Ulrich Rippert is a member of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site. He is a founding member of the League of Socialist Workers (BSA)—the forerunner of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei—and has been active in the Trotskyist movement for over 50 years.
The declaration of the IG Metall executive board in support of the massive war credits makes it clear that the struggle against rearmament and war cannot be waged with, but only against the trade union apparatuses and their control in workplaces.
Wolfgang devoted over 50 years of his life to building the Trotskyist party and fought tirelessly politically and theoretically for the independence of the working class.
The new contract in the metal and electrical industries, which IG Metall agreed to without a workplace vote and despite the declared opposition of many members, marks the beginning of a new stage in the struggle against the union apparatus.
For the first time at BVG, the rank-and-file “Action Committee” is running a slate of candidates and calling for workers to break the dictatorial control exercised by the Verdi trade union and for independent rank-and-file committees to be set up in all depots and departments.
Since the Transport Workers Action Committee published a statement in support of its candidates for the staff council elections at Berlin’s regional transport provider (BVG), a lively discussion has been taking place among workers at the company.
Volkswagen management is planning a radical cost-cutting program, but has so far kept details secret.
Niklaus was suspended for condemning the Gaza genocide and calling for the struggle against deteriorating working conditions to be linked to the fight against war.
The announcement by the VW Group that it is terminating the agreement on job security, cutting tens of thousands of jobs and closing entire plants and production sites is a declaration of war on all workers and marks the beginning of a new stage in the class struggle.
Steelworkers at Thyssenkrup must break the control of the corrupt trade union apparatus and its mafia-like company structures and take the defence of jobs into their own hands.
The announced job cuts are part of a comprehensive rationalisation plan, which also includes the closure of so-called “unprofitable lines.”
The transition from combustion engines to electric cars is being used by corporations and investors worldwide to cut jobs, reduce production costs and increase profits.
What GDL union leader Claus Weselsky grandiosely describes as a reduction in train drivers’ working hours, with full wages maintained, is in fact the opposite: a reduction in real wages and an open-ended “working time corridor” leading to longer working hours and lower pay.
Train drivers have to face the fact that there is no way forward with the GDL. It is necessary to build independent rank-and-file action committees that are democratically organised and that focus on the principled defence of workers’ interests.
The so-called “concerted strikes” being organised by service sector union Verdi are in reality fragmenting the industrial action. What is necessary is the building of independent rank-and-file action committees that take the struggle into their own hands.
The massive loss of votes by the Social Democrats is the just deserts for their right-wing policies of military rearmament, war, xenophobia and social cutbacks.
IGM and the works council are urging the workforce to accept an “overall packet” in a ballot on February 22. This would be the final nail in the coffin that the works council head is hammering into the plant and would mean that auto production in Saarlouis will be history by the end of 2025.
President Steinmeier invited the unions and employers to his official residence to discuss their support for the government’s policies of social cuts and war.
We are publishing here the tribute to Helen Halyard written by Ulrich Rippert, the former national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party of Germany (Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei) and founding member in 1971 of its predecessor, the League of Socialist Workers (Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter).
The Israeli government could not carry out its brutal genocide against the Palestinians without the support of the German government, and the German government could not maintain this support without the close cooperation of the Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB, German Trade Union Confederation.
Last week’s congress of the German industrial union IG Metall, which ended on Thursday in Frankfurt am Main, makes clear the reaction of the union leadership to growing opposition to cuts in social spending, to the rearmament of the military and to war.
