2024-03-24 09:46:22
Why are there so many strikes at the moment? Strike researcher Alexander Gallas sees three main reasons for this. In an interview with t-online he explains which ones.
A year rarely begins with so many strikes: If Deutsche Bahn isn’t on strike, it’s local public transport. Or the ground staff at the airport. Or the nursing staff in clinics.
Why is that? And will this continue? Yes, says Alexander Gallas. The strike researcher sees three main reasons why the strikes are intensifying right now.
t-online: Mr. Gallas, Germany is currently experiencing major strikes almost every week that are paralyzing the country. A comparison often comes up with France, where there are always large protests. Are French conditions threatening in Germany?
Alexander Gallas: Nope. Basically, there are four to five times as many strikes in France as here. The final figures for 2023 and the first months of 2024 are not yet available. However, it is becoming apparent that strike activity in Germany has intensified. We already had an intense year in 2015, and probably again in 2023. At the same time, however, strikes are different: We mainly have strikes in the service sector and in public infrastructure, which have a much greater impact on people’s everyday lives.
Why are strikes increasing at the moment?
Three reasons are crucial: On the one hand, we have a labor shortage – especially in the sectors where there are now a lot of strikes. Employees are therefore prepared to take risks and make demands on their bosses. Things are different in times of high unemployment. The second problem is overload. At the railways in particular, many positions remain unfilled and there is a high level of sickness. The number of employees is less than half what it was at the time of change in 1989/90. That is a really dramatically large gap. This means that employees work a lot of overtime and become frustrated.
The weak real wage development. Due to inflation in 2022, real wages in Germany fell by four percent. Especially people who don’t earn that much feel this very clearly in their wallets. All this together makes it an opportune time for unions to achieve something.
To person
Dr. Alexander Gallas is a political scientist and researches strikes at the University of Kassel. His book “Exiting the Factory: Strike and Class Formation Beyond the Industrial Sector” will be published in the middle of the year.
Particularly The shortage of skilled workers will probably be with us for several years to come. Do we have to prepare for years of strikes?
Yes. Germans are getting older and older, so the labor shortage will not disappear into thin air. However, the so-called sectoral shift could relieve pressure on the labor market. In other words, some sectors are coming under pressure in the course of the ecological transformation and jobs are being cut to a noticeable extent, for example the automotive supply industry or the steel industry. In short, this workforce could be deployed elsewhere.
It is also often stated that the unions use strikes to recruit members and that this can also be a factor why the strikes are currently so large and are sometimes called so quickly.
Strikes make unions more attractive, that’s a fact. There are very simple reasons for this, such as the strike pay that you only get paid if you are in the union. Successful strikes also show potential new members that the union is fighting for them and creating noticeable improvements. It is also vital for unions to attract new members. Since 1990 they have become smaller and smaller. But now there are signs of a certain trend reversal.
They believe that the unions recorded a relatively large number of new members last year. Can we actually speak of a trend reversal at this point?
Of course you have to be careful: Is it a clear trend or a one-off event? What is interesting, however, is that among the many new members – Verdi alone speaks of 200,000 – there are many young people. This could indicate a trend reversal. We are also observing a similar development in other countries.
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