THE WHOLE BAKERY!

By Gisela Notz

[This article on social cuts and the women’s movement published in: Forum Wissenschaft, 5/12/2005 is translated abridged from the German on the World Wide Web, www.linksnet.de/artikel.php.]


In the past years a series of commissions advised the German government with its so-called reform packages. The main goal of these “reforms” is to increase the competitiveness of German industry, particularly against the US, its main rival. At the same time all the parties call for the “upswing.” Both should be attained through a bundle of measures that – as will be shown – are against wageearners, unemployed and those who are poor and excluded anyway.

Firstly, lengthening paid working hours should assure competitiveness. “We” Germans work around 400 hours less than workers in the US, it is argued. Since 1/1/2004, working hours can be extended to more than eight hours without overtime compensation which actually means a reduction of income. The proposed raising of the pension age to 67 will also lead to reductions because many people have not reached retirement age and must accept deductions. Women are especially affected because they have the lowest pensions anyway. Secondly, the labor market should be made flexible and the duration of unemployment benefits restricted. The resolved combination of unemployment assistance and income support is part of this flexibility. Thirdly, protection against unlawful termination is undermined and the pressure to accept nearly any job is increased. Fourthly, the non-wage labor costs should be lowered to diminish the employer’s share in the pension- and social security systems. Old age and health insurance systems should be privatized. Fifthly, the state withdraws from social obligations and corporations are simultaneously relieved from taxes. The withdrawal of the state represents a further cut of the standard of living for the mass of the population. This reduced living standard is manifest in concentration on the family and extension of voluntary social work – both mainly at the expense of women..

AGAINST THE STREAM

Important questions that urgently need answers include: How will families with low incomes survive in the future? (14) How will those who fall out or are thrown out live when families are overstrained? Do we really want new lower classes between well-paid persons and poorly-paid mini-jobbers (mostly migrants)? What about the demand for meaningful dignified work and an adequate income for everyone seeking an adequate income? What about the question of the social causes of unemployment and social inequality? What social groups are developing action strategies to realize more justice and thus defend democracy and human rights? Finally, meaningful socially useful paid work and the unpaid work absolutely necessary for the reproduction of a society should be distributed among all people. The participation of women and men in all of life is crucial.

Humanitarian actions are glorified simultaneous with new strategies for exclusion. (15) These actions are necessary but not sufficient. “Tables” with food for the poor and needy hardly diminish the wealth of the well-to-do like rich women distributing soup for the poor at the beginning of industrialization. This multiplies the social prestige of the charitable and humiliates the starving. The grieving remain poor.

Rebuilding the social state is imperative. Social concepts should be developed that prevent poverty and exclusion. Reforms of structures that have long needed revitalization are vital. Access to the university and education should be extended, not undermined. From a feminist view, labor market- and social policies are necessary that redistribute from top to bottom, not from bottom to top and treat all persons as independent individuals. All persons should be able to assure their own existence with their own meaningful work and guarantee their old age provisions. Without this security, many creative potentials – including the self-help powers cited agaqin and again in relation to women’s projects – will remain unused.

Lastly, the problem of social insecurity and inequality can no longer be solved only on the national plane or the European plane. The gap of inequality cannot be closed without a redistribution of present socially necessary work (paid and unpaid), redistributing wealth, transfers to the poverty regions of the world and a worldwide code of ethics, human rights and border-crossing solidarity. Leftist femionists have known they have a hard time when they swim in the mainstream. They never wanted half of the mouldy cake but sought to change the bakery completely. We will also have to swim against the stream now and then. This is hard but possible.

Resistance against the paradigm change in labor market and social policies only seems possible with strenuous effort. Great uncertainty exists among the affected about the meaning of the legal changes. Perhaps many really believed they had to tighten their belts again and later noticed that the belts of others didn’t fit their stomachs any more. The demonstrations in Berlin on 11/1/2003 with 100,000 participants who all came without trusting the heads of unions, the student-organized strikes and demonstrations in November 2003 with tens of thousands in Munich, Berlin, Hanover and Wiesbaden, the large demonstrations on the occasion of the European Social Forum on 11/15/2003 in Paris and on 12/13/2003 in several large cities in Germany encourage hopes that the mood will change. Student protests are directed against the introduction of tuition fees and against social cuts. Students are also the employees (or the unemployed) of tomorrow. Perhaps the unemployed, income support recipients and students will unite in an alliance against education- and social cuts.