Unemployment protests

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Unemployment protests or unemployment protests are protest movements by the unemployed. Their demands vary, but one thing they have in common is the protest against social exclusion through unemployment.

History and phenomena

As a political consequence of massive unemployment, protests of the unemployed have repeatedly been articulated since industrialization. Often these occurred as a result of economic crises. In Paris, the unemployed were the main sponsors of the revolution of 1848, they pushed through the establishment of state national workshops. A global wave of unemployment protests brought the world economic crisis since 1929. Jobless now called for government economic policy as it was finally implemented in the United States with the New Deal. In Germany, on the other hand, similar programs, such as the Social Democrats' WTB plan, were not implemented - it was only the Nazi regime that eliminated unemployment through forced labor in the Reich Labor Service and armament. During the global economic crisis, unemployment protests were often carried out by organizations of the labor movement , such as trade unions, but also by socialist, social democratic and communist parties. Not infrequently, however, the unemployed did not feel represented by the labor movement and articulated themselves as an independent social movement - the last major unemployment protests in Germany were the Monday demonstrations of 2004, mainly active in eastern German cities and directed against the consequences of the deindustrialization of the former GDR. In the context of the euro crisis since 2007, particularly in the crisis countries Greece, Italy and Spain, new unemployment protests emerged, which turned against the policy of austerity in the EU.

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