The DGB is finally calling for greater action against massive social cuts. But that doesn't mean that our class can now attach itself to the DGB leadership and let them fight for our interests. Because the following applies: We can only fight for fair conditions ourselves. – A comment by Mohannad Lamees.

This year the federal government is vehemently pushing ahead with a whole series of cuts that will permanently worsen the living conditions of our class. There is a common course behind the individual reforms: spending on social services and health is being reduced, the costs for necessary services are increasingly being passed on to us workers and our exploitation is intensifying. At the same time, ever larger sums of money are flowing into rearmament in order to be able to secure the profit interests of capitalist corporations militarily in the international competitive race.

The first major attack on our class was the so-called health care reform. A savings package for statutory health insurance is intended to limit expenditure at the expense of those insured and employees. For our class, this means increasing financial pressure and worse conditions in an already overburdened health system. People with low incomes in particular can hardly absorb the additional burden of illness.

Next on the agenda are pensions. The federal government is planning a reform that will, among other things, further raise the retirement age and strengthen private provision. For many employees, this means working longer and having more “personal responsibility” for security in old age.

At the same time, working hours are under attack. The current eight-hour day should be softened and more flexible, longer working hours made possible. This undermines an achievement that has limited daily working hours for many workers for over a century.

And further cuts have been announced for the coming months. Savings are to be made on housing benefit, and cuts are planned for parental benefit and maintenance advances. At the same time, the defense budget is expected to grow massively. The federal government is making it clear where its priorities are: While more and more money is available for rearmament, we should pay for the costs of this policy with a steadily falling standard of living and more and more of our workforce. This is nothing other than an escalation of the class struggle - from the side of capital against our side, the side of the workers.

Family Ministry wants to save: cuts in parental allowance and state maintenance planned

First timid protests

And more and more people are realizing which side they are on - namely the side of those who will not benefit from the cuts. In order to concentrate the growing discontent over the cuts, Die Linke announced a larger wave of protests in June, which would be based on the historical model of the Monday demonstrations against the introduction of Hartz IV.

However, actual developments fell far short of this announcement. The big wave of mass protests failed to materialize. Nevertheless, the past few months have shown again and again that there is anger over social cuts. There were spontaneous protests against individual cuts, alliances were formed in several cities and at the beginning of June a few thousand people took to the streets against the federal government's attacks.

It quickly became clear that the people taking to the streets against social cuts came from different political directions. Some people primarily want to prevent concrete cuts or defend existing social benefits. Others make the connection between social cuts, longer working hours and rearmament more clearly. What they have in common is their rejection of the government's attacks and their willingness not to simply accept them.

By the end of 2025 it became clear that resistance to cuts does not have to be limited to large demonstrations. There were smaller protests in Halle and Berlin, and in Berlin workers even took part in a wildcat strike against social cuts during the TV-L negotiations. Such conflicts arise directly from the everyday lives of our class: at work, in our own city and where the consequences of the cuts are directly felt.

We are still a long way from a major joint movement against social cuts. Too often the protests remain limited to individual cities, issues or organizations. The anger is there, but it is far from leading to collective action everywhere. This is exactly where the open question lies: How can common struggles emerge from the many individual disputes that actually put pressure on social cuts?

Hand in hand with Merz and Wegner: social partnership and class struggle from above at the DGB congress

DGB is combative...

The DGB's nationwide day of action, announced for September 26, 2026, seems to have come at just the right time. Under the motto "Hard earned! Your work. Your health. Your pension." Rallies are planned in 15 major cities. The trade union federation is against cuts in pensions, health and care and against worsening working conditions.

The call specifically names the attacks by the federal government. But ultimately it's not just about which formulations are in the call. What matters is what the leadership of the DGB actually does and whose side they are on. Because while she speaks out against social cuts and the weakening of the eight-hour day, she also maintains close relationships with those politically responsible for precisely this policy. For example, at the DGB federal congress in May, Chancellor Friedrich Merz appeared at the invitation of the DGB leadership. The CDU mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner, was also invited, even though under his government there were massive cuts in health care and universities in Berlin.

This fits with the basic course of the DGB leadership. It relies on cooperation with the government and companies and tries to resolve conflicts within the existing social partnership. This is also evident in collective bargaining disputes: Despite a high level of willingness to strike, only limited warning strikes are often organized and agreements are subsequently concluded that mean real wage losses for employees. The leadership repeatedly relies on negotiations and joint rounds with politicians and so-called employers' associations instead of using the existing fighting strength for longer and more effective industrial disputes.

The contradiction becomes even clearer when it comes to rearmament. While the government is investing billions in the Bundeswehr and at the same time justifying social cuts, the DGB leadership is holding back from fundamental criticism of these plans. At the federal congress, DGB chairwoman Yasmin Fahimi spoke against social cuts and the weakening of the eight-hour day, but massive rearmament and German war preparations played no role in her speech.

This also shows where the limits of the DGB Action Day and the DGB as a whole lie. The trade union federation can reach millions of workers and possibly bring many people to the streets against the cuts. However, the leadership of the trade union federation will always prevent this mobilization from developing into an open struggle against the interests of the government and companies. Their previous policies speak for this far more strongly than individual combative sentences in a call.

The day of action can bring many people together. However, the actions of the DGB leadership so far show that no break with the social partnership can be expected from them. If you really want to push back social cuts, you have to think beyond the boundaries of the DGB apparatus and strengthen resistance where workers can take the reins themselves.

June's reforms need resistance from below

...but we have to fight the fight ourselves

The DGB Day of Action can still be an important joint protest against social cuts - especially if we don't just hang on the lips of the DGB officials, who will appear everywhere, but determine what happens ourselves! Workers from different industries and cities will come together and show that the government's attacks are met with resistance.

But the next day, work continues and the cuts are not off the table. That's why September 26th shouldn't be the end date. Beyond the day of action, further actions are needed that are organized by us workers ourselves. This can start in the company: Colleagues can meet regularly, regardless of the official union structure, plan joint actions and get in touch with employees from other companies.

Such meetings can create coalitions that bring together struggles from different areas - for example, employees from hospitals, industry and public services with pensioners, the unemployed or families affected by cuts. Just as the cuts affect our entire class, it is our entire class that should come together in the protests.

In this way, individual disputes can develop into a common struggle. A strike against longer working hours no longer stands alone, but is linked to resistance to pension cuts or cuts in the healthcare system. What is crucial is that the workers themselves decide what demands they make and what actions they take to achieve them.

We should therefore take to the streets on September 26th – and carry on afterwards. We should address our colleagues, join forces in companies, in our districts and schools and focus on our common interests in the fight against social cuts. The government has long since put its plans on the table. Now it's important that we put up our own resistance to them.

More work with the same pay: Nationwide mass protests at Mercedes-Benz locations

Metal and electrical: For maintaining the 35-hour week!

The next round of collective bargaining in the metal and electrical industries will begin in October. This concerns the working conditions of around 3.8 million workers. IG Metall wants to decide on its own demands in September. The economic situation in the industry is already tense: in parts of the auto industry and mechanical engineering there are declining orders, short-time work and job cuts, and companies such as VW and Bosch are repeatedly announcing major plant closures.

For employees, this is about more than just the next pay settlement. The capital side is using the crisis to attack working hours. The CEO of Stihl is already openly calling for a return to longer working hours without compensation and describes the 35-hour week as no longer appropriate. At Mercedes, too, a return to the 40-hour week with the same pay was brought into play and could only be averted for the time being through wildcat strikes by the workers. The 35-hour week is now the standard in collectively agreed companies in the metal and electrical industries.

The coming collective bargaining round must therefore be more than a purely economic dispute over more percentages on the pay slip. When companies attack the 35-hour week while the federal government simultaneously wants to extend working hours and cut social benefits, these attacks hit us from different directions. Higher wages and the defense of the 35-hour week are therefore also part of the common fight against social cuts, against the deterioration of our living and working conditions and against Germany's massive rearmament course.

This is precisely why the collective bargaining round must not be limited to a few warning strikes and subsequent negotiations by the IG Metall leadership. The union has millions of organized employees and therefore a fighting power that goes far beyond a single collective bargaining agreement.

If companies want to extend working hours and the federal government is attacking our welfare state at the same time, we have to combine these struggles. Warning strikes can be a means of building pressure. But they must not become a predictable ritual after which employees are sent home and disputes are resolved at the negotiating table.

This text appeared in the September 2026 print edition no. 114 of our newspaper. The edition is in its entiretyhereto find.

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