fwd: Denmark on strike

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 01:06:53 +0200
From: Martin Johansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Denmark on strike
Sender: Marxism International 
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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply-To: Marxism International 
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Comrades,

This mail is sent to Marxism-International and a number of other people

Firstly I have to say that when I first wrote on the Danish strikes it
was my first appearance "in the open" on the Internet. And the response
has been overwhelming. Many people has written back with questions,
greetings and so on. This is really fantastic. But I am also a bit sorry
that I right now feel that I have got too little time to answer back to
you.

But let me try to give you a kind of update on day 3 of the strike.

The first three days has been very impressing and has had enormous
impact on the whole of society. There is a very big difference to the
last big strike in 1985. At that time nobody really paid attention to
the strike, although it numbered some 300,000 in the beginning (later on
it grew to 7-900,000 -- at least). But this time _everyone_ looks at the
strike. Right from the beginning the strike has been in everybodys minds.
In buses, in supermarkets, on the street, in the workplaces --
everywhere people are discussing the strike. And I think that a majority
of workers actually supports the strike, being part of it or not, as a
poll this weekend showed that in the population as a whole there was 40
pct. for and 40 pct. against the strike.

The employers' response to the strike is a lock-out of 70,000 supermarket
workers and electricians from next Monday. This step just shows how
nasty they are, trying to starve people to end the strike. The trade
unions' answer to this is that they will try to secure delivery of goods
to one supermarket chain, the Co-op which is very big in Denmark, in
order to break the lock-out. And the trade unions has promised that they
will make arrangements, so that the lock-out of electricians won't be
felt by ordinary people.

But meanwhile, the top bureaucrats in the trade unions have begun
negotiations with the employers which could end in a very nasty deal.
The employers have declared that they will not give in to any demands
which will exceed the original contract (that was rejected by the workers).
The bureaucrats seem to be very understanding about this. On meetings and
demonstrations they have argued exactly this. So they could very well end
up with a new contract with unvisible concessions.

It is hard to predict the workers' response to this. Right now most
workers seem to be willing to reject such an offer. The central demand
most places is an extra week holiday on top of the original contract --
no less than that.

But time can work both for and against the willingness to fight. At this
moment the strike is not very active, but it could easily change if
workers feels that a new contract gives them too little. On the other
hand the ruling class and the media tries very hard to make the strike
unpopular, telling stories about suffering chickens and pigs who grow
too fat for their cages because they cannot be transported to the
slaughterhouses; about one medico-chemical factory that produces
anti-plague medicine to the world market and in just one day seems to
run dry of all medicine on stock, and so on. These stories hasn't had
that much impact yet, but it could change.

On Friday there will be May Day rallies all over the country. May Day
rallies use to be a very big event in Denmark, with 1-200,000 attending
in Copenhagen alone. The May Day rallies are a mixture of politics and
festival, but seems this year to have the potential to be even bigger
and much more political. Therefore the trade union bureaucrats are right
now trying to sabotage their own May Day rally in Copenhagen ... telling
people that because of the strike there will be no music, no beer, no
stalls and so on. It is unbelievable that a trade union, which in fact
right now has very big control over production, is not able to make
arrangements to make their own rally successful. There is not that much
workers' power here. But I think that they want to avoid that the
Copenhagen rally becomes to much of a focus for strikers and other parts
of the working class who would like to join the strike.

So this is the situation right now. The government doesn't want to even
talk about the strike. The trade union bureaucrats are looking for ways
to close down the movement. The employers are internally split over how
many concessions, if any, the have to give. The workers have very little
organization from below. The situation is unstable, it could collapse or
it could explode. In these hours, although, we are closer to an
explosion than a collapse -- which is why the ruling class is very
nervous and very careful in these days.


--------------------------------------------
Martin Johansen
tlf: +45 35 37 65 91
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]