European workers resist austerity

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Stan Meunier is a youth organizer of the Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste in Paris, France, and a member of the NPA’s minor­ ity current, Anti-Capitalism and Revolu­ tion. He gave the following presentation while participating in a Socialist Actionsponsored speaking tour that included New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Minneapolis, and Toronto.

At some of the tour stops, Meunier was joined on the platform by Socialist Action National Secretary Jeff Mackler; Manos Soufogio of OKDE-Spartakos, Greek section of the Fourth International; Gabriel Lafleur of the French NPA; and other speakers. I ing class on a world scale in the name n this time of renewed attacks of the rul­ of austerity, I am here to bring you news from the Old Continent. The situation there is of interest not only because of the violence of the attacks but also because of the mechanisms of resistance that it trig­ gered.

The neo-liberal era that was initiated in the 1980s, and the general retreat of the labor movement, greatly weakened the European welfare state, which had its origins in the aftermath of the Second World War. The program of the European ruling class has been clear: In order to maintain its level of profits in a period of crisis, it needs to get rid of the remnants of the welfare state in order to finally address the issue of high labor costs in Europe.

European workers are accused of having led the high life for many years—and it’s said that they should make up for their follies. But what high life are we talking about? The money borrowed by the Euro­ pean states was mainly used to bail out banks, and give tax cuts to the rich and to big business. Almost none of this money was used to build roads, schools, or hospitals. In short, the public debt is actually the private debt of the rich and the banks; they are mak­ ing us pay under the false pretense that we are all in the same boat.

Let us now enter into the heart of the matter—the movements against austerity in Europe. In Northern Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Britain), the economy has fared better for the capitalist class due to past neo-liberal reforms, the stronger integra­ tion of the trade-union bureaucracy within the state apparatus, and the profound demoralization of the working class—which has produced political and so­ cial apathy. We saw some struggles against austerity in countries of this region, but they were even more isolated and more easily defeated than elsewhere.

In contrast, you have Southern Europe and Ire­ land, where austerity is hitting the hardest, and the social movements were not destroyed in the past. In Greece, Spain, and Portugal unions called huge gen­ eral strikes, and trade-union-based local strikes (the teachers’ strike in Greece, the movement against pre­ carious work in Portugal), and sometimes with self-managed factories (like Vio-ME in Greece and Rima­ flow in Italy).

There were also very radical movements outside of the workplace (i.e., against the opening of pollut­ ing gold mines in the north of Greece), or some that were able to combine activity both inside and outside the workplace, like the marea blanca, the movement against hospital closures in Madrid—one of the very few movements that actually won their demands, in part because of strong support from some sections of the bourgeois class whose quality of health would be impacted as well.

But most of these struggles led to defeat. Tradeunion bureaucrats, whose grip is still fierce, orga­ nized the general-strike days merely for people to vent their anger, and not to truly challenge auster­ ity. Moreover, in Southern Europe but also in France, strong attacks on democratic rights, women’s rights, or minorities are being waged by the ruling class to both repress and divide working people.

On the electoral level, there is still no rise of the far left, but in Southern Europe, there are a few interest­ ing developments one has to take into account, most­ ly in Greece and Spain. Traditional political parties are largely discredited. This is the product of two fac­ tors: one is the higher level of fightback against aus­ terity; the other is the rising inability of the different factions of the bourgeois class, whether on a Euro­ pean or national level, to really solve their problem of safeguarding profits. They implement austerity, thus lowering the purchasing power of the workers, who are in turn unable to buy goods and services.

These developments opened an opportunity in which some “left of the left” organizations were able to gain good electoral scores in Spain and even to be­ come the government in Greece.

Greece has been among the countries hardest hit by the crisis. The GDP has dropped 30% since 2008, and the bosses are making the workers pay the bill. On top of the crisis of 2008, the countries that were con­ temptuously dubbed the PIIGS by the ruling classes (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) went into even deeper crisis since 2010. This was not only because of the general fragility of their economy, a natural consequence of 70 years of overspecializa­ tion (tourism in Greece, construction in Spain, etc.) with the blessing of the National and European rul­ ing classes, strengthened even after the entry into the European Union, but also because of the bailouts plus tax cuts to the rich. For example, in Greece the Orthodox Church, which is the biggest landowner in the country, and the shipbuilders, pay no taxes at all!

First the Greek right wing (New Democracy), and then a coalition of the Socialist Party (PASOK) and the right, put the austerity mode on full steam. All public companies were to be privatized, all remnants of the welfare state to disappear, wages to plummet—all in the name of paying the debt.

The workers’ movement responded to these at­ tacks with many days of general strikes, which the trade-union bureaucracy called because they had no choice. But these were only scattered days, and no ac­ tion was taken for a continuous general strike to truly challenge the power of both the Greek state and Euro­ pean institutions. Some radical struggles took place, inside and outside the workplace, but they mostly failed because they were isolated.

With this in the background, a whole section of the PASOK electorate got tired of the old leaderships, as they were seen only as the servants of the European Union (EU) and of austerity. Their decided to switch their allegiance to Syriza, a small left formation origi­ nating from a Eurocommunist split from the Commu­ nist Party in the 1980s, with its young leader Alexis Tsipras promising to resist the EU.

As we know, when elected, Tsipras capitulated to the EU and offered no real challenge to its austerity program. If the movement of the workers towards Syriza was unquestionably a move to the left, it was born out of despair rather than out of self-confidence of the working class in its ability to change things.

Although workers vote for Syriza, the party has weak links to the social movements. The Greek peo­ ple still feel that Tsipras did his best; at least, that is what the polls show. Will radicalization spring out of disillusionment? It is doubtful.

(Above) Podemos activists, including leader Pablo Iglesias (ctr.), celebrate. The new party has achieved major vote totals in recent elections in Spain.

Furthermore, a national poison is now infiltrat­ ing the country, the idea that the cause of the crisis is the German people rather than the Greek and Eu­ ropean banks and ruling classes. Following on this trend, some fractions of the ruling class are putting forward the idea that Greece would fare better on its own, with its own currency instead of the euro, and exploiting the Balkans even more than now. Will the left resist this pressure towards nationalism? We will have to see, but the prospects aren’t good right now.

Is there more hope in Spain? As in Greece, there is an acute crisis and strong social movements. But the Spanish workers have been able to secure more wins. So their “reformist“ experiment, Podemos, is taking a different turn.

There are several thousand members of Podemos in the local circles or “círculos.” Most of them are the same ones who took part in the struggle against hos­ pital closures, against layoffs in the sector of educa­ tion, in the indignados [“Occupy”] movement, and a lot of unemployed youth with no prospects for their future.

Podemos did pretty well in the European elections and in the local elections in Andalucía. But with suc­ cess, political questions arose. Do we want to take power from above, and facilitate coalitions with exist­ ing parties, or take power from below? Do we advo­ cate just for radical democracy, or social democracy as well?

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, and his crew act completely independently from the base, giving orders from Madrid. One of their models is the Dem­ ocratic Party, and the idea that the problem of the left is not class struggle but semantics, that the left is more rational but needs to get the message out.

One day, to keep their radical base, the Iglesias lead­ ership says they are for wealth redistribution; the next day he says on TV that he likes the rich when they are patriotic and responsible. With the next elec­ tions coming, local in May-June, national in Decem­ ber, Podemos will show its true face. Will the radical sector of the organization be able to capitalize on the betrayal of the leadership? There might be more hope than in Greece.

France is somewhere in between Northern and Southern Europe, and shares some characteristics of both. In the 1980s austerity was implemented by a coalition government of the Communist and Social­ ist parties, and then by the SP alone, with the priva­ tization of public companies, etc., but it never went as far as under Thatcher or Reagan. Also, the French economy is more diversified and bigger than those of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, with a GDP of around $3 trillion—50% higher than Italy’s and more than two times bigger than Spain’s.

Since the beginning of the crisis in Europe in 2008, there have been lots of fights and strikes against layoffs and business closures in France. Auto parts suppliers, car manufacturers, book and disc sell­ ers, retail—all sectors have been impacted, whether manufacturing or services. The rhetoric of the bosses is always the same: we have no money to invest, the (continued on page 11, in “United National Antiwar Coalition Action Plan”)

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‘A model for Podemos is the [U.S.] Democratic Party, and the idea that the problem of the left is not class struggle but semantics.’