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A 24-hour warning strike at the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg (UKGM) on Tuesday once again exposed the dire working conditions of the nursing profession in Germany. And this is not their first strike. In recent weeks, both nursing staff and clinic staff have struck four times at the UKGM, leading to major treatments and work being cancelled.
More than 9,000 workers at Germany’s first privatized university hospital fear not only staff shortages, overwork and poor wages, but that all departments will be outsourced to contractors and subcontractors, and that there will be no more trainee nurses in the hospitals. After training they are taken as employees.
The Asklepios Group, which took over UKGM owner Rhön-Klinikum AG two years ago, is known for its ruthless outsourcing and wage cuts at its clinics. Asklepios’s founder and major shareholder is multi-billionaire Bernard Gross Breman, who owns a luxury hotel chain, among other real estate, in addition to clinics, rehab centers, etc.
Rhön-Asklepios could count on the cooperation of the state government in Hesse. In the year In 2006, the government merged the Justus Liebig University Hospital Giessen with the Philips University Hospital Marburg and sold it to the Rhön Group. Following Asclepius’ takeover, the government has committed to participating in investments of up to half a billion euros in UKGM over the next 10 years.
But in May, the group unexpectedly canceled the corresponding “letter of interest” when it was revealed that the war in Ukraine would increase the costs of energy and new buildings. The state government immediately gave an assurance that it would share the additional financial burden. Science Minister Angela Dorn (Green Party) promised that “they will be taken seriously” and that “joint solutions will be found”.
However, Rhön-Asklepios refused to make any concrete promises regarding jobs, wages and hiring of trainees. The 2017 collective labor agreement, which includes a complete ban on outsourcing and prevention of layoffs, expires at the end of the year.
It is in this context that the coalition government in Berlin is pushing its most dangerous policy of war. The German government has set up a 100 billion euro “special fund” for Ukraine’s war with Russia, not for maintenance, but for the Bundeswehr (armed forces) of Ukraine. The working public, already struggling with inflation, will have to bear the cost.
Hospital staff are right to be concerned and worried. On Tuesday, nursing staff once again demonstrated their collective fighting capacity and the support they can build in the public. For example, the petition to repatriate the two university hospitals received more than 18,000 signatures.
But the warning strike showed that this fight can no longer be left to the responsible service sector Union Verdi. Together with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Left Party (Die Link) – it is the biggest obstacle to job security, prevention of war and epidemics, and quality health care.
What is needed are independent rank-and-file committees among auto workers and nurses in the US, Sri Lanka, and Germany, just like teachers and auto workers in the past. They have the task of taking care workers’ struggles into their own hands and connecting them with the struggles of other care workers and laborers. They do not focus on the profits of the companies, but are dedicated to the health, safety and future of the employees.
Verdi is distinguishing the struggle in the UKGM from other labor struggles in the nursing sector. Workers at various university hospitals have gone on strike for weeks over the past year. After the Berlin Charité and Vivantes were struck, university hospitals in North Rhine-Westphalia went on strike for 12 weeks before Verdi broke up the strike by selling out the workers. At Frankfurt University Hospital, workers are also set to strike because there is no relief on the way. The same nursing problem prevails everywhere.
And the next wave of coronavirus is already looming. The outbreak brought earlier grievances to a head and made them more visible. “It’s not the strike that’s putting patients at risk, it’s the general situation,” said a nurse in the Ruhr area. In Giessen in the autumn and winter of 2020-2021, during the outbreak, up to 110 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized at one time, 45 of them in intensive care units, mostly on ventilators. The situation was similar in Marburg.
Since then, the workers have been working at or near their capacity for three years, many of them have quit their jobs. Some of them themselves became seriously ill and some died. Even as a new wave of epidemics with dire consequences threatens in the fall, monkeypox is spreading around the world and polio is making a comeback.
In this heated situation, Verdi only staged futile whistle-blowing protests and 24-hour strikes. In collaboration with the Left Party, the union is leading the workers by the nose. On Tuesday, Verdi organized a demonstration in front of the state parliament in Wiesbaden to give politicians a platform for their lies and excuses.
No more than 120 staff members from the two clinics participated. Together with journalists, full-time trade unionists and politicians, they surrounded the platform where health experts from the Greens, CDU, SPD and the left spoke. In Boss, Science and Arts Minister Angela Dorn (Greens) said she had “always opposed privatisation”.
“Return the hospital to public ownership!” They clarified what the goals behind the campaign are. “Anyone who doesn’t seriously consider this possibility is a bit helpless when facing the corporation. We are only asking for public money, public money, public influence.
That translates as follows: The demand is used by the government in negotiations with Rhön-Asklepios. The Left Party and Verdi themselves clearly show that they do not consider the “demand” of a return to public ownership to the Christian Democrat-Green state government to be a reality in any way.
In conversations with the WSWS, participants at the University Hospitals stated that workers are growing impatient with these protests and the tactics of Verdi’s leaders, who themselves sit on all supervisory boards.
Two operating room nurses from Marburg, who have worked for more than 20 years, said: “Now the working conditions are worse than ever. … We lost the Christmas bonus after privatisation. But what is expected of us today is more than that, especially since the manpower situation is very difficult.
A nurse responsible for training young nurses said, “We train a lot, we put our heart and soul into it—obviously, because we don’t have more time for it. But the market is empty. If the conditions are bad, young people will not stay with us. She added, “What I don’t understand is why don’t we strike together with Frankfurt University Hospital?”
Frido, who has worked in the transport service in Marburg for more than 11 years, said: “So far these warning strikes have had no effect. This is my feeling. The politicians have no interest in talking to us. “Privatization was a big mistake, but the government is not willing to correct the mistake,” he said.
The colleague added, “We are at the bottom, the lowest link in the chain. The transport service has been continuously understaffed for a long time. Some of us are now doing the work of two, sometimes three people. But we were not compensated. Among ourselves, we were talking about mileage, because some of us have health problems from walking constantly and being on our feet too much. That just got worse.
When asked about the proposal to fight together with nurses in Frankfurt, the Ruhr area and Berlin, Frido said: “It would be better: you can only achieve something together.” If we are alone, they don’t take us seriously. Why did we come here anyway?”
of World Socialist Web Site And the SGP supports the creation of independent rank-and-file committees. Connect with us! Send a WhatsApp message to +491633378340 and register using the form below.
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