Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth

German labor took the offensive in March. A series of strikes by Ver.di, the large public sector union, shut down airports and subways on March 5. The Union of Railway Conductors (GDL), which shut down large sectors of the economy last year, is threatening another strike, one that could again paralyze commerce and industry as well as public transport. In February, metalworkers and Berlin’s subway workers also staged brief strikes.

Meanwhile, the success of the Left Party -- a coalition of former East German Communists (PDS) and leftists who split from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) -- has paralyzed German politics. The Left Party is calling for the dismantling of former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s pro-market reforms, a minimum wage of $12 per hour, and a shortening of the workweek. This program is hardly revolutionary, let alone anti-state, as the Left Party is hoping to join coalition governments with the SPD and the Green Party.

In February, the Left Party did better than expected in Hamburg, crossing the 5% barrier, which gave it seats for the first time in a local parliament outside the former East Germany. Elections later that month in Hesse, which includes Frankfurt, Germany’s economic capital, confirmed the trend, giving the Left Party enough votes to enter the state parliament. Hesse voters also repudiated the Christian Democrats (CD), whose Roland Koch had campaigned on a racist, anti-immigrant platform. The SPD now faces the prospect -- for the first time outside the former East Germany -- of being forced to include the Left Party if it wishes to form a governing coalition.

All of this has disturbed German -- and even international -- elite opinion. How can this be happening in Europe’s largest economy, after neo-liberalism has supposedly triumphed over the Left? How can this be, that the socialist Left is growing again? That actual attacks on capitalism are gaining a hearing among voters! Quelle horreur!