German students strike against proposed fees

Submitted by on 18 June, 2002 - 2:40

Currently (Tuesday lunchtime) around 8,000 students are demonstrating in the German city of Düsseldorf against the planned introduction of tuition fees. Reports are of students having broken through police lines and the demonstration has reached the regional parliament of the state of North-Rhein-Westphalia (NRW), some students have gone inside the parliament buildings. A number of
students also disrupted Chancellor Schröder, who defended the plans, at a rally launching his re-election campaign in the town of Mühlheim today. The police removed the 100 students - who according to Schröder, "looked too old" to be students, from the hall. On a demonstration on June 8 (a Saturday) 40,000 students demonstrated in Düsseldorf against fees. Slogans used on the marches include "Rich parents for all" or "Tax the companies, not students".

Due to a tax reform carried out by the SPD-Green federal government
in Berlin, many states are in a situation of financial crisis, as
they have to pay back millions of already collected tax to big
business. In NRW, the government is in the red by 1.4 billion Euros
and the Prime Minister of the SPD-Green government, Wolfgang Clement,
has declared his intention to get 90 million Euros of this from
students - "as they aren't very well organised, as they don't have a
strong lobby", according to Heiner Fechner, from the organisation
linking German students' unions, FZS.

The reaction to the government's plans, announced at the beginning of
May, was quick. "There was an unbelievable strike wave", Fechner told Solidarity. "That is dying down now, as students have exams soon."

Strikes, lasting weeks in some cases were held at the following
colleges: Aachen Poly; Aachen Technical Poly; Bielefeld Uni;
Bielefeld Poly; Lutheran Poly in Bochum; Ruhr Uni in Bochum; Bonn
Uni; Düsseldorf Poly; Düsseldorf Uni; Duisburg Uni; Dortmund Uni;
Essen Uni; Cologne Poly; Sport-Uni in Cologne; Münster Uni; Münster
Poly; Catholic Poly in Münster; Niederrhein Poly; Paderborn Uni;
Siegen Uni; Uni Wuppertal.

Cologne Poly and Dortmund Uni are still on strike as these words are
written, and Niederrhein Poly are holding a "flexible strike". This
tactic was learnt from the striking engineering workers of the IG
Metall union, who went on "flexible strike" at around the time the
proposed fees were introduced. The effect of seeing workers flexing
their muscles to the bosses must have had an affect on the students.
The "flexible strike" tactic is that a particular college, or part of
a college (e.g. a certain faculty) goes on strike for a day, and the
next day another college or faculty strikes.

Strikes were called after general meetings of hundreds, and in some
cases thousands, of students met to decide what action to hold.
Eckhert Niemeyer, chair of the AStA (students' union) at Düsseldorf
Poly, told Solidarity that he was dissapointed at the turnout at such
meetings, "We get around 700 or 800 students at our general meetings.
There's around 7,000 students here, so that's only 10% or so."

As well as strikes, meetings, demos and actions such as leafleting or
street theatre in town centres, students have also held alternative
lectures outside college buildings, often with the support of
teaching staff.

One-third of all students in Germany study in the state of North-
Rhein Westphalia. That's 500,000 students in NRW alone. Like in
seven other German states, the NRW government's spending has been
capped. And after the tax reform which has meant the government
being forced to pay millions of Euros back to industrialists like the
medicine firm Bayer, tricks such as the introduction of "processing
fees" for students are typical for social democrats trying to get
themselves out of a hole.

The money that comes in, should these fees be introduced, won't have
much to do with "processing" student's applications or funding the
bureaucracy better. For every extra Euro that comes in from the
students, another Euro less will come from the government. The
suggested "processing fee" will cost 50 Euros per semester, or 100
Euros per year.

The SPD-Green government in NRW also plans to charge "long-term"
students, that is, students who "take too long" (longer than 6 years)
over their studies, 650 Euros (around 400 pounds) per semester. Most
German students "take too long" because less than 10% qualify for the
meagre grant-loan combination, and more than 80% finance their
studies themselves through working. 45,000 students in NRW have
been studying for 10 years or longer.

Mature students who want to study are to be forced to cough up too.
All those over 50 who want to do a degree will have to pay 500 Euros
(around 300 pounds) per semester - which shows in a nutshell what
it's all about. If your degree won't be much use to the labour
market (e.g. if you study humanities, or if you're "too old"), you'll
either only be able to study a short course - two-tier degrees
(BA/MA) have been introduced - or only if you can pay.

These sums will come on top of the "reimmaticulation" fees and fees
to fund the student union and to subsidise the state authorities that
process grant applications and run halls of residence, that students
across Germany already have to pay.

So what do the Greens say? In NRW, where they are the junior
coalition partner to the SPD, they are blustering about resigning
from the government. But this is unlikely, even though sections of
the SPD would be pleased to see the back of them. And even if they
were to go, this wouldn't prevent these fees. Indeed, other parties
such as the "liberal" FDP or the Tory CDU would be all too pleased to
help the SPD out. Many Greens support a "learning account" model -
meaning that students would get vouchers to study for a certain (not
very long) period of time - an amount of time not taking personal
circumstances into account, i.e. whether you get a grant/loan or not,
if you have rich parents, if you have to work, if you're sick etc..

After this, students would be faced with a bill - or, more likely,
exmatriculation. And to police these rules, students would have to
be given smart cards or other forms of electronic surveillance to
enable the "accounts" to be "debited" - such methods are being tested
at a university in Berlin.

There is some evidence that the SPD's proposals in NRW were only made
to test the mood amongst students. There are reports that the SPD
regional government leaders agreed a year back to introduce such
"accounts" in order to prevent what they call "real fees".

Whatever happens, if such fees get pushed through in NRW, the rest of
Germany's students can expect something similar soon, or worse.
Particuarly if, as is expected, the ruling SPD-Green coalition in
Berlin, led by Schröder loses the general election in September to
the right-wing Bavarian Tory, Stoiber, who has made no secret of his
desire to destroy what is left of the "social" side of the German
"social market economy".

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