F you were in East Germany as an official of the IG-Metall trade union. What were your impressions of the development of the union in terms of its membership base and its struc-
There was a very large influx of members. By May we had about 22,000 mem- BETWEEN November 1990 and May 1991 Dieter Reinken, bers in Rostock and the surrounding the secretary of the IG-Metall trade union in Bremen, was district. This is less than the old East German IG-Metall, but is nonetheless a good sent to the East German port of Rostock in order to assist level of organization. The members are with the administrative re-organization there. This interview mainly in the big plants such as Neptun- with Dieter first appeared in Sozialistische Zeitung, the Werft, Warno-Werft, Schiffelektronik, Dieselmotorenwerke. Here we have so to weekly paper of the German United Socialist Party (VSP). speak taken over most of our members from the old East German union.
The origin of the officials is a more complicated matter. Since the changes there has been something of a revival of trade union activity in most of the big plants in Rostock. There had been attempts at change in the framework of the Northern Region of the IG-MetallDDR.
In February 1990 it split from the centre and founded its own regional centre from which developed a series of initiatives in the plants. New elections for representatives and leading instances were held to establish new structures and put new people into the leading positions. It is these circles that are mainly responsible for forming workers' councils in the big plants.l
These people were not wholly inexperienced. However they were ill-prepared for dealing with Federal German enterprise law and the new daily reality - like, for example, West German managerial methods which were now being energetically applied.
This began with apparently small problems. Already in the summer of 1990 there was propaganda flying around, largely instigated by Western enterprise advisers, concerning the reduction of the costs of production. Individual departments were hived off if they were not considered necessary for that particular plant. They were then handed over to foreign and Western firms and to some extent sold to groups of employees as private property. This, naturally, called into question a whole series of social benefits. Canteens were closed almost at once and cleaning staff fired.
Then there was the question of how to work out the rules for short time working — unemployment still being illegal at that time. Then there were questions which come under the heading of organization, such as the organization of payment of wages, and issues relating to the confidentiality of personal data.
These are all issues that we in the West had had years to grapple with, while these people had to get to grips with them in a few months, apart from dealing with the destruction of entire sites, the sacking of entire workforces, the abandonment of social plan negotiations and the issue of the "employment associations". • Can you tell us about what happened in the region's biggest enterprise, DMS?
There were of course problems in all of the region's enterprises, but the dominant industry in the region was the German Machine and Ship Building Company (Deutschen Maschinen- und SchiffbauGesellschaft - DMS), which in the last years of the DDR's existence was changed from a Kombinat into a licensed company employing 54,000 people. It took in all the big shipyards along the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coastline on the Baltic, including small inland shipyards, machine building plants and engineering, research and trading offices. • Owing to the agreements made, people were not sacked but put on no-time working.What effect did this have in the Rostock region?
It should be remembered that, owing to orders from the Soviet Union and the West, the shipyards were at full production; thus there was overtime and short time running side by side. • The press said about these orders that the proceeds would only cover half of the costs of production. What are the prospects for the region's industrial structure?
As far as the mentioned orders are concerned, the share-holders will get their money. It is impossible to be certain
From early on we have reckoned that the situation for the ship-building industry is critical and have made no secret of the fact that there will not be 54,000 jobs here and that it is quite likely that only half will remain. Precise figures and the exact nature of the changes remain con• Thus there is no sign of a Western firm?
No, no one wants to come in. On the contrary there have been declarations by all the shipyards that they do not intend to take over either DMS or its parts, even in
Presumably the calculation is that they can get their hands on DMS' orders and capacity when DMS is finished. IG-Metall has taken a position against this, saying that the outfit should be kept together and that the individual - inevitably smaller — units should continue to build ships rather than merely performing secondary functions for the Western yards. • What role did the "Wessis" play?
The advice which we gave was wellreceived. The problem is that there always comes a point at which our colleagues would give in to the immediate economic power in the plant, who would come up with very plausible arguments about the market and with promises about the future. Then our advice would be questioned.
When, however, the situation in the enterprise got hot, then conflicts broke out between what we believed possible and what the people concerned felt capable of doing in the plant. Often we arrived too late; the agreement had already been made and signed. • What is your estimate of the readiness to resist? You have been able to mount quite successful mobilizations but often the opposite has occurred
Both are true at the same time. By this I mean that there was for a time a great readiness for political resistance. This was shown by the big demonstrations that we were able to mount in the region and also by numerous actions at the workplace level.
At the same time this has gone together with a readiness to swallow all kinds of things in the workplaces.
This is not wholly a contradiction. It took place under the motto: if we can only shake things up in the workplace then we
1. Factory councils are legally recognized institutional 5
structures in Germany.
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GERMANY resignation
International Viewpoint #215 • October 28, 1991
GERMANY TREUMAND can meet the demands of the market and be ready for the world market. Thus plans by the Trehand and the government for dismantling entire production sites were met with great indignation.
The political opposition then ended up in a blind alley, because it became clear that the course of the capitalist world could not be halted by demonstrations, even if these had been enough to get rid of Honecker. • The expression of this political opposition were the regular Monday demonstrations.
These played almost no role in Rostock. We concentrated the whole discussion on the issue of the ship-building industry. This was relatively successful, because it provided a concrete goal and people knew what it was about. A role was also played apparently at the time by the fact that a wage round was underway. • But then the movement fizzled out. The trains for the central demonstration in Berlin in April from Rostock and other towns of the exGDR were empty.
My impression is that people had become disillusioned about what was possible in terms of an alternative economic policy. They were experiencing the full force of the wave of sackings. While until June 30 there was statutory protection against dismissal, nonetheless what was going to happen was already clear.
Expectations had changed in the IGMetall to such an extent that nobody really believed any longer that the basic economic development in the ex-GDR could be changed. In my view IG-Metall, and the DGB (German Trade Union Confederation) as a whole, were from the beginning very hopeful, far more so than the parties.
I believe that this is still true but the scope has been reduced to that of enter• prise and wage negotiations. I mysel have experienced the rapid change in ci mate. • I. had the Impression that the formula "clean-out not privatization" was, for a time, a popular and striking slogan on the demonstrations. Howedged, was this not a way of the logic of the Treuhand and It certainly played a role. Less because of the content of the slogan than as a region privatization has not played such a big role because the big morsel is the DMS and Western interests have thus far not got involved. No one wants the thing and this leads to constant anxiety that, if this remains the case, the whole complex
The opposition is not to "privatization" but to the Treuhand's • An important topic has also been the discussion on the "employment associations". What have been the experiences in Rostock with these, and what do those who go onto them expect?
The practical value of these associations is that people are not immediately thrown into poverty; they are kept together and given training. But of course there is no question that it also makes it easier for the entrepreneurs to sack people and for the workplace councils to accept restructuring. A further practical consequence could be that it could promote the development of a local goverment economic policy. • An opposition cannot really be developed with such a policy. What you have described is the classical position in favour of social cushioning, that is, the best possible social plan, that we have often criticized.
Then, how can this potential for opposition be developed? • It is quite clear that such actions mean that the entrepreneurs are no longer viewed as the direct problem or the logic of the market chal-
I start from the view that this conception allows the strengthening of the positive demands of the employees, and in any case, there is no basis for any other conception. Here everything is submitted to the market. This is the universal position.
This is also true for the left; even the PDS' has nothing but the market to offer. Where the market outlook dominates we should be glad that these employment associations deflect the full force of the market for a time. • Do you not also think that the dramatically negative experiences of the market that have already occurred could strengthen the readiness to challenge the pro-market ideology?
Over there I learnt little else than that everybody considers conformity to the market as the normal state of things. There is a different attitude to the market there than the usual one in the West: people think; our production will be competitive if only we can get rid of a few political burdens. If we were allowed to get things right, then we would be as competitive as the enterprises in the West. • How do people respond to the argument about the feeble managerial capacity in the enterprises?
It is widely believed among the whitecollar workers, in particular near the top, that the cause of the bad developments lies in inefficiency and sloppiness: the workers perceive things differently; they say we have already given our work, the problem is above all the hugely inflated administration and the bureaucracy. However they all share the feeling that, if things were "properly" taken in hand, then all would be well.
First of all they want to be shot of the old baggage. They put much of the blame for the crisis on the old functionaries responsible for mismanagement who engaged in false accounting and bad organization.
There can be no question that people's viewpoints on the present developments are strongly influenced by the preceding course of economic development in the ex-GDR.
There are a series of people in the workplaces and elsewhere who are abandoning themselves to nostalgia and consider that what existed before was not so terrible. The unifying point of such ideas is a very positive assessment of the services provided by the firm, in terms of housing, kindergartens and facilities for women. However in • my opinion everything depends on the kind of people who will be the final winners out of the developments underway.
Even if a third bemoan the passing of the old times they are not a real political force. • Do you not belleve that the impact of mounting social misery in the coming period will throw pro-market thinking into crisis?
This is not really my impression. Nor is it true from a world political point of