"Because the German government has stopped all arms exports to Saudi Arabia, Rheinmetall is left with 120 military trucks. That would be a loss of 136 million euros for the group. Rheinmetall demands corresponding compensation from the federal government. At last year’s annual general meeting in May 2018, activists wanted to display a banner saying "8. May 1945, then as now: "War starts here, let’s stop it here". Two activists are now expected to make 15.000 euros for the action prevented by the police. The process will take place after this express has gone to press. [Proceedings discontinued, see coverage in LabourNet Germany] Already in November 2018, a peace activist was fined 1.Sentenced 800 euros for urging workers to publicize illegal arms exports. The fact that Rheinmetall is not squeamish in such cases is also shown by the case of an Austrian works council, which Peter Haumer reports on below.Mesut Kimsesiz joined MAN Nutzfahrzeug AG in Vienna-Liesing as a temporary worker and welder in 2005. In 2007 he was taken on as a member of the permanent workforce and since 2012 he has been a member of the workers’ works council, in which the blue-collar workers are represented, while a separate works council is responsible for the white-collar workers. At Rheinmetall’s Vienna plant, ca. 650 workers and approx. 350 employees permanently employed, plus approx. 140 temporary workers. There are three factions in the workers’ works council: the Social Democratic Trade Unionists (FSG) faction with six mandates, the Freedom Workers with one mandate and the List Together Solidarity with two mandates. Mesut Kimsesiz is the list leader of the list Together Solidarity, which does not belong to any of the aforementioned groups..." Article by Peter Haumer (former production worker at MAN in Vienna-Liesing), published in express – Zeitung fur sozialistische Betriebs- und Gewerkschaftsarbeit 02-03/2019:
Not a short trial
Rheinmetall Man Military Vehicles in Vienna-Liesing wants an inconvenient workers’ council
Processed out of the company – By Peter Haumer[*]
Because the German government has stopped all arms exports to Saudi Arabia, Rheinmetall is left with 120 military trucks. This would mean a loss of 136 million euros for the Group. Rheinmetall demands appropriate compensation from the federal government.
At last year’s annual general meeting in May 2018, activists wanted to display a banner with the slogan "8. May 1945, then as now: war starts here, let’s stop it here" hold up. Two activists are now to receive 15.000 euros for the action, which was stopped by the police. The trial will take place after the editorial deadline of this express instead of. As early as November 2018, a peace activist was arrested for "calling for the Whistleblowing" to a fine of 1.800 euros for calling on employees to publicize illegal arms exports. The fact that Rheinmetall is not squeamish in such cases is also shown by the case of an Austrian works council, which Peter Haumer reports on below.Mesut Kimsesiz joined MAN Nutzfahrzeug AG in Vienna-Liesing as a temporary worker and welder back in 2005. In 2007 he was taken on as a member of the regular workforce and since 2012 he has been a member of the blue-collar workers’ works council, in which the blue-collar workers are represented, while a separate BR is responsible for the white-collar workers. At Rheinmetall’s Vienna plant approx. 650 workers and approx. 350 employees permanently employed, plus approx. 140 temporary workers. There are three factions in the Workers’ Council: the Social Democratic Trade Unionist Group (FSG) with six mandates, the Freedom Workers with one mandate and the List Together Solidarity with two mandates. Mesut Kimsesiz is the leader of the "Gemeinsam Solidaritat" list, which does not belong to any of the above-mentioned groups.[1]
Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles GmbH (or RMMV for short) is a joint venture for the production of wheeled military vehicles between the two German companies Rheinmetall AG and MAN Truck& Bus Inc. The company merged the wheeled military vehicle activities of Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH and the Military Division of MAN Nutzfahrzeuge. With effect from 1. January 2012, wheeled vehicle production in Kassel (previously Rheinmetall Landsysteme) and the Vienna truck plant (previously MAN Nutzfahrzeuge osterreich AG) were transferred to the joint venture RMMV.
Mesut Kimsesiz joined MAN Nutzfahrzeug AG in Vienna-Liesing as a temporary worker and welder in 2005. In 2007 he was taken on as a member of the permanent workforce and since 2012 he has been a member of the workers’ works council, in which the industrial employees are represented, while a separate BR is responsible for the salaried employees. At Rheinmetall’s Vienna plant, approx. 650 workers and ca. 350 employees permanently employed, plus approx. 140 temporary workers. There are three factions in the Workers’ Council: the Social Democratic Trade Unionists (FSG) with six mandates, the Freedom Workers with one mandate and the List Together Solidarity with two mandates. Mesut Kimsesiz is the leader of the list "Gemeinsam Solidaritat" (Solidarity Together), which does not belong to any of the above-mentioned groups.[1]
After a discussion between the workers’ works council and the management on military export orders on 24 September, the workers’ works council was asked to comment on the situation. May 2017 sees the start of a months-long crackdown on Mesut, as he had also inquired about rumors of military vehicles being exported to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, i.e. to a country at war in Yemen. That these questions are more than justified is shown by many articles that appeared in German daily newspapers at the end of 2018 about Rheinmetall’s circumvention of the export ban on Saudi Arabia imposed by the German government.
Mesut Kimsesiz will be fired a week after the talk on 1. June 2017 as the only works council member subject to the obligation of secrecy and confidentiality in writing, and on 24. November 2017 due to an alleged breach of contractual duties with immediate effect. Unsurprisingly, he is accused of breaching confidentiality obligations and unlawfully publishing photos of internal areas of the company. Rheinmetall expressly reserves the right to terminate or dismiss the employee until the facts of the case have been finally clarified. He is now only allowed to carry out his works council activities in the works council office if he has given advance notice – he has been banned from entering the factory halls. The trial has been going on for 15 months and a verdict is expected in the next few weeks.
Mesut Kimsesiz is a militant store steward who came to Austria in 1995, is 59 years old, married and the father of three children. As early as 2013, he went on hunger strike, as he had seen no other means of resistance against the planned dismissal of 147 colleagues, because the other works council members had not objected to the dismissals. Not least due to his publicly effective hunger strike, 70 of the planned 147 dismissals were prevented.
But Mesut has since been denounced as a troublemaker and complainer, often denied support and solidarity by the other workers’ councils. What does it matter that many of the FSG works council members at the Rheinmetall plant in Liesing had a past in the Gewerkschaftlicher Linksblock, the trade union faction of the KPo?.[2] Not much is left of this class-struggle tradition. On the contrary: the works councils, which have converted to social democracy, see themselves as co-managers who have internalized the logic of the site and are always prepared to work into the hands of management in the mistaken hope that this will keep the Vienna-Liesing site competitive and viable. And so it is not surprising that the chairman of the works council, summoned as a witness at the trial, testified in favor of the management. That he has thereby served to establish the truth can be doubted with some justification. It is also significant that in the 15 months since the start of the trial, the BR chairman has not issued a single statement expressing solidarity with Mesut Kimsesiz!
Rheinmetall’s actions suggest that the dismissal or dismissal of the employees. Dismissal of Mesut Kimsesiz was prepared well in advance and Rheinmetall was not exactly squeamish about it. Mesut Kimsesiz denies the allegation of breach of confidentiality obligations and unlawful publication of photos of internal areas on a homepage for which he is responsible. He even asked the court to investigate the possibility that Rheinmetall itself might be behind the "unlawful publication of photos". Mesut did take photos of internal areas of the company from time to time to support his work on the works council, but never put them on a publicly accessible website. The suspicion can therefore not be completely dismissed that behind all the accusations there could be a deliberate and criminal manipulation.
The obligation of secrecy and confidentiality is a constant threat to consistent interest politics in the works council. If it is pronounced, the works councilor is condemned to silence, makes himself guilty before the law in case of a proven breach of secrecy, and as a consequence can be "rightfully" dismissed and/or. be terminated. It is nothing new that management specifically works with such scenarios when needed!
With the trial of Mesut Kimsesiz, who is also a Vienna Chamber of Labour councillor of the Independent Trade Unionists [3], the Austrian workers’ and trade union movement is once again being shown how the prevailing law is ideally suited to defend the questionable interests and rights of capital. The "juridification" of the works council system turns out to be an unreasonable restriction of militant works councils. The necessary solidarity with Mesut Kimsesiz should therefore be connected with a criticism of the obligation of silence and secrecy and the many other fetters, which seem to be eternally fixed in the labor constitution law [4]!
* Peter Haumer lives in Vienna and was also a production worker at MAN in Vienna-Liesing for a while.
Notes:
1 The leadership of the oGB is organized according to factions. The factions have close ties to the respective political parties. The Fraktion Sozialdemokratischer Gewerkschafter (FSG) is the strongest faction and occupies most of the top positions. The FSG has a close relationship with the SPo. Second strongest faction is the Fraktion Christlicher Gewerkschafter (FCG), which is close to the oVP and dominates the public sector union. In addition, there are the Independent Trade Unionists in the oGB (UG), the Freedom Workers (FA), which is close to the FPo, and the Trade Union Left Block (GLB), which is close to the KPo.
2 At the MAN plant in Vienna-Liesing, the GLB had more than a two-thirds majority on the workers’ works council and a long class-struggle tradition going back to the period immediately after World War II. But when the supposedly "real existing socialism" collapsed in the period from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, many KPo supporters in Austria underwent a social-democratic metamorphosis – including the MAN works councils of the GLB in Vienna-Liesing.
3 The Chamber for Workers and Salaried Employees, or Arbeiterkammer (AK) for short, is the statutory body representing the interests of employees in Austria. Its legal basis is the 1992 Chamber of Labor Act. For most employees, membership in the chamber is compulsory. There are similar interest groups in the German states of Bremen (Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen) and Saarland (Arbeiterkammer des Saarlandes), as well as in Luxembourg. The "Alternative, Green and Independent Trade Unionists of Vienna" are one of the factions within the Chamber of Labor in Vienna. On the upcoming AK election on 20. March to 2. Mesut Kimsesiz is also running again in the April 2019 election in Vienna.
4 The Austrian Labor Constitution Act of 1974 is a labor code, i.e. a compilation of Austrian labor law. In addition to collective agreements and arbitration, minimum wages and protection against dismissal, it also sets out the status and rights and obligations of the Austrian and European works councils in a code – similar to the Works Constitution Act in Germany.