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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 25, 1984
ON THE WORLD SCENE
WEST GERMANY: END OF CONSENSUS; "EUROPESSIMISM";
THE DECLINING JAPANESE WORK ETHIC
PAGE 9
It was a sight thought inconceivable a decade ago: mass union walkouts in
West Germany. The mystique of the once vaunted German work ethic has been
shattered by a series of regional strikes staged by the powerful 2.7
million member metal-workers' labor union, I.G. Metall.
The union is demanding a reduction of the work week to 35 hours, with no cut
in pay. This scheme, union leaders maintain, would create 200,000 jobs in
the metal-working industry, helping alleviate West Germany's nagging
unemployment problem. The employers, including auto industry giants such
as Volkswagen, Opel, Ford and Mercedes say such a cutback would increase
labor costs by 20% and deal a serious blow to the competitiveness of the
German auto industry.
West German labor costs are already the fourth highest in the world
(following the U.S., Canada and Switzerland) and highest in the European
Community. The indirect labor cost component--social security contribu
tions and fringe benefits--is the highest in the world, equivalent to 80%
of direct wages (as opposed to 36% in the U.S.). The push for lower work
hours is said to come from younger generation West Germans coupled with
pressures by the many foreign workers in the country. One thing is for
certain, reports William G. Andrews in the May 22 INTERNATIONAL HERALD
TRIBUNE, West Germany is a changing country:
The number 35 looms large on the German landscape this spring.
In one context, it commemorates the beginning of the postwar era.
In another, it may presage its end.... The commemorations began
with the 35th anniversary of the NATO treaty on April 4. The
signing of the treaty preceded...the establishment first of the
Federal Republic in West Germany on May 23 and then of the German
Democratic Republic in the Soviet zone a week later. Those two
short months ended a generation of almost unrelieved turmoil and
tragedy and laid the foundations of postwar Germany and
Europe...•
West Germany has been animated by an almost obsessive search for
political and social conciliation.... The major political parties
agreed on most important policies...• Labor and management shared
that attitude, collaborating to maintain an extraordinary degree
of industrial peace. The Federal Republic has had only half the
strike rate of France, one-fourth that of Britain and one-eighth
that of the United States...• However, the number 35 in its
second context may be signaling an end to consensus.... The num
ber is plastered all over West Germany as part of labor's cam
paign to reduce the workweek to 35 hours. That effort may be gen
erating the biggest social-political conflict in postwar Ger-
many••••
In the background are other, less spectacular, signs that the
postwar consensus has eroded. The formal concord between busi
ness and labor has ended. For the first time since 1957, a dis
sident party, the Greens, has appeared in the Bundestag.
The
Social Democrats...broke the 30-year bipartisan truce on foreign