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Commentary :: Civil & Human Rights

The Enough-for-All Campaign

The neoliberal policy is international and supposedly without alternative. However policy is man-made and therefore can be changed.. Every person has a right to share in the social wealth.
THE “ENOUGH FOR ALL” CAMPAIGN:
FIGHT POVERTY, NOT THE POOR

Europe-wide Day against Social Cuts

By Hardy Krampertz, Enough for All Study Group

[This leaflet published in: Attac-Rundbrief ¼ is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.attac.de.]


For twenty years, a process has accelerated worldwide that values nearly all human activities and the natural resources of the earth only by market-oriented aspects. This has led to gigantic wealth and extreme exploitation, two sides of the same coin. The increasing social dismantling in Germany and elsewhere is the inevitable consequence of this dynamic.

In the course of globalization, national borders and protective laws for goods-, capital- and service traffic have been largely annulled. In direct competition, businesses are under merciless pressure to increase profits. This can only succeed when massive costs are lowered – in the form of machines, wage dumping and mass layoffs. However growing unemployment and wage reductions lead directly to the dismantling of wage-financed social systems.

Tax gifts to corporations and the rich as well as tax evasion and cost-reduction measures. The location Germany must be maintained at any price, it is said. The results are heavily indebted cities and communities that scale down their services – to the burden of everyone, above all the socially weak. Moreover new profit requires new markets. The privatization of public social- and educational systems promises billions in profits.

The neoliberal policy is international. For years this policy has been forced on the heavily indebted countries of the South under the slogan “structural adjustment.” Supposedly prosperity and security should spread. However what spreads are the living conditions of the so-called third world. The people in impoverished countries could tell us a thing or two about privatization of public resources, destruction of local markets and infrastructures, dissolution of cultural diversity and adoption of competitive thinking in all interpersonal areas, an angry song about the increasing chasm and a small rich upper class.

Agenda 2010, health care reform, elite universities and the selling-off of public resources are nothing but structural adjustment in German cadence – pushed through by Germany’s red-black-green-yellow neoliberal unity party.

Employed persons become a bargaining mass in the competition of corporations. Enforcement of the Hartz laws undermines the collective wage agreement law and forces the unemployed to low wages. The pressure on employed persons will increase enormously and will also drive them into precarious working conditions. Additional losers are the children, trainees, seniors, sick, unemployed and migrants, all those who cannot profitably bring their labor power to the market and depend on public health-, social- and educational systems.

Who cushions the needy who fall through the increasingly wide-meshed net? The cushioning ones are the women who have to compensate worldwide for the cancelled state care. They are pressed into the role of free child-, senior citizen and nursing-care givers or poorly paid new earners at the cost of their own existence. Women above all are in flexibilized, less-secure working conditions. Secure jobs for women exist in the public sector. However the so-called reforms destroy this sector. In the course of globalization, the exploitable model of the housewife and low-wage earner will also extend to employed males. As a result of this downward spiral, the incomes of all employees will fall permanently.

The neoliberal policy is international and supposedly without alternative. However policy is man-made and therefore can be changed. An economy can provide a good life for everyone. There was never as much wealth as today. There is enough for everyone. Every person has a right to share in the social wealth. No one needs to earn this. This is a human right.

Attac calls all citizens in Germany and citizens in all Europe to demonstrate for this right. Let us end structures that promote wars and produce billion-fold exploitation.

Together with unions, social associations and organizations of civil society, we call each and every one to set a clear sign by participating in the Europe-wide demonstrations on April 3, 2004 – in Berlin, Koln and Stuttgart in Germany – and in decentralized actions in factories on April 2.

End the propaganda for increased profits!
End the redistribution from bottom to the top!
End the neoliberal policy in all its forms!

We demand:

- Financing social security systems on the basis of total value creation, that is through labor- and capital incomes
- Closing tax havens
- International enforcement of social and ecological regulations.

What is necessary after April2/3, 2004? Let us work out the key points of a new policy and concrete measures at meetings and discussions, forums and congresses with which another world and another life could become real. Let us take the time, use our abilities and share the wealth. There is enough for everyone!


THE ENOUGH-FOR-ALL CAMPAIGN BEGINS

Resistance Grows as Displeasure Increases

By Hardy Krampertz, Enough-for-All Study Group

[This article published in: Attac-Rundbrief 1/2004 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.attac.de.]

Initiatives are developed in a multitude of activities organized by Attac local groups, in events, discussion forums, information stands and other publically effective actions. Nevertheless we must increase our work and act much more in the broad public. The mainstream of the media must be broken. This mainstream still wants to make us believe there is no alternative to the “neoliberal austerity policy.” People must be won for an alternative, for a social solidarian and future-friendly social policy offering a secure existence for people.

The neoliberal reorganization of the social state is rushed through by the red-green government coalition with the Hartz laws and health reform. In 2003 a study group formed by the Attac council began organizing a campaign against the selling off of the social state. In October 2003 in Aachen, Germany, the “Enough-for-All” campaign was made a focal point of Attac’s current work.

The future reorganization of the Federal German Labor Office is envisioned with the Hartz III and IV laws. At the same time, repression against the unemployed is intensified. Consolidation of unemployment benefits and income support will take effect in 2005. Through a graduated model, the unemployed will be led into poverty, hardly into a new occupational future. All work must be accepted at any wage. This reinforces the pressure on employees and increasingly neutralizes wage achievements.

COSTS OF HEALTH CARE

The effects of the different health reforms are clear for everyone. From 2005 dentures will not be a health benefit any more. From 2006 employees alone will pay their sickness benefits. The co-payment for medicines amounts to 10% (maximum of 10 Euro per medicine). The practice fee will be at least 10 Euro per quarter, more with emergencies. Sickness benefits amount to a modest 10 Euro per day. The death grants, subsidies for glasses and travel costs will be cancelled.

Restrictions on termination protection were resolved. The neoliberal partners from the Greens and bright red to the black seek to completely abolish the constitutionally anchored collective bargaining. Unions and management are urged to agree on wage regulations. Otherwise a legislative intervention in collective bargaining is provided.

The European Union Alliance has announced action days on April 2 and 3, 2004. The Federation of German Trade Unions (DGB) calls demonstrations in Berlin, Stuttgart and Koln on April 3, 2004. Mobilizations for the demonstrations are underway.
 
 

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