French workers grow impatient
This article is a report made to a national workers conference of to the attempts of the present reformist government to manage the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR — French section the crisis for capitalism.
of the Fourth International) on the weekend of November 13/ A roundtable discussion between economists and trade union including Ernest Mandel, discussed the causes of the
This conference brought together over one thousand mem- crisis and a workers' solution to it in more detail.
bers and supporters of the LCR with delegations from other The weekend also included workshop discussions on themes the left wing of the Parti Socialiste Unifie. The vast majority of struggles today, the problems of youth and work, the role of those attending were activists from the two major trade union immigrant workers, and building the movement of solidarity federations in France, the CGT and CPDT. Also present were members of the youth organisation associated with the LCR, Comrades also contributed on their own experiences of particular union and workers struggles they had been involved in
The theme of the conference was: 'what response should including unionisation fights, direct his government toward helping the immigrants without French citizenship - revolutionary groups in France including
Jennesse Communiste Revolutionnaire.
with Polish workers.
including looking specifically at women's battles against redundancy, and workers make to the crisis?'. The two major reports looked at the fight for support for women's abortion rights causes of the capitalist crisis and what response from The weekend was summarised by Alain Krivine in outlining workers and the situation in France today and how to respond the tasks in building the LCR today. Who has benefited from "the change"
Socialist Party leaders talk about? Is it the workers who gave the Communist and Socialist parties their majority in parliament? In view of the results produced by the SP-CP government in its first 18 months in office, one could doubt it.
But if the workers are not the ones who gain by the measures adopted in the last 18 months, why are the bosses setting up such a howl against the government? The bosses and the right, in fact, are preparing the ground for a campaign to destabilize the government.
Can the gains that the bosses and the right-wing parties have made in their offensive be rolled back? Is there any way to mobilize the workers? To put it another way, what objectives can they be mobilized around?
A determined defense of the workers demands has to lead to a perspective for fighting capitalism as a whole. What sort of concrete perspective for that can be offered? Finally, how can we break the logjam in the present situation? We have to try to answer all these questions now.
THE CP-SP GOVERNMENT HELPS THE CAPITALISTS
In his speech on November 5, Premier Mauroy lambasted the right, which likes about people becoming sioned with the May 10, 1981, victory of the left. He did so in the name of those who, he said, benefited from the change. Who are they? Certainly not the workers. In the wake of May 10, they were cheat-
La decisive social advance. The nationalizations did not even lead to the sort of rights for the workers and the unions that were associated with the nationalization of the public utilities after the war. What is more, the owners of those enterprises that were taken over by the state received generous compensation. Dreyfus, the minister of industry at the time, recommended that they retain all the usual criteria of capitalist mangement. In general, the government adopted the rule that capitalist profit could not be touched. In general, it rejected the idea of using the nationalized sector as a lever for dealing with the jobs problem, which it could have done by reorganizing production in accordance with need.
With the start of the new session of parliament after the 1981 elections, the government resorted to using the instrument of decrees, rather than passing laws on which there would be public debate. It pursued a constant line of aiding investors. Thus, it set out on the road of one concession after another to the demands of the capitalists.
There were in fact only two possible roads. And the government took the one of administering the economic crisis for the benefit of the bosses and at the expense of the workers. From June to November 1982, all the measures taken have had the effect of shifting the cost of social insurance from the bosses to the workers. All the relief measures by the government have been the removal of taxes from the corporations.
generally, without freezing prices, the government inflicted a steady loss of buying power on the workers. It gave the bosses all the latitude necessary for shifting the costs of the crisis onto the workers. Mauroy's philosophy is the following: responsibility to prepare ourselves to endure a crisis that will last a long time and will affect the entire world. This international crisis is associated with technological changes that pose major problems for the present system of production." That is what he said recently in an interview with the daily Le Matin de Paris. Thus, clearly, he intends to bosses overcome this crisis. He is offering them the following assistance: A freeze on employers' contributions to the social security system over 1983; a shift of the cost of family allowances to the workers; government aid in getting credit; stateloans; and tax writeoffs for investment in new machinery.
The government's attempt to do away with cost-of-living allowances means trying to tie wages to productivity. Transfering the costs of social insurance to individuals involves attacking the right to medical care. Now the cost of a hospital room has been separated from the medicosts reimbursable by the social Hospital budgets are being cut. There is a systematic attempt to impose the criterion of profitability on the hospitals. The system of unemployment insurance, which has come under attack from the employers' organization, is also going to be severely cut back.
DISASTER FOR THE WORKERS
The effects of these measures have been immediate. Despite the government's claims that it is bound by principle to give priority to the poorest paid, the minimum wage is still just 2,891 francs net per month (7 French francs equal roughly 1 US dollar.) About 3 wage earners (in a country of 55 million inhabitants) get less than general and rather rapid decline in buying power. The employment rate is also drop ping. In September, there were 2,039,700 registered unemployed, of whom barely half were getting unemployment benefits.
A study done by Catholic Aid in Lyon shows that from January to May 1982, requests for food increased considerably. More than 80% of the applicants were unemployed French citizens (a large proportion of the workers with poorest pay and least job security are
unemployment insurance based on occa- tory. Nonetheless, if the municipal elec-
IV. Of these, half had a job in 1981. Among the French applicants, half were unskilled (OS) workers in plants in the Lyon region. Some 45.3% of those interviewed received no unemployment benefits.
The erosion of buying power and the growth of unemployment are creating poverty pockets that can spread.
This is the price that has to be paid for the course chosen by the government. Giving in to the demands of the capitalists in a period of economic crisis means making the workers pay an enormous price. And yet, the boses are screaming and setting up piteous wails. Why are they unhappy with such a policy?
WHY ARE THE BOSSES BITING
THE HAND THAT FEEDS THEM?
Despite the fact that the government has showered them with gifts, the bosses do not intend to give it the slightest respite. An SP-CP majority in parliament and Mitterrand in the presidential palace are the result of a working-class victory at the polls. And the bosses are determined to wipe it out. No matter what Mauroy does, the bosses will never regard his team as an acceptable government.
For the bourgeoisie, the problem remains the same. Under this government, as under the preceding one, it has to step up its attack on the working class in order to restructure the system of production to comply with the demands of profitability. In order to maintain their profit rate, the bosses want to reduce wages, eliminate all restrictions on the way they employ labor (introduction of the shift system, rotating shifts, employment of part-time workers, freedom to transfer as they please, hiring and firing at their convenience) and the freedom to restructure whole industries. In order to achieve this, they have to inflict a decisive defeat on the working class as a whole and its organizations. So, the May 10 victory of the left, regardless of the policy of the government that came out of it, represents an obstacle to this offensive.