The Revitalization of German Trade Unions
Only 51% of the Workers Are Still Covered by Collective Bargaining
German trade unions are on an upward trajectory. This year’s May Day celebrations showed as much as they were well-attended throughout Germany.
German unionists also acknowledged seventy years of Germany’s right to strike. It has been part of Germany’s constitution. On this, corporate media furthered—a they regularly do— the ideology that they are “fair and balanced”.
In 2023 and 2024, strikes and successful negotiation on pay increases also led to a “small”but nevertheless significant upturn in union membership. It seems that all is going well for Germany’s trade unions.
Nonetheless, there could still be more power for trade unions to fight the structural power asymmetry between capital and labor. More powerful unions would also allow unions to fight more successfully against Germany’s far-right and its parliamentarian outfit, the AfD.
Historically, it has always been the trade union movement that was one of the strongest defenders of democracy. This underlines the importance of the right to strike and the relevance of powerful trade unions to protect democracy.
In the wake of European-wide debates, trials, and actual implementations of the 4-day-workweek, trade unions are calling for a reduction of working hours. In Germany, the times when bosses were able to tell workers that they are “too old”and “we don’t want you anymore”are coming to an end.
Today, acute labor shortages are biting Germany’s labor market while placing workers in a powerful employment position. The 4-day-workweek is also pushed by companies because it attracts new employees.
Today, German trade unions seem to be bigger, more successful, and perhaps even more political. German trade unions recorded a slight increase in membership in 2023.
That alone does not mean renewal. Firstly, here is the good news. For the first time since 2001, German trade unions have recorded an increase in membership of, well, just 0.4% in 2023. Small, but after decades of declining union membership, this is a significant upswing.
Things also seem to be going uphill in other countries. In the USA, for example, there have been more strikes in recent times than there have been since the 1970s. However, this is not yet reflected in an increase in union membership.
This is not unusual, and it can be observed in many countries. Meanwhile, trust in trade unionsremains very high compared to that of many other institutions such as, for example, the media, political parties, the state, and sometimes even churches.
At the same time in Germany, there have been 193,000 new Verdi (a public service union) members as well as an increase in membership in Germany’s educational union “GEW”, the hospitality union “NGG”, and the police union (GdP).
Public sector union Verdi has benefited from several disputes in 2023. It was a year in which there were strikes in the retail, postal, and the civil service sectors.
Importantly, there are 50,000 new Verdi members who are under the age of 28. Simultaneously, Germany’s police union “GdP” is seen by many as not being a classical union because of its special status as “civil servant organization” organizing “Beamte” and the unique structure of the police force.
Yet, the GdP benefited from the expansion of the police apparatus and its status as a professional body. Despite being a “kind of” union, the GdP shows authoritarianism and a rather conservative outlook. For example, it often belittles police violence. The GDP also made gains from the loss in other unions’ membership.
Despite all this, increases in union membership are one thing. The recent achievements of German trade unions are also based on successful collective bargaining and strikes.
In line with historically unprecedented high inflation of almost 9%, trade unions have completed correspondingly high—sometimes double-digits– wage increases.
Some workers have received a one-off “inflation compensation” of up to €3.000 [$3.250]. However, the success of recent collective bargaining is also showing some negatives.
After 75 years of Germany’s law assuring collective agreements, only a measly 51% of the workers are still covered by collective bargaining. Worse, in the former East-Germany, the figure is just 45%.
In addition, there are protracted conflicts, such as those in retail, at Amazon and at Tesla. The conflict with Tesla could well become “the Amazon of aunion”, i.e. a long conflict with no results in sight.
Meanwhile, conflicts in new industries such as the Intel factory in Magdeburg could open up and turn out to be problematic for Germany’s powerful IG Metall union.
On the other hand, it is obvious that despite extensive “strike-bashing”by Germany’s corporate media and the frequently repeated quest to restrict the right to strike, public acceptance of strikes is actually growing. This also applies to work stoppages such as:
those of the train drivers’ union “GDL”;
those of the drivers of the Gorillas delivery service; and
those of long-distance truck drivers at the Gräfenhausen service station last spring.
Despite all this, only a small minority of workers in Germany have gone on strike. Yet, the impact of their strikes reaches well beyond their workplaces and their trade unions. Meanwhile, even general strikes like the one in Greece on March 17th are still very rare.
At the same time, not only the state and capital, but also union’s internal differences can stand in the way of a major renewal of trade unions.
In an organizational sense, for example, there is the difference between the old, social partnership and peacefully negotiating union, and the newer model of the more conflict-oriented union. This,too, is not new.
There is a corresponding “double character” of trade unions: institutions that stabilize capitalism vs. being an institution that fights capitalism. It is Ordnungsmacht (flanking capitalism) vs. organizing workers for class war (Gegenmacht).
Worse, the IG Metall union has recently closed its organizing department. As a consequence of much of this, there might be little hope for a new more base-oriented form of unionism.
In a political sense, the trade union movement in Germany is also challenged by support for the neofascist AfD party coming from some union members. Above all, authoritarian, right-wing, and far right populist tendencies in Germany are becoming a problem for trade unions.
Worse, even staunchly anti-democratic AfD apparatchiks have been elected by members of trade unions.
In municipal elections in the southern state of Bavaria, for example, a whopping 18% of the trade unionists voted for the neofascist AfD. In that state, the AfD received 14.6% of support. Similarly in the state of Hesse, it was 21% while the AfD received 18.4% of overall voter support.
Such a paradox also made an appearance in France about twenty years ago when, at Peugeot in northern France, workers voted for communists in works council elections, but in political elections, they voted for the far-right Front National (today- Rassemblement National).
On the one hand, pressed into an asymmetrical power relationship, workers can only defend themselves against the stronger power of companies collectively, as a group. On the other hand, the functions of trade unions to organize, regulate, and pacify capitalism (Ordnungsmacht) is fundamentally at risk if such a position is called into question by a more radical form of grassroot unionism.
Meanwhile, a clear positioning against right-wing authoritarian tendencies is in the self-interest of the trade unions. The central motto of Germany’s trade unions for 1 May 2024 celebrations stood against the AfD’s neo-liberal ideology. It was,higher wages, more free time, more job security.
Higher wages and more free time are the basics of union legitimacy virtually ever since the beginning of the labor movement.
So far, it will still be quite an undertaking to precisely ascertain the level of support for right-wing extremists among German trade union members. Yet, to conduct virtually any strike action, for example, unions in Germany depend on migrant colleagues.
In other words, strikes result in strong trade union commitment that—simultaneously—also immunizes workers against right-wing ideologies. Attempts by right-wing extremists to set “German” workers against “non-German” workers simply become an absurdity, if not obscenity.
However, all this is by no means automatic. Workers’ solidarity remains a living project. Strikes bring solidarity to life.