THE strike wave is spreading throughout Europe!
In France workers are making it crystal clear that they will never allow the increases in the retirement age that Macron is desperate to introduce for the benefit of the French bosses.
The French workers are more than capable of deciding to bring down the Macron regime with an indefinite general strike rather than submit to the diktat of the bosses who want to destroy all the gains that the French workers have made.
The Greek workers and youth are determined to bring to trial those who are responsible for the recent rail disaster that killed and injured hundreds of people.
The British workers are determined that they will bring down capitalism rather than see all of the gains that they have made destroyed by rampant inflation, with new anti-union laws on the way that will make strike actions illegal.
Now the mass strike actions have spread to Germany where millions of workers are angry after huge rises in the cost of living caused by NATO’s intervention into the Ukraine.
Airports as well as bus and train stations across Germany have now ground to a standstill.
More than 400,000 transport workers have taken part in industrial action with flights at eight major airports, including those in Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg, affected by the strikes.
The German Airports Association, ADV, said that about 380,000 travellers were not able to take off on Monday.
Long distance rail services were also suspended across Germany. Hamburg, which is Germany’s largest port, was also hit by the walkouts.
Employers have offered a 5% pay increase over a period of 27 months and a one-off payment. The German unions however, are demanding a double digit pay rise, and have called the proposals unacceptable with inflation already reaching 9.3% in February.
Germany faces major transport disruption after workers at airports, ports, railways, buses and metro lines started a nationwide strike on Monday, demanding pay hikes amid soaring inflation.
Verdi has demanded a 10.5% pay rise for its members citing rising energy and food costs.
The strikes in Germany are part of major industrial actions, which have hit most European economies as higher food and energy prices have destroyed living standards.
German workers say of their position: ‘We are on strike today because inflation is just hitting us so hard. We have been losing wages in real terms for two years.
‘We can no longer afford our lives. The heating costs are extreme, the gasoline is extreme.
‘We have to think every time we go shopping; do we take this with us or not?
For years Germany was heavily dependent on Russia for gas and has now been particularly hard hit by higher prices with inflation rates exceeding the euro area average in recent months.
The walkouts are the biggest in Germany since 1992. Persistent cost pressures have pushed central banks across Europe to a series of interest rate increases that show no sign of being reversed.
Germany’s Federal Statistical Office says the country is grappling with its highest annual inflation in more than 70 years.
In the UK the government is engaged in pay disputes across several sectors. The FBU Fire Brigades Union is already demanding the calling of a Special Congress of the TUC to organise action to smash the new anti-union laws that will be in operation shortly and will make all-out strikes illegal.
Workers throughout Europe know that the massive inflation rates are the price for the huge aid that the Western capitalist states are giving to the Ukrainian bourgeoisie to try and humiliate Russia.
Galloping inflation is the price for supporting the Ukrainian fascists, in order to try and humiliate Putin and Russia. The answer to this tactic is to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International all over Europe to lead the European socialist revolution to its victory and put an end to capitalism in Europe!
