a dictatorship. In Russia, president Putin was unsurprisingly “reelected” for another six years.

And that’s it for this week!

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