Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 00:02:20 +0100
From: Jorn Andersen <jorn.andersen-AT-vip.cybercity.dk>
Subject: M-I: Danish lorry drivers go back to work


The Danish lorry drivers strike has ended Thursday evening.

The outcome? It seems like a remis.
The drivers had demanded a tax-reduction for working abroad of the same
size as other workers, which is 500 dkr. a day. Up to now they only had 150
dkr. a day. What they got was 250 dkr. (= +100 dkr.) + a promise that "we
will take a closer look at the rules ..." etc. [10 dkr. = 1 british pound -
the value of these figures are ca. 50% because it is about tax reduction.]

Danish TV1 had a rather long report from their final meeting where they
decided to go back to work. It was clear that feelings were very mixed. On
the one hand it was clear that if they had not taken the fight they would
not have gotten anything (these matters have been debated for 5 years
without result - now they got a result in one week). On the other hand the
concessions from the government was not near their demand of getting the
same conditions as other workers.

The reporter said that there is still a lot of discontent, and that "a
strong signal has been sent to the politicians to get this solved". Those
speakers who advocated going back to work got a reluctant applause, those
who said that we will take on the government after christmas if they don't
keep their promises got a much more lively response.

>From the report from the meeting it seems that their lawyer has played a
strong role in urging them back to work: "Today you have got public opinion
backing you up, tomorrow you will loose it if you don't go back to work."
Also their most well known spokesman appealed strongly that they should go
back to work.

What created a climate where this would be accepted was that:
1) earlier today the police (for the first time) broke one of their
pickets/blockades and a few trucks got through. There was some fighting
(not heavy) and after the event the picket was re-established. Another
attempt to break a picket was turned back by the lorry drivers.
2) the government gave the above mentioned limited concession.

So the choice was painted in capital letters: Either you stop now and take
what you have been offered - or you prepare for a long battle. The lorry
drivers did not feel strong enough to go for total victory. 

My impression is that they don't feel defeated, on the contrary: They have
won a small victory. Some of them said that thay had done well, i.e.
without the fight they would not have gotten anything.


One last point: Politically only little has been won. The left reformist
parties have been so busy negotiating next years budget (and thus saving
the government's ass) that they have hardly "had time" to support the
strike. So at the lorry drivers' meeting their lawyer could tell them that
it was the (very right wing) Progress Party which had supported their
demands most wholeheartedly - not the left. 

The whole thing was put in perspective by one of goverment's MP's this
evening, when he said on TV that what the left parties had been given for
their support to the government amounted to what another right wing MP was
prepared to give the lorry drivers - which was *less* than what they
actually got!

So once again it has been demonstrated that the problem is not absence of
working class militancy, but the failure of the left to relate to and focus
on these struggles. This failure blurs the class line and potentially
throws militancy in the arms of the extreme right wing.


Yours

Jorn



--
Jorn Andersen

Internationale Socialister
Copenhagen, Denmark
IS-WWW: http://www2.dk-online.dk/users/is-dk/



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