karlmarxstrasse

I mentioned it a while ago, but it’s about to happen. Tomorrow, on Thursday, according to the ARD, ex-SPD finance minister under Schröder, one-time supposed future SPD chancellor candidate and these days lobbyist for the nuclear power industry Wolfgang Clement is going to be expelled from his party for telling voters not to support his own party.

It’s not new, but it’s still a scandal. In Germany, workers technically get full employment rights after six months (which is a scandal in itself, that it’s easier to get rid of people before six months are up), the case for those who work in retail is another matter.

Sure, the rights are still there – on paper –, but it’s very easy indeed for the bosses to get rid of someone they don‘t like. Such workers can be sacked on the spot, without any notice whatsoever, not based on evidence (that could be far too tricky), but purely based on ’suspicion‘ alone.

Because if you‘re a shop worker, you have to be 100% honest, because obviously the bosses don‘t want to employ people who they might ’suspect‘ of having had their hands in the till, of sending a Christmas card via the firm’s franking machine, of having inadvertendly putting a company biro in their pocket or going home with it, or of (a classic example) buying a product (say, a loaf of bread) but not having had the manager countersign the till receipt. Or the till receipt having ‚vanished‘ from your coat pocket.

German being the language it is, there’s a handy word for it: the Verdachtskündigung

The worker concerned doesn‘t have to have actually done any of these things – the employer purely has to claim that they ’suspect‘ the worker might have done them, that the worker might be less than „100% honest“ – without evidence. And that’s it. Carted out of your workplace at a whim’s notice, unemployed, and even forced out of your own home, should the job centre decide that your flat is too ‚big‘ or ‚expensive‘ for someone on benefit. And your ex-workmates too scared to talk to you in case the same fate awaits them.

Barbara E., known as „Emmely“, has worked for 31 years as a cashier, previously for the state supermarket organisation of the GDR, and since 1990 for the chain „Kaiser’s-Tengelmann“. For the past 7 years or so she has been employed in the branch of Kaiser’s in the Hauptstraße in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. Kaiser’s, along with many other retail chains, be they supermarkets, department stores, minimarkets, ‚discount‘ foodstores, Ikea, and Germany’s largest bookshop chain, are involved in a long-running pay dispute with the trade union ver.di. The employers want to drastically cut shop workers‘ hourly pay, making them work significantly longer for the same money, by scrapping bonuses for antisocial hours, late, night and Sunday shifts. At the same time the cost of living continues to rise rapidly.

As part of the dispute against this there have been many strikes over the past year.

In her supermarket, the other workers were ‚convinced‘ to return to work after intimidating ‚one-to-one‘ talks with the Kaiser’s district manager. But Emmely alone continued to strike. And then, on 22nd February 2008, she was sacked with immediate effect. Coincidence? You bet.

Her ‚crime‘? The ’suspicion‘ that she had cashed in two bottle-deposit tokens, to the value of 1,30 Euro, without having had them countersigned by a supervisor. 31 years destroyed over a ’suspected‘ – and unproven – 1,30 Euro. Unproven because they don‘t need evidence, they just have to ’suspect‘.

A solidarity commitee has been formed, Emmely has a lawyer, and her tribunal is this Thursday (and is open to the public) at the central employment court in Berlin-Schöneberg, a place I, as a shop worker and trade unionist involved in the same strike, almost feel (involuntarily) at home in.

I wish her the best of luck, and I‘m pleased, for her, that she now has legal representation worthy of the name. Those who want more details (in German) should leave a comment with their email address.

Test test test
It’s a test, ain‘t it. And there’s a reason. All will be revealed.

The news today on the Voice of Russia, Russia’s state propaganda broadcaster to the world:

The number of cars sold in Russia has increased. „This is a result of women’s increasing emancipation – they no longer want to use public transport but instead want to sit behind their own wheel“.

So the police in London held an illegal demonstration. Oh, I mean some „orderly non-demonstration mass* queuing“.

*turnout around 300.

Someone sent me this comment per email:

If there was any justice in the world, they‘d have dressed the army up as miners and sent ‚em in to kick the sh:t out of ‚em – the bbc could have shown it in the wrong order*, as a tribute to a bygone era.

*bygone era references here, here and here.

Otherwise, anyone suggesting that the „Bobbys“ (as the Germans like to say) aren‘t the cleverest of people might have had those thoughts confirmed when reading the pre-demo „briefing“ as published by the Police Federation. Page four consists of the following useful advice.

1. Use a toilet beforehand
2. If hungry, eat food, please buy it first, it’s available in shops and cafés – or bring sarnies
3. Wear clothes for the day – there could be some weather, and shoes – they‘re useful when walking

The Russian police look just as intelligent on these pictures.

UPDATE:
Right at the front of the march was BNP leader on Barking and Dagenham Council, BNP candidate for Mayor of London, and producer/director of a film*, HMS Discovery: A Love Story which „includes naked men clawing passionately at each other’s bodies…long scenes of men undressing and fondling each other, full-frontal nudity and a naked man apparently performing a sex act on another…repeated scenes of flagellation in which a group of semi-naked men apparently whip a fourth semi-naked man senseless to the ground“ Richard Barnbrook. Quoted in the Standard, Mr Barnbrook said:

„I was there to support the police. I spoke to one of the organisers of the march and I explained who I was and he was quite happy about it. We did some interviews for BNP TV. I spoke to a few PCs and they were happy to talk.“

*“not a bloody porn film“ – R. Barnbrook