> Reformist social democracy is no longer on the agenda
> The anti-globalisation movement is the basis of a left alternative
> Fausto Bertinotti
> Monday August 11, 2003, The Guardian
>
> carrying on its attack on the pension system. In Germany, for the first
> time in 50 years, IG Metall ended a strike to extend the 35-hour working
> week to the eastern regions without achieving any result whatsoever.
Not quite -- IG Metall ran some major strike actions in 1984, if I recall aright, and got nowhere against the Kohl government. The demise of the Central European labor movement is greatly exaggerated. (Thank the gods. Otherwise this planet would be uninhabitable.) It's true that the recession has kept the Euroleft on the defensive, for now.
> real democratic power able to achieve its objectives. Its greatest
> limitation seems to be the lack of a connection between the great issues
> of globalisation, war and peace and the intermediate dimension of
> employment and production relations. The inability to build a concrete
> link between the fight against globalisation and the fight against
> insecurity and exploitation is a shortcoming.
One of the major issues here is the fact that those employment and production relations are interwoven with identity-politics -- the EU has become an immigrant culture, just like the US, but most of its policies don't reflect this. Immigrants form huge sections of the EU working-class, though, and they've been the primary targets of Eurocapital's war on the welfare state. This also ties in with the potentially positive role of the European Investment Bank and EU enlargement, because those immigrant communities send remittances back to their home countries (and are an important source of solidarity for progressive movements in those countries).
> insecurity. This battle, however, has not taken on a European dimension.
> The European trade unions decided not to call a general strike against the
> war, which would have also been a boost to the fight against
> neo-liberalism.
General strikes aren't necessarily the most effective weapon against the US oiligarchy. Much more effective: pressure on the US' increasingly vulnerable trade/current account position.
-- DRR