Metal workers at mercy of union

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plätze sichel West German print workers during their strike Emotional television appearances are standard feature in the sales routine of the social democrats as they peddle class collaboration in every shape and form.

Vhen Helmut Schmidt took to the air recently, the medium had a special signiticance-the Vest German Federal Chancellor's aim was to end the printworkers' strike, which was severely disrupting newspaper Schmidt's well-timed intervention brought about renewed negotiations and a compromise between employers and the bureaucracy of IG-Druck, the print workers' union.

Rationalisation

Predictably, the agreement avoids the central question of the dispute-the attacks on workers which capital must make to restore profitability by rationalising' industry.

Instead, a bargain has been struck on the terms under which new technology can be introduced.

These are tar more demanding than the employers would have liked. But they represent complete betrayal of the union leadership's pledge to refuse rationalisation at the expense of our jobs, OUT health and our professi inal qualifications'.

Metal workers

Eugen Loderer and the other officials of IG-Me tall are now carefully steeer ing the metal workers' strike in the wake of this sell out. Begin The visit to Cairo last week of Israeli defence minister weizman did nothing to bring nearer a "peace settlement' between the Zionist settier regime and the sections of the Arab bou geoisie led by Anwar Saar who are trving to sell Palestinian ro*t veizma was attemat to rescue someting SOMI the diplomatic disaster of Although only 85,000 members of the world's largest trade union have been called out (all of them in one region), the strike has had a major impact nationally.

Employers have locked out a further 146,000 workers in North Vuerttemberg-North Baden.

The block in supply of components to the motor industry has already produced short-time working In Daimler Benz's Berlin plant, and threatens layoffs throughout Volkswagen.

Leading the way

The strike's significance is not confined to the outcome of the metal-workers' own claims for a wage increase, and job protection.

In the past, they have led the way for all sections of the West German labour movement in gaining Airbe ts sichem DESHALS WIFO bestreat STREIN Schmidt increased wages and conditions.

The dispute has become a crucial trial of strengthnominally between the unions and the employers.

The true line-up behind this sham is of course very different, with capitalists, social democrat politicians union bureaucrats all working in different areas but united by the common aim of defending capitalism.

It was only the determined militancy of rank and file workers which led to even this partial strike.

But militancy alone cannot generate the political clarity which the metalworkers need to combat the alliance ranged against them.

Vithout a Trotskyist leadership to direct their struggles, these workers will be finally powerless as their present leaders move to sell them out down the line into speed-up and unemployment.

to Giscard Marchais In a procession of unashamed treachery, the working class leaders of France have trooped to visit President Giscard d'Estaing.

The meetings were in stark contrast to the arrangements of 1974 when Mitterand refused a similar invitation after his defeat by Giscard in the presidential election.

After the Socialist Party leader, the heads of the major union confederations and CP Arbels PAN Jare leader Marchais filed in for their audiences the Elysee Palace.

There were no furtive rendezvous, but an occasion to declaim carefully-prepared public statements outside the Elysee.

These pronouncements were no doubt very different in content from the promises exchanged, or the unspoken agreements reached within the palace itself.

rmal Marchais and Seguy (secretary-general of the Stalinist-led CGT - union) confined themselves to formal repetitions of the CP's version of the 'common programme"

It was left to Mitterand and Maire (secretary-general of the socialist-dominated union CFDT) to suggest the real significance of this spate of interviews.

With characteristic pomposity, Mitterand enlarged on his belief that the 'national interest' should be placed above differences of political opinion, and that the opposition should respect the 'national community' which it represents.

His humble request for reforms in the 'daily practice of democracy' were given backing by Maire.

This determined collaborator argued urgently for greater flexibility from employers in confronting workers' demands, and brandished the threat that intransigence would only provoke the development of revolutionary consciousness beyond the reach of the long arm of the bureaucracy Overworked This dire warning is of course not a fantasy from fevered imagination of an