Giant Union Held in Chains

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West Germany's 'socialist' Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, has now openly given his support to the powerful forces ranged against the strikes by print and metal workers.

In a television appearance he pleaded for a re-opening of the negotiations which had already dragged on for months before the intransigence of employers and the militancy of rank-and-file members pressured the union bureaucrats to withdraw.

Now the very same pressures are frustrating their strenuous efforts to contain and suffocate the strikes.

IG-Metal the metal workers, union) is the world's largest trade union.

Yet only 60,000 workers have been called out on strike-all from selected factories in one region, North Schmidt Wuerttemburg-North Baden!

This is despite the huge mandate Loderer and his companions in bureaucracy received from members in this region and North RhineWestphalia.

Already employers have responded with the threat of a general lockout from Monday.

It is not SO much the relatively trifling disagreements over the wa ye claim that have provoked t L1S determined resistance.

Workers are also demanding security of jobs and protection of manning levels before they will agree to the introduction of new technology. This is precisely the central question in the printworkers' struggle.

During the long boom, and the first years of the current crisis, the working class in West Germany enjoyed relatively privileged economic status.

Now, the West German capitalists need to force through a wide-ranging attack on workers to preserve their profits.

It is their ability to introduce this rationalisation' which is being disrupted in these two strikes that hold a crucial significance for every worker in the German Federal Republic.