Chicago Indymedia : http://chicago.indymedia.org/archive
Chicago Indymedia

News :: Labor

Loss of job benefits brings Berlin protests

FRANKFURT - Demonstrators clashed with the police on Monday in Berlin as Germans protested new labor rules that will raise pressure on the unemployed to find work or lose their benefits.
Riot police used tear gas and pepper spray to block several hundred demonstrators from entering the unemployment office in Wedding, a working-class section of Berlin that is home to many unemployed people and immigrants. Fifteen people were arrested, Agence France-Presse reported.

Protesters also gathered just outside offices in Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich and smaller cities, but these demonstrations drew far fewer people than the one in Berlin. Over all, the gatherings fell short of their stated goal of shutting down the offices on the first working day of the new year.

"It was all pretty harmless," said Ulrich Waschki, a spokesman for the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg, who added that all unemployment offices in Germany were able to function on Monday.

"There were demonstrations, as announced, but there were no large numbers of people."

Still, the first day of the new rules brought one small setback, as a computer glitch led roughly 130,000 people to go without their January unemployment benefits. Waschki said the problem would be remedied by Tuesday or Wednesday.

The protesters were aiming at a tough new labor law, known as Hartz IV after Peter Hartz, the Volkswagen executive who designed the legislation. The law, a centerpiece of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's economic reforms that took effect on Jan. 1, scales back jobless benefits and forces long-term unemployed people to take low-paying jobs or lose benefits entirely.

German unemployment stood at 10.8 percent, roughly 4.4 million people, at the end of November. Figures for December, to be released Tuesday, were expected to show a slight increase.

The Federal Statistics Office reported Monday that the number of employed Germans rose 0.3 percent in 2004, the first increase in three years.

The statistics office said jobs were "positively influenced by the labor market reforms."

Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement said Monday that unemployment statistics would show a one-time jump this year because the law now counts able-bodied Germans who previously drew welfare benefits as unemployed.

"But it is important to stress that there won't actually be more people without a job than before," Clement said in Berlin, AFX News reported. "This is purely a statistical effect."

He did not specify how large this effect would be.

Germans took to the streets by the tens of thousands in August and September to protest Schröder's new labor rules, but those demonstrations lost momentum by late autumn.

Critics of the Hartz IV program had hoped to re-energize resistance to the law as it took effect, but many said they underestimated Germans' willingness to accept the painful changes.

"It's resignation, pure and simple," said Martin Bongards, an activist in Marburg, north of Frankfurt.

"Everyone's hoping that they don't lose their benefits or that they find a job."

Photos from Berlin:
de.indymedia.org/2005/01/103014.shtml
 
 

Donate

Views

Account Login

Media Centers

 

This site made manifest by dadaIMC software