Several hundred protested the implementation of Hartz IV in Berlin. Smaller numbers of protesters turned out in other cities across the country. The government deployed police dogs and riot cops in anticipation of large demonstrations like those held last summer, when tens of thousands turned out against the new government measures every Monday. Those actions were organized largely by trade unions and the Party of Democratic Socialism, the former Communist Party that ruled in east Germany. Government officials and bourgeois commentators breathed a sigh of relief that the size of the protests fell so far short of the earlier actions.

Unemployment initially declined after Schröder campaigned for office in 1998 on the promise of bringing the number of jobless below 4 million, but has risen steadily in the last three years. Unemployment in December reached almost 4.5 million, or 10.8 percent of the workforce. “Be prepared for a nasty figure in January 2005,” warned HVB Group economist Andreas Rees, “about 5 million unemployed on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.”

In the eastern part of the country about 20 percent of the workforce is out of work.

The social-democratic government’s solution to persistently high unemployment is “support and pressure” for those receiving benefits. While Berlin makes vague promises of “support” in finding new jobs for those without, it has spelled out much more clearly what it means by “pressure” on the unemployed to find work: reduced benefits.

Unemployment compensation in Germany is among the highest in Europe, currently paying 60 percent of previous earnings for the first 32 months out of work, and about 55 percent thereafter. Hartz IV reduces the duration of payments to a single 12-month period and eliminates benefits after that, replacing them with welfare payments, which currently amount to 345 euros per month in the west, and 331 euros plus rent and heating subsidies in the east. Welfare is available only for those who can prove they are looking for a job.

Workers seeking benefits or trying to defend their right to continue receiving them will have to endure a complex application process. “It kicks off with six pages of boxes and tiny black type designed to ferret out an unemployed person’s basic personal data, down to his or her bank account number,” the International Herald Tribune reported December 29. “An additional 14 pages of forms aim to root out more sensitive matters, like what sorts of savings, investments or real estate a person might have, and how much his or her spouse or live-in partner might have.”

The Tribune cited the concrete effect Hartz IV is having on one couple in Frankfurt, whose income will be more than halved from 2,350 euros to 1,050. Hans Schmidt, newly unemployed, will get 60 percent of his previous monthly wage of 1,750 euros. At the same time, his wife Sabine, who has been out of work for a year, is losing the 600 euros she had been receiving per month because, according to the new law, her husband’s unemployment benefits are enough to cover both. The sum Hans receives will be reduced as well if he does not find a job this year.

“If they do not find work,” wrote the Tribune, “the long-term unemployed will be required to take what have been dubbed ‘one-euro’ jobs, after the amount they pay per hour.” These will be make-work jobs, such as trash collection in parks and churches, created by local governments.

Capitalist enterprises also have an eye on these “one-euro” jobs as a means to make superprofits. In the state of Saxony-Anholt, reports the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, landscaping bosses have gained the approval of government officials to hire the unemployed at one euro per hour. Those who refuse this work will lose all benefits.  
 
 
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