The Single European
Act and the
social dangers
The establishment of the single market is presented by the bourgeoisie and its politicians as "inevitable". Like industrial restructuring and redundancies, the ruling class presents its policy as the only one possible. No choice, no crossroads for human society. The need to make capital profitable makes a virtue out of necessity.
The "natural" laws of bourgeois economy justify the fact there has been no serious attempt to foresee the social cost of the single market. There is only just beginning to be any attempt to worry about the measures that should be taken, after the fact, to compensate for the most serious social effects of the future capitalist greater Europe. Cynicism or just not caring A working group of the European Commission has studied the problem. Mandated to consider the "social" aspects, it has nevertheless remained faithful to neo-liberal economic doctrine.
Collective experience teaches us that when changes turn out to be inevitable lour emphasis] a necessary condition for their success — and by success we mean socially acceptable and economically possible changes — is to take into account the problems they
56 International Marxist Review pose and thus that the problems are foreseen sufficiently in advance.'
The European Commission itself pleads for:
A continuous overseeing and dialogue, in order to know in time the effects on employment of the introduction of the internal market and to establish, in collaboration with the trade unions, the appropriate shock absorbers.
More cynically, Jacques Delors, president of the European Commission, explains that:
While some categories of the population have certain fears, these are due to the general evolution of the world, Europe should not be made the scapegoat.?
However, there are things to be worried about, particularly as the new discussion on Europe takes place in quite different economic situation than was the case at the time the Treaty of Rome was signed. There is now a high level of structural unemployment and a massive sector of long-term unemployed. More than half the unemployed in Europe have been unemployed for a year or more, one third for more than two years. In 1975 there were 5 million unemployed in the EEC, that is 2.9% of the active population. In 1986 there were 167 million, that is 11% of the active population.
According to different studies, 1992 will be the open door to new growth and thus to an increase in jobs (between 7.6 and 8.3 million according to the different scenarios put forward).4
There are however other forecasts of the first effects of European restructuring, including in the camp of the advocates of a united Europe. In their book Crise, Krach, Boom Michel Albert and Jean Boissonnat call one of their chapters: "1992, a Darwinian purge"!. The Economist explained on 12th March 1988 that the single market would be a "shock". The president of the French employers' association talked recently of passing from the "soft" to the "hard" Europe. The report by Marin, vice-president of the European Commission explained that:
The creation of a big number of new jobs will also be accompanied by the disappearance of many others, and even if the overall result will be positive in the medium term, the new jobs created will not be in the same sectors. They will not demand the same skills and will not be located in the same regions.
Despite these warnings, the European institutions have hardly moved as yet. The standing committee on jobs, composed of representatives of the employers, the trade-unions, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, have up to now only proposed certain axes for thinking about this question.
The European Social Charter (Council of Europe, ratified in 1965 by 14 countries including nine then Community members) was limited to generalities. The SEA approaches the subject timidly with four references: Article 13
Percentages of total unemployed in % which deals with the free movement of Community nationals, Article 18 which touches on health questions, Article 21 which is concerned with the harmonization of health and safety at work conditions, and finally Article 22 which makes some recommendations on the question of "contractual
Among the three hundred directives that are supposed to pave the way for the introduction of the single market there are very few that deal with the social
Inter-community competition and unemployment.
There is a first thing to be noted. The Europe of the Twelve includes very different countries, particularly in their place in the world economy. This relative inequality is today much greater than that which existed among the signatories of the Treaty of Rome. Of course, during the 1970s there was a big sectoral redeployment of capital with more or less the same hierarchies, particularly for all the industries producing equipment goods, and to the benefit of the same sectors. There was thus a trend towards similarity in the structures of
British industry produces, per hour, an added value approximately 35% less
Eur 12
Belgium
Denmark
Germany
Greece
Spain
France
Ireland
Italy
Lux
N'lands
Portugal
UK relations"
dimension.
Women
46.9
62.2
57.9
49.7
54.0
36.2
54.0
33.8
56.2
48.7
44.0
56.4
40.4 production. But this is still far from homogeneity.
April 1986
Youth
40.9
31.8
30.1
28.1
42.6
47.0
37.5
38.5
59.5
45.0
30.4
51.7
34.9
Source: EEC. Europe in figures
The SEA and the social dangers 57
≥12 months
52.1
68.2
32.0
46.9
43.4
56.3
43.8
62.2
63.6
36.8
56.4
48.4
48.7
than that of German companies. In the Spanish state, productivity is approximately 20% less than the Community average. Wages are lower but, as social charges are higher, the real cost of the labour force is more or less the same as the European average. It therefore risks being submerged by imports at very competitive prices. The textile industry could thus lose a fifth of its exports and twenty thousand jobs. The shock could be even greater in the equipment
In Portugal, 22% of the population still belongs to the rural population.
Industry, very orientated to textiles, shoes and building ceramics, will be completely exposed to foreign competition. Portugal will then be considered as an aid-receiving country, receiving every year from Brussels a thousand million Ecus, representing 5% of its PNB. But, in return, it will have to restructure its agriculture before 1995, which would involve completely
More generally, as international capitalist competition will impose big increases in productivity, the goal of 1992 will not slow down but speed up this trend. Already from 1977 to 1985, this race for increased productivity cost
4.3 million jobs in the EEC, one third of which were in the engineering and
Michel Albert and Jean Boissonnat emphasize, moreover, the philosophy of the SEA. Up to now, they say "harmonization rather than deregulation was the priority". Being unable to make further progress in this way, priority is now on deregulation and competition between national regulations. They add:
Order from disorder. It is in this way that, in a few years, the single internal market could, in the eyes of many, seem a zone of purest Darwinian survival of the fittest.?
The European Commission says the same thing when it claims that is it
To adopt the principle of mutual recognition of norms or regulations rather than becoming wor out in the unsuccessful search for a common norm, a common regulation. 10
This renunciation of "harmonization" and the choice of a total opening up of markets, particularly with the disappearance of non-tariff barriers, explains why, on certain points, decisions will no longer be dependent, as they were in the past, on unanimous votes but will be taken with a qualified majority.
These new procedures will encourage immobility in the social field, more
As Jacques Delors stated in the speech quoted above, over the last fifteen steel sectors.® better:
than in others.
58 International Marxist Review goods sector where half the jobs could be under threat.
breaking up and enlarging agricultural holdings.
"Order through disorder"
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, to in c • hema market
The SEA and the social dangers 59 years there has been a certain amount of industrial restructuring which basically reflected world-wide changes. Subsequently they met strictly European requirements, such as for textile, steel or ship-building. But this does not in the least free the European bourgeoisies from their responsibilities for the crisis and the attacks made on the right to work. The effects on industrial restructuring In principle, the SEA will abolish hidden "protectionism". The non-tariff barriers will be rapidly done away with and competition will be a hard test for many companies. But not all sectors will be affected in the same way. The impact will be unequal, depending on the sectors, the country or the locality, and certain sectors and certain companies will undoubtedly benefit from the single market.
The reinforcement of cartels and the. trend towards company mergers are going to increase the shock effect on the job market. This movement towards the centralization of capital exists since the mid-1970s"|, but the SEA is likely to sharpen this process. For a whole period, the Common Market encouraged principally national mergers and pushed towards greater monopolization of national markets. The trend today is to the formation of big European groups or alliances between European and Japanese or American groups. The loss of jobs will therefore continue, causing a greater or lesser increase in unemployment, depending on the branch. The privatizations taking place in some countries will be integrated into this project of European and world-wide restructuring, thus also encouraging internal mutations in the companies concerned.
The first preparations for the effects of the single market take into account the consequences of the disappearance of the non-tariff barriers, of the scope, for the particular branch, of the opening up of trade hoped for within the Community, the differences in prices and in productivity, and finally, the degree of concentration.
According to the study made by a working group of the Community of the "social dimension of the internal market", the sectors the most affected will be those where there are substantial non-tariff barriers, whether there is a high level of trade within the Community or not.
Where there is a high level of trade within the Community, the mergers and monopolization will provoke restructuring and thus reductions of personnel (telecommunications, electronics, for example. The cases where there is little inter-Community trade are mainly railway material, shipbuilding, medical and
Opening the borders for the public market will also mean new forms of inter)Community competition, encouraging other mergers and agreements.
As for the service sector, this is a big mystery, for the working group itself.
There will be sharp and thus all the more devastating competition. The national situations are all very different: in the savings and insurance field, the prices and services proposed are very different from one country to another,
Finally, there will not be any greater protection for small and medium firms, as they were often up to now the sectors very protected by non-tariff
"The generalized fear of social dumping is unfounded" states a recent document of the European Commission.13 One of the possible risks in certain sectors could be a levelling down of wages and social benefits, encouraging companies with a high intensity workforce to delocate to countries where the
In 1984, unit wage costs in the pharmaceutical industry were 49 Ecus in the
Netherlands and 17 in Belgium. For engineering they were 40 Ecus in West
The average wage cost for the employer is 2008 Ecus in West Germany,
1734 in France, 1719 in Belgium, 1423 in Ireland and 386 in Portugal. 14
Social benefits are different according to the countries. Britain accords
23.7% of its GNP to social benefits compared to 31.9% for Belgium. The structure of the social security system is also very different from one country to another. Individual contributions provide 50% of the social security budget in West Germany, 24% in France, 18% in Belgium and only 4% in Denmark.
While it is obvious that certain sectors and certain companies will aim to delocate towards regions where wages are lower, it is also perfectly possible that the government and European institutions will encourage this situation in order to guarantee to certain sectors the low wages they need. A document
As far as competition which extends beyond the borders is concerned, the differentiation in wage costs once converted into the same currency is extremely important because the other essential elements of the costs, such as the use of energy or raw materials as well as the financial costs — once again expressed in the same currency — are usually not very different from one country to another: on this level there are 'world markets' offer-
60 International Marxist Review barriers.!
Towards "social dumping"?
workers are underpaid.
Germany and 20 in Britain.
of the Dresdner Bank explained:
ing practically the same or similar conditions to buyers.!
pharmaceutical goods, and certain agro-foods sectors.
thus increasing competition and the need for restructuring.
The relationship between productivity and wage costs in part determines the hierarchy between different countries and different regions of the Community.
It partly determines long-term investment choices, linked to sub-contracting and infrastructure. The "industrial basins" taken as a whole are experiencing inter-European and international competition. In 1985, spending on wages
(measured in Deutschmarks) for each unit of value of production was 100 in
West Germany, 103 in Belgium, 83 in France, 107 in Italy and 106 in the
Spanish state. This produces one aspect of competition within the Community and between different regions. The SEA is very likely to sharpen these
While the Treaty of Rome recommended balanced regional development, regional polarizations have continued to increase since the mid-1970s. Some are experiencing continuous growth, others decline. The growth hoped for by the defenders of the SEA does not, in any case, mean an equal distribution of the bonus. The already pronounced inequality in economic growth in each
Many elements will contribute to this process. There will be a clearer division of labour between different regions in Europe, with regional "specializations", including strong concentrations of high-tech plants in certain basins to
This trend will be combined with others like, for example, the heterogeneity of tax systems (because there will be no harmonization imposed) or the level of infrastructure, transport and other comparative advantages.
A study by the European Economic Commission of the inequalities already
1975
1981
1985
1986
Regional disparities contradictions.
the detriment of others.
apparent concluded in 1985:
Eur 12
2.9
7.8
10.6
10.7 country of the Community is likely to become worse.
Rates of unemployment in %
USA
8.5
7.6
7.2
7.0
Source: EEC. Europe in figures
The SEA and the social dangers 61
Japan
1.9
2.2
2.6
2.8
The growth potential is based on the quality of regional production factors, the existence of economic and environmental resources, relative accessibility to markets and information. To sum up, this growth potential is based on the supply at regional level, rather than the demand at national level, on "geographic' or "horizontal' factors rather
By combining the per capita GNP and the rate of unemployment, one study has shown the extreme disparity in regional situations in the period 1977-81.
For an average base fixed at 100, it obtained 30/40 for Calabria and the North of Ireland, 50/60 for Corsica, 60/70 for Hainult, 120/130 for Utrecht and 154
In England, the South-East is an area of high economic growth to the detriment of the North-East. In West Germany, Bavaria is "attracting" investment
Disparities in productivity are greater between regions of the same sector than between sectors of the same region. In reality, the levels and rates of growth in productivity are the same in the same region, while they are different from those in corresponding sec-
In other words, the cumulative growth of some will be to the detriment of others. To this could be added the tendency of non-Community companies
(mainly Japanese and American) to make very specific choices for their European implantation. It now being indispensable to create an establishment in each country where they want to work, they can choose the most advantageous country and region, indeed the "least regulated". The "free offer of services" which accompanies the free circulation of capital makes it possible in fact to apply to any EEC client the regulations in the country of residence.
These phenomena put strong pressure on the labour market. And the "free circulation of persons" that has been talked about by the advocates of the SEA
Disparity of wages, inequality of production costs, the equation of the comparative advantages and the heterogeneity of growth factors are going to have an effect on the structure of unemployment, depending on the country and the region. There are already clear differences: 7% unemployment in western
Flanders and 14% in the Hainult (Belgium); 7% in Alsace and 16% in Lan-
In principle, the EEC acts against these inequalities. But, as usual, it only
62 International Marxist Review than sectoral factors.
for the Hamburg region.!?
while the Bremen region is losing it.
The study cited above emphasizes that:
income and regional demand.
guedoc Roussillon (France).
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
will not resolve these imbalances for a long time to come. The failure of the Community remedies
The SEA and the social dangers 63 tries to compensate after the fact for the inequalities produced by the functioning of the capitalist economy. The European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund have partly this function. There are also now the integrated Mediterranean programmes for the poorest regions of Southern Europe.
To judge the capacities of these compensatory mechanisms, we can look at the balance sheet of the aid given over the last ten or fifteen years to regions affected by the crisis of the textile and steel industries. This is a recognized failure. The attempts at reconversion and diversification of employment have had very little effect on the structure of the labour market. In the Ruhr, the share of steel and coal in local jobs has not changed. They are still 40% of the wages distributed, and a further round of redundancies is expected (35,000 jobs to be lost before 1990).18
Reconversion operations by the companies which are introducing redundancies are also very limited. The OECD estimates that, for the whole of Europe, these have not created more that 100,000 jobs.'9
The study on productivity already cited gives a good idea of current mentality. Having fulminated against the "industrial conservatism" of the "old" regions which abused job protection because of the "behaviour of certain social groups" ", after having vaunted the social consensus and saluted the "existence of a strong regional spirit, such as is seen in Flanders and in Tuscany", the authors of the report finally come back to free competition, claiming that the principle of after the fact economic compensation is neither the best nor the only solution. They explain that:
It would be appropriate to establish planning mechanisms in all regions [in order to] encourage the use of the most modern management methods in political administration, to broaden the vision of many economic agents and to define the procedures for effective coordination of these public and private operators.
The market remains the rule: regulation must be only superficial. The perspective of an increase in regional disparities pushes a section of the ruling class to reconsider the whole of the political and economic dimension:
When Swaelen, at the CVP congress, lays out the perspective of an 'autonomous Flanders' in a Europe of regions, when Schiltz during the festival of Flemish community declares that our problem (in Flanders) is no longer Belgium nor Wallonia", the ruling circles of bourgeoisie sound the alarm. Free circulation of the workforce Faced with the different forms of unequal growth and heterogeneity in the labour market in Europe, "free circulation" is presented as the modernist solu-
64 International Marxist Review tion. The workers, suddenly inspired by the pioneering spirit, will go off and get a job in the regions where there is work. We will then see big transfers of labour power and demographic mutations of "old industrial regions" towards the new investment centres.
It is unnecessary here to write at great length about the scandalously reactionary and utopian character of these scenarios. Those who are inspired by them prefer not to look at the balance sheet of the disindustrialization of entire regions. They prefer to keep quiet about the congenital incapacity of capitalism to foresee changes, to answer new needs and guarantee workers a continuing work of the same level of skill and wages, in the region where they live.
In this way a European mythology is being created: the future will be that of the great adventure for which, in the same pioneering spirit, the bosses will spend their days between two airports, and the workers will leave lightheartedly to find new jobs in the new areas of industrial development.
In reality, a reduction in current unemployment levels and the resolution of industrial mutations that capitalism itself brings about would require massive migrations of the semi-skilled or unskilled workforce. This is unlikely in the short term. Free circulation of the workforce will thus first of all be linked to company mergers. It will mainly affect layers of technicians and engineers, to a lesser extent skilled workers. In many cases, even in this form, it will have a constraining character for those concerned, either move or get the sack.
Although this process got underway during the first 30 years of the Common Market, there have not yet been big movements of wage-earners. In 1969, there were 804,000 workers originating from one Community country working in another. In 1974, there were 1.15 million in the same category and in 1981 1.69 million - very modest growth!
The free circulation of people, insofar as it concerns skilled and highlyskilled workers, will play an important role in the competitivity of companies. But for this individual "adventure" to be worth the trouble, many problems have to be resolved. Equal wages, equal rights, and the right to retain residence even if unemployed are some of the questions which have to be settled. The social dimension How should the question of social regulations be taken up? The report on a social Europe already mentioned explains that the difficulty: Comes from the relative lack of instrumental or institutional means at its disposal, making impossible a simple transposition of the social legislation existing in each coun-
try. The means at its disposal to respond to the expectations of the different partners are insufficient in relation to the urgency required for the now-recognized usefulnes of the
The search for a convergence which, far from being natural, would mean trying similar solutions from one country to another to answer the same problem which are however
Certain measures have already been taken in the field or health and health and safety at work. But nothing is yet concrete because we are still more or less at the level of recommendations and working resolutions.
Not to let it be thought that the completion of the single market can be bought and thus not get into a logic of systematic compensation; demand will rapidly exceed Community
The working group is opposed to two possible solutions; either "an arsenal of obligatory measures" to regulate the social aspect, or a rejection of all
Community legislation other than on health and safety at work.
Obviously, in the purest reformist and technocratic tradition, the group considers there can be "a middle way" because, it says, systematic regulation would be impossible because of the crisis and the demands of international
(Total in millions; women and under-25s in %)
single market.
The same document advocates:
posed in very different contexts.
Belgium
Denmark
Germany
Greece
Spain
France
Ireland
Italy
Lux
Portugal
UK
Eur 12
USA
Japan
The working group on a social Europe recommends:
capacity, on which there is already heavy demand.
Total
3,662
2,598
25,531
3,774
10,798
21,476
1,073
21,113
0,161
4,137
24,391
123,922
109,378
58,070
Total employment in 1985
Women
37.4
44.5
38.2
32.3
28.6
40.6
30.8
32.4
33.7
40.0
4106
37.2
43.4
39.7
Source: EEC. Europe in figures
The SEA and the social dangers 65
<25 years
13:8
20.5
19.3
11.5
13.7
13.7
24.5
13.3
20.7
18.3
2103
16.8
18.7
12.0
66 International Marxist Review competition! This middle way should thus be nuanced and limited because a harmonization of social protections would be "impossible...at least in the short term because of the disparity between the different situations"
In reality, what is proposed is a mechanism of "social dialogue" like the meting at Val-Duchesse in November 1985, which produced a joint declaration of intent on social dialogue. The "social partners" should sort things out between themselves in order to "manage their differences" without having recourse to the Community institutions. Thus there are very strong reticences to evoking the possibility of collective contracts at Community-wide level, which would force Brussels to play the arbitrator. This has also produced dilatory or frankly naive proposals such as the recommendation in March 1987 from the working group on new technology explaining that the decision to introduce new technology into the work place remained the exclusive responsibility of the employer but which however wished that the workers and their representatives should be consulted at the appropriate time!
As for the already-existing Community regulations on the question of redundancies, on the supposedly equal treatment of men and women, on working hours for agricultural workers and the organization of road transport, they are more about regulating competition than defending the workers. Social inequality: a pressure on all European workers Fiscal disparities could encourage tax evasion in certain countries and thus pass on tax pressure on to working incomes.
This logic of fiscal competition thus appears as a logic of a regression in social justice.
A spectre is hiding behind the fascinating screen of the single market, that of a non-
Europe of political decisions, inevitably led by its non-being to dispense the rich from taxes to super-tax the poor.21
There is also an inequality in the treatment of unemployment and redundancies, different situations for nightwork for women, inequality in trade-union rights, etc. On all these questions, the general trend is to remove the gains made by workers. The elimination of the administrative authorization for sackings in France in 1986, the reduction of the cassa integrazione in Italy and the trade unions' acceptance of flexibility and rotation of beneficiaries, and the anti-union laws in Britain, all take us away from the gains which had made possible certain mechanisms of workers' solidarity which allowed certain less weaker sectors to benefit from the gains made by the stronger.
Faced with all these disparities, the question of working hours remains one of the main demands by which to measure the advances and retreats of the two
The SEA and the social dangers 67 forces present. In a certain sense, it would be easier to get the 35-hour week at a European level by big joint struggles than to fight country by country. We have seen how in France in 1982, the move to 39 hours without loss of wages had very limited effects on reducing unemployment, and almost none on improving working conditions. In 1984, the EEC recommended this reduction in working time on condition that the unit costs of labour power were not affected. While the German government signed this meaningless proposal, the British bosses were opposed. From their point of view, this question was linked to their delay in restructuring and modernizing their productive apparatus. We now know many cases where the trade unions and employers have agreed on compromises on this question. In West Germany, a reduction in worktime was exchanged for the flexibility to negotiate at plant level. There is a Philips factory in Flanders where the workers are paid for 36 hours and work 24: 12 hours on Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday. Crisis and danger for the workers' movement The main danger is not in fact vast "social dumping" leading to a lowest common denominator of all social gains. It is likely that in time we will see a sort of middle-of-the-road adjustment which, obviously, would mean a trend to declining standards for the most advanced.
The strongest attacks could on the other hand be felt through the unequal development between the regions, provoking or worsening the overall crisis of certain economic regions (redundancies, loss of advantages previously gained in order to maintain the enterprise, working conditions, reduction in wages, etc. Other attacks will come on labour legislation and through the extension of flexibility.
Other attacks will come from the pressure on social benefits, because of national disparities and in the name of a new realism. They will also come from industrial restructuring and the growing monopolization which is already posing serious problems for the workers movement.
The relationship of forces between the classes cannot be measured simply by the daily, defensive struggles on wages and redundancies. The multiplication of inter-group agreements and mergers, combined with the increase in subsidiaries, tends to make it more and more difficult to react and even to negotiate at corporation level. Each operation of this type can leave thousands of workers isolated, distanced from the real decision-making centres; and even more from the trade-union structures that then have to be created.
All this worries the trade-union bureaucracy which could then lose part of its
68 International Marxist Review reason for existence. Edmond Maire, general secretary of the CFDT, addressing European employers, asked himself:
Who will show them that social cohesion is a factor of added value? Who will explain to them that the brutal delocalization of plants and transfers of the labour force in an economically-integrated but socially-disarticulated Europe will lead to social conflicts and economic decline?22
There is a lot at stake here for the European workers' movement and the workers as such. A new internationalist consciousness has to be forged, on the basis of a practical solidarity for strikes and permanent forms of coordination, dialogue and struggle. Edmond Maire's question to the bosses are simply fake naivety to trick the workers.
The creation of a single market, which could continue the trend to internationalization of capital in Europe, raises important strategic questions. In 1969 Ernest Mandel wrote:
If the international interpenetration of capital led to a real economic integration of the
Six, or of an EEC which had meantime been broadened to include a larger number of countries, if ever the supra-national bodies gave rise to a real strong new state power, then the objective obstacles to the proletariat taking power in the national framework would probably become insurmountable.
What balance sheet can be made of this forecast and warning? Leaving aside the underlying hope of a revolutionary crisis as possible in the short term, does not the question asked twenty years ago remain pertinent?
There is in fact a real problem of strategy for the workers' movement. While the bourgeoisie is making progress in constituting the instruments necessary to the internationalization of its interests, the workers' movement, and particularly its chauvinist and reactionary bureaucracy, is still thoroughly incapable of answering its own internationalist needs. And even before posing the problem of a political front against the Community institutions, there is already the question of links between the workers in each of the big industrial groups which dominate the European economy. This is undoubtedly the first stage of a hard battle which will determine the relationship of forces between the classes for the next five to ten years. Confronted with this problem, the social-democratic bureaucracy is proposing its services to the big bosses. While certain, conservative, sections of the bourgeoisie are still hesitating, social-democracy is presenting itself as the noisy and enthusiastic herald of the new united Europe (see box). It will thus be that much better integrated into all the cogs in the wheel of this new class collaboration like the Social and Economic Committee, the Tri-partite Conference, the permanent committee on employment, the parity committeees for certain economic sectors.
The SEA and the social dangers 69 Manifesto of the New Left (extracts) In a word, it is a question of transforming capitalism, product of Western rationalism, into a social democracy.
Is [the left] at the same time capable of forcing capitalism, which is not at all at the end of its existence, into a new model of investment, a strategy for qualitative growth, into taking account of ecology? Can it overcome the old mentality of belonging to different camps and become able to unite with new social movements and with the layers constituting the nucleus of European capital which produces and works?... The left can only succeed on two conditions: it must break with national demarcations in order to try for a European strategy, and it must create a modern left current represented by a broad formation. This must attract both a section of the ruling and technical intelligentsia (whose economic competence we cannot do without) and new social movements, and uprooted and demoralized groups of the traditional sectors, that is of trade, crafts and, in the south, even the peasantry. This new left will not have the same composition in different countries but, everywhere, it has to bring over to its side certain sections of troops from the right.... The left must today give its confidence to layers that are on the fringes of the conservative bloc — if not it will lose the match. There is a big danger that the European continent will lose all its energy in standing wars, which we have seen prefigured in the big strike movement in West Germany around the 35-hour week, in the CT's confrontation with the French Socialist government, or the British miners' strike.... Because European workers, except perhaps for the southern countries, are strong enough to wage standing wars that aggravate economic and political competition with the Americans and the Japanese.
Peter Glotz former Secretary of the State in the FRG former executive secretary of the SPD
(translated from French edition
Editions de l'Aube, 1987) A new "workers" bureaucracy — that is to say linked to the big social-democratic parties — coopted and incrusted in the European institutions is thus slowly developing. In a period of unequal struggle and weakness of certain social movements (like the feminist movement), this bureaucracy will argue that the "real" solutions will be found in the institutions, acting only in these negotiation bodies. Theorizing the fact that certain struggles are going to become harsher, because immediately confronted with the problem of the European relationship of forces, these peoples will argue for abandoning the class struggle.
70 International Marxist Review
Hans O. Hemmer, editor of the German DGB journal, wrote in February 1985:
Technological evolution and the progress in rationalization have already meant the disappearance of certain industrial activities that are however rich in traditions. At present, the new technology is taking over in service and office jobs. The workers are so to say left to themselves in faced with this advance. This is where the trade unions should be able to have a concept of co-management which would make individuals less vulnerable and give staff representatives the means to act. Co-management at workshop or plant level, at regional level or beyond. Such a system of interconnected co-management, identifiable and effective in the eyes of the workers while working simultaneously on the whole economy, would make it possible for the trade unions to renew with the slo.
gan of "economic democracy" that is unfortunately not very realistic in its historical formulation and has remained a dead letter.
From a good idea to a bad conclusion.
From this flows what Peter Glotz calls "the organization of a new historical blow under the banner of social democracy as a European programme". In a way an interclass "new left" The choice of struggles The great fraternization between the classes for building a united Europe will not take place. The social-democratic utopia is already overtaken by the aggressivity of big capital which wants to go faster and use the European project and the SEA as a new lever for making the working class withdraw and inflict new defeats on it.
What is happening is fraught with danger for the workers. The social unsaid of the SEA is also a form of social choice by the big bourgeoisie. It is the desire to build Europe on the backs of the wage-earners. As for the social struggles which will flow from the establishment of the single market, it will not simply be a question of adapting to the new economic situation; it will be avoiding a political defeat of the European working class.
This is the general framework of the problem. This does not imply however that sections of the working class will not have an interest in taking the pretext of the single market in order to defend and express their demands. This will be the case each time that the question of international competitivity will be opposed to their demands. The workers could demand that they should have best advantages won in Europe. If there is going to be harmonization it should be upwards, at the best level won.
Although very propagandist to start with, this battle could encourage a rise in consciousness of a European workers' community, dependent as a whole on the battles won or lost here or there.
The European far left will have to ensure that this European dimension of political or workers' struggles is affirmed. Despite the delays and the weakness of this far left, it is possible to take initiatives towards establishing solidarity, dialogue and coordination in the preparation of struggles as well as in organizing them when they emerge. Is it not significant in this period that the two successive strikes of the British and French nurses have posed in a particular way this question of a junction? Would not a general strike of the health
The discussion on a social Europe must not rest at the level of the "recommendations" of the European Commission. There will not be a "social dimension" without a relationship of forces. And only struggles could force the
1. "The social dimension of the internal market" in Social Europe, special issue 1988.
5. Michel Albert and Jean Boissonnat, Crise, Krach, Boom. The expression "banking
Darwinism" has also been used in relation to the deregulation of the financial markets, thus posing the problem of the "critical mass" that banking establishments have to reach in order to survive. Even more important in a Europe of free money
10. "Succeed with the SEA, a new frontier for Europe", European Commission, Brussels
11. In West Germany there were 294 registered mergers in 1974, 635 in 1980 and 709 in
12. In France, there are 200,000 industrial firms with under 20 employees. The average workforce in France is 10 compared to 20 for Norther European countries.
on the battles won or lost here or there.
service within the EEC be necessary tomorrow?
bosses and the European institutions to retreat.
Notes
2. Le Monde, 20 July 1988.
3. 21.5% in the Spanish state, 18.7% in Ireland.
circulation.
6. Le Monde, 14 October 1988
7. Le Monde, 7 September 1988
8. Eurostat
9. Albert/Boissonnat ibid
15 February 1987.
1985.
13. Document Manuel Martin.
14. Eurostat.
The SEA and the social dangers 71
4. Michel Albert, Un pari pour l'Europe, Le Seuil, Paris, 1983.
15. Review of the Dresdner Bank, October 1985, reprinted in Problèmes Economiques,
Roberto Carnagni and Ricardo Cappelin, Productivité sectorielle et la politique
17. OECD source cited in J. Léonard, C. Hen and B. Dréano, l'Europe, La Découverte,
18. OECD study, March 1988, reprinted in Problèmes Economiques, 29 June 1988.
19. "High level international conference on the role of large firms in job creation and entrepreneurship", OECD, Paris, November 1985. Monthly Labor Review, Washington, October 1986. On the failure of BSC industry created by British Steel to create
A propos of the discussion on the federalization of the Belgian state, La Gauche, 9
23. Emest Mandel, La Réponse socialiste au défi américain, Maspero, 1969.
24. This is what motivated a section of the British union bureaucracy in its applause for
Jacques Delors at the TUC Congress, Financial Times, 9 September 1988.
16.
régionale, 1985.
1987.
jobs.
20.
August 1988.
21. Albert/Boissonnat ibid.
22. Le Monde, 23 August 1988.
72 International Marxist Review
Documentation française, Paris, 25 December 1985
LIVIO MAITAN The