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The 2007 founding of Die Linke, or the Left Party, in Germany, marked a crack in the social-democratic hegemony that characterizes Germany’s trade unions. This hegemony had been eroding since the 1990s, but in the wake of mass protests against the “Agenda 2010” reforms, fractions of the trade unions finally broke with the neoliberalized Social Democratic Party (SPD) to participate in the founding of Die Linke. The party has thus far been able to fill the gap it created and establish itself as a strong minority wing within the trade unions. At the same time, it faces the challenge of extending its support to unionized wage earners and expanding its “use value” within the struggles for better living and working conditions. Partly in an attempt to address these challenges, Katja Kipping and I have been working towards renewal of our party’s culture and strategy as a “connective party” since 2012. This comes from the insight that a change in the relation of forces in society is the only possible basis for shifting the balance of forces within the state, and thus for even considering participation in government. Socialist parties must not limit themselves to the parliamentary representation of existing social forces. Their function is to actively build the class power of working people and social hegemony for emancipatory and socialist goals. With the erosion of the welfare-state class compromise in neoliberal capitalism, the balance of forces between capital and labor has shifted in favor of capital. The use value of a socialist party must therefore be measured by its ability to build organizing power, identify shared interests, and formulate and represent political goals among different sections of wage laborers. The concept of the connective party thus means that Die Linke ought to view itself not only as the parliamentary representative of wage laborers, but also as an “organic” and active part of the trade-union movement itself. Contrary to Lenin’s concept of the party, this does not mean subordinating the trade unions to a party that holds a monopoly on political struggle, but rather an alliance of equals that encourages the development of independent initiatives within the trade unions. This must be judged by its ability to resonate among the majority of working people, including the unemployed, to create connections of solidarity among different groups of employees, and to reach out with its own goals into the SPD’s base.

New Defensive Beginnings The flipside of what neoliberal economists and the German government describe as the “German miracle,” namely, the overcoming of the deep collapse during the global economic crisis of 2008–9, is intensified polarization and precarization of the working and living environment. Millions of people, 25-30 percent of all wage-earners, are employed on temporary contracts as casual staff, contract workers, or in so-called “mini-jobs.” The national government’s introduction of an hourly minimum wage of €8.50 did not eliminate Europe’s largest low-wage sector, while even many people outside this sector struggle to get by on their current wages. The IG Metall, the single largest union in Europe, with over two million members, has managed to stabilize its unionization rate and even win moderate pay raises. That said, both the manufacturing industry and the booming export sector are witnessing a hardening division between the so-called core workforce and the 20-40 percent of precarious employees. The outsourcing of work to contracting firms is linked to employers’ ongoing withdrawal from collective bargaining agreements with unions, wage dumping, and the weakening of social standards. The same goes for privatization and the relocation of hospital workers and employees of other public institutions into the ranks of private subcontractors. This development has had fatal consequences for the organizational power and influence of unions. Coverage by collective labor agreements has been dramatically reduced, and is now at only 51 percent of employees in the west and 37 percent in the east of the country. This has direct consequences on wages, since there is a roughly 18 percent difference in pay between employees covered by collective wage agreements and those who are not. In recent years, and against the background of decades of relatively low strike activity, new strike movements have developed, such as those in the retail sector, security industry, call centers, food production, cleaning, food service, teaching, and nursing staff in hospitals. New agents of struggle have emerged from the strikes in the service industries; the participation of women and migrants is often particularly high. Building on these tendencies in the class struggle and making them the springboard of a political offensive must be at the heart of a connective party’s trade-union strategy. It is a central task of Die Linke to support union revitalization efforts towards conflict orientation and the democratization of strikes. The party can contribute to this by creating spaces for the exchange of experiences between strikers from different companies and industries, wherein a mutual learning process can take place and a political culture of solidarity can develop. These activities can’t be organized by the unions alone, and more importantly, such initiatives strengthen Die Linke by anchoring it in the trade-union rank and file — a key goal of the party in the coming years. Given our limited resources, it would be wise to set priorities, engaging in model conflicts and industries in order to make Die Linke’s potential value evident to all workers and achieve tangible victories. As a first step, we want to concentrate on the social, health, and nursing professions. More people work in the social-services sector today than in all of Germany’s export industries combined. Policies of deliberate underfunding and economizing social services are part of the neoliberal export model. This sort of care work, mostly conducted by women, is devalued in comparison to labor in the export industries. A historical victory was won in this sector in April 2016 by the nursing staff of Berlin’s Charité hospital — staff won their first contract stipulating an increase in the number of hospital personnel so as to reduce overall stress for workers. This fight had been prepared for years through the deep involvement of workers whose success was due in part to new approaches such as “wage councilors.” With a so-called “bed-and-station closing strike,” a high strike level could be achieved even in sensitive areas such as intensive care, making it possible for workers to apply real economic pressure. Moreover, demands for more personnel and less work stress fostered alliances with patients and other segments of workers. Active party members and social-movement activists formed a coalition to support the strike, drawn in by the struggle’s connection to quality health care and good employment conditions for all as an alternative to permanent stress. Slogans such as “more of us is better for everyone” or “striking against the burnout society” struck at the heart of the matter. The Charité case is now reverberating in hospitals across the country, where the experiences gathered in Berlin are being discussed as actions are planned. In the context of an ongoing campaign against precarious working and living conditions, we are attempting to provide political support to the struggle for more social-sector personnel and to connect to conflicts in the workplace, encouraging employees, patients, and other interested parties to come together and cooperate in loose, open campaigning groups. Our objective is to connect the various conflicts in hospitals, daycares, and schools, and forge a sociopolitical struggle to raise the value of social services and expand good education, care, and health care for all.