Austrian school students show the way
APRIL 24 saw the biggest school students’ strike
since the 1980s, with 60,000 pouring onto the streets all over Austria.
These are the first signs of growing unrest and struggles in the wake of
the economic crisis. The action was the third school strike within three
weeks, coming just after a 10,000 strong national school students’
strike on 20 April, taken in solidarity with the teachers. Hours after
that strike, the GÖD public-sector union capitulated to the government
and called off another strike planned for 23 April.
This deal did not include the original plan of
social democrat (SPÖ) education minister, Claudia Schmied, to increase
the teachers’ working week by two hours, but it did include the
cancellation of five so-called ‘autonomous school days’, school-free
days that could be fixed locally. This, in effect, is still a
lengthening of working hours for the teachers without any benefit for
school students. In addition, the union leadership accepted pay cuts for
the teachers. The social democrat teachers’ union representative was
virtually forced by the SPÖ leadership to agree to this deal. This is
another reminder that the SPÖ leaders use their links with the unions to
force through attacks, and is a further illustration of why a new
workers’ party is needed urgently so that struggles can be successful.
The school students’ strike on 24 April was sparked
by anger about the cancellation of much-needed holidays. Despite drawing
much larger numbers onto the streets, reflecting the growing intent on
the part of many students to fight the government’s attacks, the strike
was, in a way, less political than the previous one, in that the 20
April strike, organised by left school student organisations, was called
explicitly in solidarity with the teachers and against cuts in
education.
The 24 April strike was co-organised by the Peoples’
Party’s school students’ organisation, Schülerunion, which had reached a
deal with Schmied the day before on cancelling three of the proposed
five days holiday. The Peoples’ Party (ÖVP) , traditionally Austria’s
main capitalist party, forms the national coalition government with
Schmied’s SPÖ. The Schülerunion had planned to use the strike to
celebrate this deal as a victory. But it had underestimated the dynamic
of the events. Most school students who went on strike were not at all
satisfied with the deal and demanded the full amount of holidays,
refusing to be punished for the mistakes of capitalism.
In Vienna, the demonstration that was organised by
the left organisations had a far larger turnout than the one organised
by Schülerunion. In Salzburg, where the strike was mainly organised by
the Sozialistische Linkspartei (SLP - CWI Austria), the mood on the
strike was very political. It addressed the economic crisis and
criticised the leadership of the teachers’ union for backing down and
failing to lead a serious struggle against the government’s attacks, and
it included contingents of young trade unionists. The Salzburg demo on
20 April was bigger than the one in Vienna, with 3,000 turning out. On
24 April, 8,000 school students struck in Salzburg, a city of 150,000
inhabitants. That strike indicated the politicisation of a layer of
young school students who have now been drawn into action, with some
drawing anti-capitalist conclusions as the current crisis is used to
attack their futures. These young people now need to get organised
around a fighting platform to fight against the attacks on education and
living standards, including growing youth unemployment, and to put
pressure on the trade unions to lead a real effective struggle.
As this movement got underway, the SLP launched
www.schulstreik.at,
a website as well as a school students’ paper, as a forum for school
students who want to get active in the struggle and strikes. It has
raised the need to link the attacks on education with the economic
crisis and the need for a common struggle of teachers and school
students. This then should be linked to the struggles of other layers of
society in order to build the strongest possible movement against
attempts to make workers and youth pay for this crisis. There is still
massive anger among school students and especially teachers. The fact
that the teachers’ strike on 23 April would have included a
demonstration during working hours reflected the enormous pressure from
below. This pressure will not just evaporate.
The developing economic crisis is increasingly
provoking resistance on the part of the working class. The government’s
budget that is being presented as a ‘crisis intervention budget’ is
definitely not a favourable one to the working class – €10.3 billion is
being allocated to bank rescue packages. But this may not be enough to
rescue Austria’s banks which are heavily threatened by financial crises
in central and eastern Europe. The economic crisis is already having a
social effect. Three weeks ago the president of the Caritas Catholic
charity accused the Austrian elite of carrying out a ‘class struggle’
against workers, thereby undermining the ‘social-market economy’.
The trade union leaders had originally intended to
ignore the economic crisis. But sections of them were forced to support
the ‘we won’t pay’ demo on 28 March and, increasingly, they are being
forced to mobilise. There is a looming strike threat by print workers,
as the bosses’ organisation is attempting to drop collective bargaining
and, because of the pressure from below, the Austrian Trade Union
Federation (ÖGB) has been forced to call protests on the issue of wage
negotiations. The SLP and other left organisations are calling for
action to link the different struggles into a generalised one. It is
clear that a socialist alternative is needed to end the system of
capitalist chaos and crisis.
Laura Rafetseder
Sozialistische Linkspartei - CWI Austria:
http://www.slp.at
