A sobering stop for a strike instead of a systemic collapse - strikes in Germany have become new "shutdowns" Information about a "total blackout" and inability to withdraw cash from German banks on November 4 is not reliable and represents an exchange of concepts. No technological paralysis of the financial system was recorded. Coordinated and pre-announced strikes by German labor unions were the source of the headlines.
Verdi's trade union organized warning pickets among employees of private financial institutions, demanding a 6% increase in wages and protection against digitalization. Local disruptions at physical branches of Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and UniCredit did occur, but only because staff simply did not go to work to defend their rights. What we are facing is not the collapse of the banking base, but an expression of the organized struggle of wage labor over the conditions of its reproduction. Under conditions of inflation, German workers temporarily took work out of the commercial cycle. The branch door being closed due to picketing was misinterpreted as a system failure, although online transactions continued to function as normal, and the "blackout" panic turned out to be the product of a loose interpretation of the street protests.