Interview with Norbert Kluge: Opening up new spaces for thought

The Hans-Böckler-Stiftung is striking out on new paths: an art exhibition in Brussels is being held to promote the idea of workers‘ participation in Europe. In an interview, Norbert Kluge, Director of the Stiftung’s Institute for Codetermination and Corporate Governance (I.M.U.), explains how that is supposed to work. Joachim F. Tornau, journalist in Hamburg and Kassel, asked the questions.

Mr Kluge, the next event in the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung’s Workers’ Voice project will be held in Brussels on 4 April 2019. The exhibition’s title is ‘Dynamics of Interstices’ and it presents work by the Kassel artist Dieter Haist. It sounds exciting. But what does art have to do with workers’ participation?

We don’t expect the artist to come up with any social policy solutions. But we do believe that his conception, his way of working can be a source of inspiration for the debate on a Social Europe. To quote Dieter Haist, ‘before I can give form to things I have to come to terms with the empty space – through this encounter I develop a series of pictures that give the empty space form’. Dieter Haist’s pictures are the result of an intensive working process. Taking up this approach as trade unionists we, too, confront a question: before we rush to offer solutions, shouldn’t we first clear away some of the debris obscuring – metaphorically speaking – the space of ‘Europe’ so that we can harness the creative energy to think new thoughts or rediscover old ones in order to confer our own form on the empty space?

Could you be more specific?

Let’s take the example of Brexit. This has engulfed the entire European debate. But people talk about it as if Europe was merely a Europe of governments, one of which has gone haywire and the others don’t know how to cope with it. That dominates the space. In order to move forward we need a different perspective. For us as trade unionists and workers Brexit first and foremost poses the problem of how we are going to continue to work with our colleagues in Britain and be able to represent our common interests, regardless of what the current government decides to do in the end. Maybe in this instance the empty space can be called ‘solidarity’. In these circumstances, how can we bring this about in practice?
Actually, that fits in with the ‘functional equivalents’ approach that you have developed with the international working group ‘Workers’ Voice’: workers’ participation in Europe emerges from the interaction of a variety of elements, ranging from employees’ representatives on supervisory boards through works councils to collective agreements, and can be organised in very different ways. A variety of forms can also arise from working to ensure that employees have a say at board level in transnational enterprises.
Exactly. One might say that this is the ambience within which the event is taking place. But we won’t be dealing explicitly with the various kinds of workers’ voice. The message is rather: if we want to shape Europe politically we have to strive first of all to refrain from snap judgements on where it is heading. This will enable us in a second step to declare that there are different forms and constellations from which exciting action and organisational options may emerge.

How did you come across Dieter Haist?

We have worked with him once before, when we were developing our ‘Codetermination 2035’ scenarios at the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. That also involved getting used to thinking in terms of alternatives and a variety of possible futures. If one imagines the world of work as an empty space the task is to work out different ways of ‘formatting’ it. I became acquainted with Dieter Haist at the Kunsthochschule in Kassel, where he taught until his retirement in 2008, as well as being an active trade unionist. Since 2000 he has also been guest professor at the Nanjing University of the Arts in China. He is, by the way, a qualified master painter – in other words, he knows what practical work means. He doesn’t think of his work in terms of ’art for art’s sake’ but rather as something that has to be crafted.

What can visitors to this event expect?

To start with, a keynote speech by Dieter Haist, in which he will talk about his way of working, and then of course the opportunity to see his pictures. It doesn’t make much sense to talk about art without showing it. We would like to discuss the kinds of inspiration that can be drawn from all this for shaping Social Europe, from a variety of European perspectives, in a discussion to be moderated by the Deutsche Welle journalist Melinda Crane. First and foremost, the distinguished European trade unionist and head of the DGB Reiner Hoffmann will have the opportunity to talk about how the working principles of the artist Dieter Haist can stimulate new ideas and boost efforts to make Europe workers’ social dwelling. In addition, Peter Scherrer, deputy general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, will have a discussion with three scholarship holders from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

You have already organised three Workers‘ Voice Breakfasts in Brussels, at which codetermination practitioners reported on their everyday experiences. Now comes some artistic input. What’s next?

We will definitely continue this series of events. We want to raise the awareness of policymakers at the European Commission and in the European Parliament, not to mention other decision-makers in the Brussels milieu, concerning the significance of Workers‘ Voice. Art can help us to achieve this because its language is universal, understood equally well in Palermo and in Spitzbergen. Our aim is to have our issue included in the next work programme of political Brussels. Finally, we would like a European directive that lays down minimum standards not only for information and consultation in cross-border enterprises, but also for codetermination. Europe’s economy is not just the affair of top management and shareholders, whose rights must be protected at all costs. Companies must serve the society in which they are embedded, and not the other way around. Otherwise, more and more people will turn their backs on the EU in disgust.