Anti-government protests in Iceland appear to be growing again
as the Tory-Liberal coalition slides down the polls. Some 4,500 people rallied
last Monday in Reykjavik, a city of 120,000 [1], in support of
striking doctors and music teachers and against government cuts. Some were also protesting the recent bizarre instance of the police and the Icelandic Coast Guard getting submachine guns. The next protest is planned for 5pm tomorrow,
10 November outside Alþingi, Iceland’s parliament.
Austerity grinds on with liberal Framsókn MP Karl Garðasson announcing last
month that the state broadcaster was “bankrupt” and the government would have
to “review” it and all publically owned institutions. Obviously this means more
cuts and job losses, as it does in districts such as Reykjanesbær in the southwest
with the town of Keflavik and its international airport and debt of over ISK
40 billion (£200 million). Fortunately accountants KPMG are on hand to advise
on what to cut starting with 5% across the area’s public services budgets.
Nothing is safe; in the far north east of
Iceland, Kópasker and Raufarhöfn villages stand to lose their ambulances
in the latest round of cuts. If this happens the nearest ambulance will be
60 miles away—and for a small amount of money affecting only about 300 people somebody
will die soon who otherwise could have been saved.
Today, 9 November, is the anniversary of the 1932 Battle of
Good Templars House—Guttóslagurinn when in the depths of world depression, a
small Communist Party led mass campaigns against wage cuts that shook Iceland
for the rest of the decade. Read more about Guttóslagurinn in an article I wrote in Socialist Review in 2008 when the world financial crisis had just crashed on
Iceland’s shores and it quickly became clear who the ruling class was going to
make pay.
It wasn't just the Reykjavik authorities who tried to pull wage-cutting stunts in 1932. Just a month later in December the town council in Akureyri, Iceland's capital of the north tried to slash workers wages to 70 aurar or 0.7 Kr an hour - almost a third less than the Reykjavik town council's plan that was stopped by Guttóslagurinn. So my next post will be about the great Nóvu boycott to stop it when after Guttóslagurinn the authorities tried to defeat the workers by flooding the town with their hired thugs, the hated "White Team". That's the point of knowing our history, to understand that we have won before and we can win again. So how long this Icelandic government lasts will partly depend on what workers there do and learning the lessons of their own history will help.
