A few years back, some engineers on strike in Britain for a national minimum wage and a shorter working week adopted the Boomtown Rats song "I don't like Mondays", inspired by an LA teenager's explanation after she shot her high school principal.
The German phrase translated as "Blue Monday" apparently means "I don't feel like working - I'm still hung over..."
What better name, then, for a rank and file opposition in Hamburg than the "Blue Monday" group?
It began as a small discussion forum of "autonomists", looking at changes in the work process in Toyota ("Japanisation") and the role of immigrant labour in the German economy. Their aim was to create an exchange of ideas with an open agenda, where labour disputes could be examined in depth.
In 1996 a group of workers employed by Allied Signal, including many Turkish and Kurdish immigrants and some left wing shop stewards, approached Blue Monday when their brake lining plant faced closure. The dispute ended in a deal with redundancies but no closure. The immigrant workers had a more militant position but Blue Monday didn't try to impose a line dividing them from the stewards.
Early in the Spring of 1996, the group heard of the Liverpool dockers and began to wonder how they could help encourage real solidarity action. Like most ports, Hamburg has declined in numbers and now employs less than 15,000 with 3,000 in the shipyard. There is a steel works but the city's economy is concentrated in the service sector, media, and public sector. A right wing Social Democrat administration has run Hamburg for 40 years. The industrial decline has encouraged unions to cooperate with employers in the hope of preserving jobs. It was clear that the OTV - the main union organising port, transport, and public sector workers - had no initial intention of getting involved despite the willingness of isolated activists. Blue Monday invited the dockers to travel to Germany. Before the OTV congress last October which took positions supporting Liverpool, officials would consistently point to the lack of any OTV policy, cite their intention to follow guidance from the T&GWU regarding the dockers' unofficial dispute, and quote the ITF (International Transportworkers Federation) whose policy is not to contravene T&GWU procedures.
When Liverpool dockers Herbie Hollerhead and Terry Southers turned up in August '96, their main support came from IG Medien, the general union for media workers. The membership gave money and arranged meeting venues, and the IGM official structures made no attempt to block these moves. But the dockers did manage to visit the Works Council at Eurokai (Euro Quay), which has strong links to the OTV leadership. The head of the Works Council eventually promised to take limited action against CAST and CanMar. But in front of a large mass meeting, he retreated, stating that outsiders were trying to push for actions which might have harmful effects on the Hamburg dockers.
When the International Day of Action took place on 20 January, Blue Monday leafletted union branches and organised a gate meeting of 50 people outside Eurokai. A banner "Support the Liverpool Dockers, Stop the ships going to Liverpool" hung from the bridge and Blue Monday leafletted the workforce. The police turned up to ask "who is responsible?" and 50 hands went up. Five days later the ACL "Atlantic Conveyor" was held up for 2 hours in Bremerhaven where the OTV called 60 dockers to the canteen to discuss Liverpool, having already issued a port bulletin. Many solidarity messages and letters to Mersey Docks were sent by OTV branches and SPD (Social Democratic Party) structures.
Blue Monday do not claim credit for the Bremerhaven stoppage, and point out that the ITF have a base in nearby Bremen. But it seems rather likely that at the very least, the rank and file efforts were instrumental in helping awaken the OTV in the run up to their Congress.
contact:
Blue Monday Group
c/o Gemeinwesenarbeit
St. Pauli
Hamburger Hochstrasse 2
20359 Hamburg
Germany
