Five-week site occupation at Alcatel in Berlin

Source: Information bulletin of the Alcatel Kabel AG company works council.

Other cost savings, such as extended working hours without extra pay, were suggested as well. When the plan was rejected, Alcatel moved forward with extensive redundances at three of its seven German cable factories - one in Berlin, one in Hamburg, and one in Stadthagen, near Hanover- with a loss of 950 jobs altogether, over a two-year period (1999 and 2000). The Berlin factory works council expressed a willingness to discuss cost-cutting measures, but without agreement at all the plants, management determined to pursue the job cuts.

The decision to close the Berlin facility provoked the Alcatel Berlin workforce to launch a nine-month campaign, with the support of the IG Metall metalworkers' union. Many workers at the plant felt that management's conduct and its initial offer of DEM 3 million for a social plan to accompany the redundancies was insulting. In contrast to Berlin, Alcatel employees in Hamburg and Stadthagen plants remained relatively resigned to the closures, despite minor protests in Stadthagen. Thomas Schüler, a works council representative from Berlin, attributes the comparatively weak reaction in the other two locations to the fact that these plants had been showing loses, and therefore the job losses seemed more justified.

According to an IG Metall position paper on the site (Papier zur Standortentwicklung), the Berlin factory was strongly in profit, had full order-books, and a potential to serve regional customers flexibly. Management, however, maintained that its strategy required concentration in larger production sites, such as Fumay, in France, which had unused capacity. Management alleged that labour costs in Germany were higher than in France. A management study demonstrating the economic need to close the Berlin site was used to justify this decision, but was never shown to the works council.

The occupation

Alcatel's Berlin workforce started its campaign in February 1999, with the announcement of the planned closure and the loss of 140 of the 170 jobs. It was only after a number of smaller protest actions which gradually escalated in intensity, that the workforce decided to try occupying the factory. They started with a one-day occupation on 28 August, and communicated their intention to occupy the factory indefinitely if management did not respond by reversing the decision. When this did not produce results, on 13 September, they occupied the factory, declaring, in the words of Arno Hager, president of IG Metall Berlin, that "they would celebrate Christmas there if they had to."

Participation in the occupation was strong, with a most of the Berlin staff spending time there at some point. According to Bernd Seifert, an activist in the occupation, only about 30 of the 170 workers at the factory did not participate. A few of the strikers lived in the factory for the entire five weeks of the occupation. Demonstrations and media events were planned, public relations managed and entertainment and practical logistics within the factory organised, all by the strikers themselves. Although IG Metall provided advice and support, the initiative and responsibility always remained with the workers at the factory.

Berlin election campaign and solidarity

On 10 October, communal elections took place in Berlin. This coincidence gave the protesters the opportunity to draw attention to their cause, as politicians seeking publicity demonstrated their solidarity in front of the television cameras. Such notables as Gregor Gysi of the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), Walter Momper of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), electoral candidate for Berlin, and Eberhard Diepgen of CDU (Christian Democrats), the mayor of Berlin, among others, visited the site during the occupation. On Mr Diepgen's initiative, the Berlin Senate approved a bill reducing the firm's fixed costs, and making land available for expansion, if the firm would chose to stay.

Partly as a result of the elections, the occupation received good publicity. Messages of solidarity came from Germany and from abroad. Because the strike was unofficial, the union did not pay the customary strike benefit, and a strike collection was taken up instead. Voluntary strike fund contributions helped the strikers continue the occupation.

Demonstration at Alcatel headquarters in Paris

As a French company, the upper reaches of Alcatel management remained inaccessible to the German worker representatives in Berlin. Alcatel Berlin staff suspected that the German management was not communicating their situation to the top management at the corporate headquarters in Paris. In order to bring it to their attention, Alcatel workers travelled to Paris, and staged a protest in front of Alcatel headquarters.

IG Metall and Alcatel Berlin staff, one of whom was originally from France, contacted French colleagues from the CGT trade union, whose support was important in obtaining permits to demonstrate, and in participating in a meeting with the French management. On 26 September, 48 of the protesters travelled to Paris, where they demonstrated in front of the Alcatel headquarters. Several of the protesters, along with a CGT unionist and a translator, were allowed into the headquarters to talk with management, who, according to the unionists in attendance, did not seem to have a grasp of the situation in Berlin.

End of the strike

On 17 October, under pressure of a management threat not to provide a social plan, the protestors voted by a clear majority to end the occupation. The company agreed to spend DEM 18 million on severance pay and retraining - six times the original offer.

Although they failed in the ultimate goal of preserving their jobs, workers at the factory largely agree that their effort was worth it, given the much improved social plan. Mr Schüler, of the works council, also stated that by resisting, they kept their dignity, rather than remaining passive victims of economic decisions. "As a result of what we did, I can still look at myself in the mirror," Mr. Schüler says.

Commentary

In closing the Berlin plant, Alcatel management appears to have been implementing part of a global strategic vision, and arguments about the plant's profitability were unlikely to dissuade it from altering its plans. Alcatel Cable Berlin is a very minor part of Alcatel SA's global operations, and from the start the prospects that a campaign by fewer than 200 employees would be able to affect the strategic vision of a major transnational firm were slim. The militancy of the workforce, support from IG Metall, and fortunate circumstances such as the timing of the Berlin elections allowed them, despite their disadvantages, to cause the company a great deal of embarrassment.

In the codetermination-oriented context of German industrial relations, plant occupations and extended campaigns against specific companies are relatively rare. The Alcatel Berlin case demonstrates the limits of the ability of the German codetermination system to resolve fundamental contradictions between the social needs of workers, and the economic demands of companies. It also demonstrates some of the difficulties in implementing national or local-level worker consultation within transnational firms. German management was probably constrained in its negotiations with the works council by the policies of top management, which, in transnational corporations, is not necessarily readily accessible to national institutions of codetermination. Additionally, the perception that management was violating its own "rules of the game" - ie the notion that location decisions should be based on profitability above all - made the closure seem illegitimate. (Nathan Lillie, School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University and presently guest researcher at the Institute for Economic and Social Research (WSI))