Social protests | DGB action day with blank spaces

As with the previous event a year ago, the Red Storm Charlie military exercise includes not only real protests, but also those played by reservists, as can be seen here. Photo: dpa/Bodo Marks Attacks on pensions, the eight-hour day and the planned cuts in health and nursing care insurance benefits: The major German unions are opposing all of this with demonstrations in 15 cities this Saturday. In doing so, they are trying to address the diverse discontent among the population, which was expressed not least in the results of the state elections in September.

What is striking about the call is the strong focus on a few topics where an overall view of social cuts would be necessary, not just for employees. The DGB call does not even address the contradiction between cuts for the weakest - the abolition of the immediate child allowance of 25 euros per month for poor families is just one example of many - and unrestricted rearmament.

After all: DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi emphasized on ZDF this week that she doesn't see why reforms of the welfare state necessarily have to be associated with "unreasonable demands" for the majority, while "one percent of the super-rich in this country apparently don't have to do without anything."

But the cuts in social and labor rights are explicitly justified by Chancellor Friedrich Merz with the supposed requirements of the “turning point”. At the DGB federal congress in May, he emphasized that his predecessor Olaf Scholz's promise that the "global political changes" would have no impact on social policy and the situation of the working population was "too optimistic."

So he wants the majority of workers to make their contribution to becoming ready for war. The DGB only partially questions the fact that this is only possible with an unrestricted expansion of the defense budget. In a statement on the draft federal budget for 2027, he criticized the fact that the "increase" in military spending was based on the achievement of an "arbitrary NATO target." “External and social security as well as the climate-friendly modernization of the economy must not be pitted against each other,” it warns.

Behind this there is apparently a fundamental approval of the DGB leadership for rearmament projects. She only questions their loan financing and its scope. This is probably due to the fact that the narrative that Russia will soon attack NATO states or even the Federal Republic militarily has caught on with a majority. Experts from the Frankfurt Institute for Peace and Conflict Research (Prif) emphasize that one should expect “hybrid” attacks against infrastructure rather than a conventional war. Only a fraction of the currently planned military spending would be necessary to protect infrastructure and the civilian population from it.

Nevertheless, authorities, clinics and private actors cooperate with the Bundeswehr when it comes to ensuring the military readiness of the entire society. This week, this can be observed in Hamburg during the major civil-military maneuver “Red Storm Charlie”. The “No NATO Port” alliance is mobilizing protests against such measures. And combines the no to “war maneuvers” with a yes to “social progress”. The DGB union, the Education and Science Union, is active in the alliance and is most committed to combating the militarization of everyday life. A number of GEW actors also support the youth movement “School strike against compulsory military service”.

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