The BVG strikes during the first months of 2025 were more than just an annoyance for Hertie students trying to get to class on time. They were the site of a battle of narratives, dominating the headlines of major newspapers. Those narratives cannot go uncontested, especially at a school of public policy.
Among the intense media coverage criticising ver.di, the trade union representing the striking BVG workers, an article in the Tagesspiegel stands out for the shamelessness of its anti-labour stance. In “Strike despite Arbitration” (Streik trotz Schlichtung), journalist Jörg Hasselmann presents readers with the same tired, old arguments that have been used by capital and its apologists for generations to win the battle of narratives with labour. We cannot let these arguments go unchallenged.
Three of Hasselmann’s narratives merit attention.
Divide and conquer
First, he employs a classic “divide and conquer” tactic to pit workers against one another. “4000 Euros for a semi-skilled job (Anlernberuf)? Not bad, say many Berliners, whether nurse or preschool teacher. They’ve got technical or academic degrees (Ausbildung oder Studium), they earn less.”
For Hasselmann, the demands of the “semi-skilled” workers were unjustified because they would then be earning more than, say, nurses or preschool teachers. But there is an alternative way to resolve Hasselmann’s distaste for this outcome: increase the salaries of nurses or preschool teachers as well. I have my doubts about whether Hasselmann would be satisfied with this solution.
A better narrative is that the ver.di strikes are a collective struggle for better working conditions for everyone. Instead of pitting workers against one another, we should see the strikes as an opportunity to gain leverage in future negotiations about working conditions. If ver.di strikers win a four-day week, then that’s an argument we can use to fight for a four-day week for ourselves.
Can we really afford a four-day week? one might ask. One critic has made the argument that “the danger lies in the fact that we are working less and reducing working hours to a greater extent than we can increase productivity. And that those who are calling for this simultaneously create the illusion that it is possible without a gap emerging somewhere in overall economic consumption.”
Except that critic was former German finance minister Ludwig Erhard, father of the German “economic miracle” (Wirtschaftswunder), and he was talking about the five-day working week. Hasselmann is just one more critic in a long line of those who have made similar arguments throughout history. Strikers and activists need to avoid “going too far”, they argue, even though it is thanks to those very activists who “went too far” in the past that we have so many of the things we now take completely for granted, like the five-day working week or vacation time. We cannot let the annoyance of the strikes distract us from this central fact.
Unreasonable strikes
Which brings us to Hasselmann’s second narrative: that the strikes are unreasonable. “That ver.di will still carry out the warning strike despite the agreement [for arbitration with BVG] is a bad sign”, Hasselmann complains, wondering whether the arbitrators will “be able to bring ver.di back down to earth.”
Again, we must keep front and centre the crucial fact that strikes are among the few forms of hard power that are available to regular people. We all immediately saw what happened to Berlin when ver.di workers withheld their labour. Protest and political advocacy are important and have their place, but they are not always enough to fight against the power that the super-rich and corporations can muster. Unfortunately, ver.di cannot vote itself a 6% raise of a €10,591.70 monthly salary without collective bargaining, as the Bundestag did.
To see what happens when labour loses this power, look no further than the state of labour unions, workers’ rights and working conditions in the US. The power of the strike must be defended publicly.
Hasselmann describes ver.di as “uncompromising”, and yet the final agreement saw ver.di accepting significant compromises: a monthly increase of €430 instead of €750; and no 35-hour, 4-day week, but rather discretion for drivers to increase their working hours from 37.5 to 39 hours per week. It is as if Hasselmann expected ver.di to simply give up all their leverage for negotiations before they had even begun.
Hasselmann’s characterisation of ver.di is not only not neutral, it actively undermines labour in Germany.
“But how will we pay for it?” and other slogans of class warfare
The third narrative is perhaps the most pernicious of them all: that ver.di’s demands are financially unreasonable. “Where is the money supposed to come from?” asks Hasselmann after the successful arbitration of the dispute.
I find this type of response deeply unserious. It has been an unserious argument for many years in the US, which has never seemed to have any problems finding a spare few hundred billions dollars when it came to funding the military but has, however, never seemed to be able to find any money for the elementary school teachers who pay hundreds of their own dollars on school supplies. A similar logic applies in Germany.
To illustrate what I mean, here are a few questions for Mr. Hasselmann, if we really are serious about “economic responsibility” (after all, the new coalition agreement “Responsibility for Germany” starts with “New economic growth, good work, collective effort”).
First, where is the €500bn for infrastructure (of which ver.di’s demands would be 0.05%) and the bottomless well of money for the military supposed to come from?
Second, where is the money supposed to come from for the largest tax break for the rich since 2008, which the new coalition has just laid out in their agreement? The corporate tax (Körperschaftsteuer) will be lowered by 5% over the next few years, which means €13bn less coming in, of which 75% will go to the top 1% (and of which Ver.di’s demand would be only 1.9%).
And last, given the apparent generosity of the federal government, why is there such an emphasis on saving money on welfare benefits? The amount of money that can be saved by doing so pales in comparison to the €100bn per year that is lost due to tax evasion. But the coalition agreement has very little to say about that, apart from the vague statement that they will “examine the necessary further legal measures” to deal with it.
These questions are not an exercise in whataboutism. They are meant to draw attention to the way that discussions about how things will be paid for – or rather, why we cannot afford something – are often no more than distractions that provide cover for further redistribution from the bottom up, at least in wealthy countries, and still more in a country as unequal as Germany.
I am not opposed to large-scale government spending – quite the contrary. What I am opposed to, however, is pinching pennies among the 99% while doling out money hand over fist to the top 1%, whether at the local or national level. For however much some want to talk about fiscal responsibility, it sure seems to have much less to do with the actual amounts of money and much more to do with who deserves what, which is, unfortunately, often determined by nothing more than how much someone can take.
What we can afford is a question of priorities. Nothing more, nothing less.
An AfD campaign on a silver platter
Ultimately, Hasselmann’s insistence on the financial unreasonableness of ver.di’s demands helps serve up a ready-made narrative for the AfD on a silver platter: the “establishment” parties have unlimited money for the military and for themselves, but no money for “everyday hard-working” Germans. The rightward march of society owes its success not only to the actions of politicians and political parties who either do not do enough to stop it or who actively enable it, but also to the narratives that provide their intellectual justification.
Those narratives cannot go uncontested, least of all at a school of public policy. When ver.di loses, we all lose. The fight against the rising inequality in our society cannot be won without solidarity.
Raphael is a 2nd year MPP student focusing on public procurement and finance. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Classics from McGill University.