Against misery and exclusion
International Viewpoint #254 March 1994
At the same time, and in a contradictory fashion, the report says that it wants to encourage an improvement, extension and diversification of childcare. Proposals include drop-off centres and nurseries open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and more day-time leisure centres. Once again the goal is the famous "reconciliation" of family and professional life. As we see, Colette Codaccioni, prudently, does not propose a generalised return of women to the home. She cleverly mixes "solutions" of different types that taken together contribute to "restoring" the family, taking into account the real evolution of society, which has integrated women's work.
In addition, there are a certain number of reforms proposed for "ensuring and continuing" family financing Among other proposals are making family allowances tax-funded and thus state-managed, rather than the current system of employees and employers contributions and management by a so-called independent parity body. The financial effort to be made by the state would thus be a result of demographic changes: it would be correspondingly greater if there was a low birth rate.
### Price index
The Codaccioni report also proposes to peg all forms of family allowances to an increased price index (thus above the rate of inflation). These allowances would also be simplified and extended: children could be treated as dependent up to the age of twenty-two, and the special allowances for families of three and more children would be maintained until the youngest child was grown up.
With these last proposals, Madame Codaccioni is only responding to longstanding and legitimate demands. But they would still have to be implemented. Nothing is guaranteed in the current situation.
Finally the Codaccioni report suggest a reform of income tax in order to combat the current "penalisation" of married couples. Single people and unmarried couples would thus pay more taxes. Over and above her pro-natalist and pro-family goal, such measures would undoubtedly worsen current tax injustice.
This report should be rejected, not only because it manipulates the figures on which it claims to be based but also because we reject such pro-natalist policies, that is policies which challenge the free choice of women and men. * 26
THE growth of unemployment has continued in France since 1990, the year which signalled the end of a short three-year period of economic revival which had produced some relief on the employment front. At the end of 1993, official figures show 3.8 million unemployed - or nearly 12% of the active population. This places France in second place behind Spain among OCDE countries. CHRISTOPHE MATHIEU — Paris, 24 February 1994
T O these figures should be
added all those not accounted for and all those compelled to take "small jobs" created by successive governments. In this way, the total nears the five million
If you then add those workers obliged to accept part-time contracts and large — or contracts of a limited duration (three, six or twelve months only), one third of the working population is unemployed or in a situation of insecure
Fifteen years of massive unemployment have had consequences in all areas of social life. Poverty is affecting wider sections of the population.
In 1993, 670,000 people were on state benefits (RMI) — that is, 20% more people than in the preceding year. The RMI gives its recipients an all-round salary of 2,400 French francs (US$410) per month. The number of homeless continues to grow; there were 200,000 in 1993. And now the health system is under threat. Austerity measures taken to limit the social security deficit have led to a situation in which wider and wider segments of the population no longer have access to benefits. There have been dramatic consequences — an increase in tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
The increase in unemployment and misery weighs heavily on the condition of working people. Salaries have been frozen, and in 1993 total wages paid out by firms decreased. Working conditions continue to deteriorate.
There has been an evolution in public opinion. During the 1980s, a significant section of the population felt that priority had to go to the business sector, and that a period of belt-tightening was necessary to re-establish economic equilibrium. The failure of these policies and various social plans in the area of employment has put these kind of arguments on the defensive.
Increasingly, another idea is gaining wide currency - the idea that another approach is in order, one that prioritises the struggle against unemployment, poverty and exclusion.
Political debates over the last few months have reflected this state of affairs. Ecologists were the first — during the March 1993 parliamentary elections — to popularise on a mass scale the old trade union proposal for a massive reduction of the work week as a way of tackling unemployment. The ecologists' proposals coupled a reduced work week with a reduction of medium and high salaries (starting from 1.8 times the minimum wage).
This proposal for salary decreases provoked some concern among working people who noted that at the same time there was a growing number of contracts being signed that linked the reduction of the working week to a proportional drop in salaries for everyone. On each occasion, the argument used to justify such contracts was the threat of redundancies.
The debate was even felt within the right-wing parties, the big winners in the last elections. A group of deputies proposed a four-day work week - 32 hours — with a partial decrease in salaries. The overwhelming majority of right-wing deputies were more open to traditional arguments, such as the one that says that in times of crisis it is better to work longer hours. Nevertheless, political life was polarised by this debate for a few weeks.
While the debate around the four-day work week was centred in the political sphere, it took place at the same time as a revival in social struggles. There was a militant strike at Air France, which forced the government to withdraw its plan. Employers were also sent back to the dra-
FEN, that opposed the 1947 split: SNU in the department of taxation, SNJ among
There is a network around the magazine "Collectif", which includes activists from the
CFDT opposition, the group of ten, the FSU and various CGT oppositionists. o
International Viewpoint #254 March 1994 wing board following struggles at France Telecom and at Bull, the big French computer company. There were also some rumblings from the student movement, which forced the government to back track on some planned cuts.
The end of 1993 was characterised by a revival of social struggle, and above all by a series of successes which began to restore the confidence of a working class that had previously been through a series of defeats. The most recent victory was in the area of the educational system; after a demonstration of more than one million people, the government was forced to withdraw proposed legislation designed to benefit the private school system.
But the defeats of the past still weigh heavy. In the area of employment, all struggles have a defensive character — struggles against layoffs, such as at Ciotat and Sud Marine in the Marseilles region, and the struggle against the elimination of positions at the post office. As for the trade union movement, it has not overcome its profound weakness and division. France is probably the worst off in Europe, with a unionisation rate of somewhere between 5% and 10% of the salaried population length of the work week has regularly decreased in France, except from 1982 onwards. All studies have shown that the reduction of the work week is an indispensable condition for job creation. Legislating a 35-hour work week would create 1
To rely solely on a future economic upturn — as does the Force Ouvrière (FO) confederation - is to sow tremendous illusions. For massive job creation, there would have to be a growth rate of between 5% and 10%, something which is out of the question in a country like France
Redistribution
The financing of this reduction of the work week would take place through a redistribution of wealth. The initial AC call - signed by more than 100 trade unionists, academics and social movement representatives — points in this direction.
During the first national gathering of AC on 15-16 January, the more than 600 participants adopted a plan to demand a series of emergency measures.
These measures call for a moratorium legislation for a 35-hour work week. They call on the State to set an example by putting a halt to the eliminations of jobs in administration, public services and nationalised enterprises
Other measures put forward include an increase in unemployment insurance and the minimum wage (RMI), and defense of the rights of the unemployed to housing, health care and free public transit.
Over the long term, AC's goal is to rebuild solidarity based on the joint mobilisation of working people, the unemployed and those hovering between the two categories.
For this campaign to get anywhere there has to be a certain relationship of forces on the national level. AC is therefore organising a national march across France in April and May. There will probably be five marches that will go through as many of the major population centres as possible, and converge on Paris on 29 May.
This initiative, which should have a tremendous impact across the country, will provide an opportunity to improve the relationship of forces and advance toward
(see box opposite).
It is in this context that a number of trade unionists, organised within the "Col-
A divided movement lectif" network, initiated "Act Against
THE French trade union movement is made up of three large confederations. The
Unemployment!" (AC). The creation of
CGT, run primarily by activists from the French Communist Party (PCF), remains the
AC was based on the observation that the main confederation, in trade union electoral terms, but primarily in activist terms, even trade union movement has neither the though its influence has been declining over the last few decades.
strength nor the credibility to be the sole force behind a campaign against unem-
The CFDT comes second to the CGT in trade union electoral terms, and originates in ployment and for job creation. This is unli-
Christian trade unionism. Its "deconfessionalisation" dates from 1964. This confederake the situation in Germany in the 1980s, tion took up the themes of May 1968 throughout the 1970s, but made a right tum in when IG Metall was able to organise an the 1980s, making it the conciliatory force of the trade union movement. The evolution exemplary mobilisation around the reducof the CFDT generated a crisis which continues to this day, and has seen the post office and health sectors (SUD and CRC) bureaucratically repressed and split off. There tion of the work week.
is a structured left-wing opposition which represents about one third of the confedera-
AC plans to address the problem in the political arena, by taking the campaign to the population as a whole. The idea is to
The FO is a confederation influenced by social democracy, and was created on the bring together trade unionists, social basis of a split from the CGT in 1947. While "reformist", the FO has taken a more milimovement activists — particularly organitant tum of late. But it remains isolated, as it refuses to work with both the CGT and sations of the unemployed (see box p. 28)
- intellectuals and all those in favour of
In addition to these three confederations, there are two smaller ones: the CFTC, a very building a long-term mobilisation behind inactive Christian confederation, and the CGC, which organises administrative the following idea: "the situation has become intolerable; we have to change priori-
There are also autonomous and independent trade unions. First, thre is the FSU, the ties and implement radical measures to strongest in the education sector with more than 40% of unionised workers. This fedeoverturn current tendencies."
ration originates in the united teachers' federation, the FEN, which is dominated by a
From the beginning, AC has assemsocial democratic current that expelled the trade unions and tendencies supported by bled a wide range of forces. In addition to activists close to the PCF and far-left groups. The FSU is now twice the size of the the trade unions and organisations of the unempoyed, the Human Rights League
There are also more limited forces around the "group of ten", which includes those
(LDH), the trade union federation of famiexcluded from the CFDT (SUD, CRC, and so on) and those trade unions, like the lies (of Christian inspiration) and a number of other community organisations have joined.
The massive reduction of the work week is the first goal of the campaign. The on all layoffs until the implementation of tion.
CFDT leaderships.
employees.
jouralists, and so forth.
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
the campaign's objectives.* 27
Action, solidarity and debate
International Viewpoint #254 March 1994
Jobless and organised AT the onset of the crisis in the 1970s, trade union confederations - particularly the CGT and the CFDT - tried to organise the unemployed into "committees of the unemployed" linked to their confederation. These initiatives, which met with some success
THE following text is the initial draft of the appeal put out by the "Act were wound up in the 1980s for two main reasons. First, as a result of the
Against Unemployment" (AC) campaign. It has served as a platform for lack of motivation from the confederathe founding of a broad movement which aims to strengthen solidarity tions, which supported the Socialist between working people and the unemployed, to create a space for
Party (PS) government at the time.
Second, due to a rise in structural thoroughgoing debate around the question of work, and to struggle for unemployment, which distanced the an immediate reduction in the length of the work week.
employed from the unemployed.
Today, more than one million unemployed have been so for more than one year; trade unionism does not have much meaning for them, no more than it does for youth in unstable situations who see trade unionism as something institutionalised and outdated.
Organisations of the unemployed have thus sprung up over the last few years. First, there was the "union of the unemployed", which gave rise to today's National Movement of the
Unemployed and Unstable Workers
(MNCP). The MCP is part of AC and the "Sharing" movement, organised by the founder of the union of the unemployed, Maurice Pagat.
The "Sharing" movement puts forwards demands for the sharing of work and revenues (including workers' wages), which makes its relations with the employed rather difficult.
There is also the Association for the
Employment, Information and Solidarity of the Unemployed and Unstable
Workers (APEIS), founded in the
Paris region, usually by PCF-run municipal governments. The president of APEIS is a signatary of the
AC's founding appeal.
Finally, outside of Paris, there are a number of local groups which are not part of any national federation.
In general, organisations of the unemployed are weak and isolated. The building of a strong national movement of the unemployed and of unstable workers, alongside the trade unions, is one of the stakes in the development of the AC campaign.
When AC committees grow with a massive — even majority — participation from the unemployed, they refuse to play second fiddle to the organised trade union movement. As a result, they need the means to develop an autonomous structure. *
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DOCUMENT
SIGNATARIES to this call — the unemployed, working people, trade union and social movement activists, teachers, students, youth, peasants, social workers, academics, retirees — assert their common will to meet, exchange their thoughts and experiences, and take initiatives to give rise to a broad movement which can genuinely tackle the problem of unem-
Global competition has had a devastating impact. However, there are firms making profits, often very significant profits. These do not go towards hiring, on the contrary. When they are not placed on the speculative market, they are invested in growing automisation efforts, which have expelled millions of men and women from the workplace and from social life.
### Technological progress
Technological progress should benefit all of humankind. Instead, it has led to social regression: anguish for youth; pressure on women to take part-time employment or to return to domestic life, thereby further devaluating their social role; the exclusion of the old and the weak, treated like so many worn out tools; the creations of layers of insecurity, people with no status and no real social rights; the exclusion of immigrants and the rise of xenophobia.
The threat of layoffs hangs more and more ominously, even over the heads of the most highly educated. And "social dumping" is growing on a European and global level.
The current division of working time and revenues creates unemployment and insecurity, and overtime. It leads to exclusion, and threatens social equilibrium and democracy itself. It restricts solidarity to the employed: those that work contribute to the social budgets meant for those without work, while other social categories are exempted from solidarity efforts. Even today, work remains a very strong social link; and unemployment is the main form of exclusion.
There is a need to continue the struggle against layoffs, and for the definitive hiring of those in an unstable position. Overtime should be restricted. Everyone should be guaranteed an adequate wage — whether employed, unemployed, welfare recipients, youth, refugee applicants, and
But all this is not adequate. We can no longer tolerate the exclusion - often definitive - of working people, youth and entire families. However valuable they may be, the many local experiences that try to address this problem directly can't beat back this rising tide of unemployment and exclusion.
For a reduction in the length of the work week. For more than a century, the struggle to work less has been one waged by working people to live a better life. Today, confronted with the acceleration of the pace of work - with the fatigue and effects on the nervous system this brings — a new stage is necessary, and can make free time, education, leisure and culture accessible to everyone. It is good sense to divvy up working hours among everyone, thereby massively reducing working hours.
This reduction has to take place in the following manner:
• without worsening the condition of working people. They have been asked to many sacrifices over the years and the living conditions for many of them are already difficult;
• without intensifying the pace of
AC!
International Viewpoint #254 March 1994 work. This means enacting the necessary guarantees around hours, breaks, pace, norms, and the amount of work done by each worker;
• by adapting through negotiations from sector to sector, but based on nationwide legislation that sets 35 hours as the maximum legal length of the work week;
• with concomitant hiring, to genuinely address the problem of unemployment.
Among developed countries, France ranks as one in which inequalities in revenue and holdings are among the most pronounced. The wealthiest 10% of households receive 28% of revenues and hold 54% of assets. The poorest 50% of households hold only 6% of assets!
The costs of unemployment
The rise of unemployment has led to a growth in these inequalities. For many years, in fact, it is mainly working people, retirees and job-seekers that have borne the costs of unemployment. Directly so for those who have lost their jobs and their salaries, but also for the employed through taxation and payments subtracted from their pay cheques - whether this money goes towards funding job-creation measures, to make up for exemptions accorded to businesses, or to pay for the deficit in social security.
At the same time, taxes have been progresively reduced on financial speculation, fast profits, profits and capital gains.
It is possible to finance the reduction of the work week and defend working people's purchasing power through:
• the drop in the costs of unemployment following upon the creation of jobs;
• a more just sharing out of the enormous productivity gains that have been made over the years;
• the taxation of revenues from financial speculation and other unproductive
• a more just and effective use of taxes and social security contributions;
• a more just redistribution of wealth produced between labour and capital;
• initiatives for a coordinated reduction of the work week on a pan-European level;
• the establishment of a new relationship between rich and poor countries.
We commit ourselves to organise a broad public debate on all these questions. All proposals have to be heard and be debated - those that propose ways to avoid decreasing purchasing power as well as those that feel it necessary to lower the highest wages, or any other proposal concerning taxation and redistribution.
The mobilisation of working people and the unemployed for the 35-hour work week (on the way to the 30-hour work week) is an essential condition if this debate is to be as broad as possible. Another mode of production
There is a need to find another mode of production, another organisation of work that is not based on current divisions. The economy has to be revived by prioritising needs that have not yet been met: in health care, education, housing, the environment, community life, public services — all this towards an enduring form of development that respects ecosystems, nature and the rights of future generations in the North and South.
Jobs have to be created, and jobs in sectors undergoing reconversion have to be reconceived without layoffs. There is also a need to make education accessible to everyone — from the initial stages right through specialisation - and to prioritise investment in the educational system. These goals are within reach in a developed country such as our own. They can also give a boost to the idea of a social Europe.
The signataries of this call propose to help in the coordination of initiatives against unemployment, to build a broad movement with three main goals:
1. To strengthen concrete solidarity between working people and the unemployed: by recognising and supporting organisations of the unemployed, by prioritising their representation - and by helping to set up spaces for information, mutual assistance and for common activities around questions of free time and the creation of useful jobs.
2. To debate together: over basic questions raised in the fight against unemployment. How to share and organise work? How to share wealth and revenues in a more equitable fashion, in France, Europe, and the rest of the world? How to make the link between the various anti-unemployment initiatives that have been taken across Europe? How to rethink the educational system to break down segregation and develop forms which provide qualifications for all segments of the society and culture? How to rethink the place of work in society and imagine other venues for social interaction? How to open up free time to forms of solidarity - awareness, creativity, citizenship - that can at last be socially recognised?
3. To organise and act for a reduction of the work week - immediately for a basic law fixing a legal weekly limit of 35 hours, towards the 30-hour work week.
It is collective action that will unleash a new, alternative logic. For this, trade union and social movement efforts have to converge. There has to be a will to develop solidarity, so a broad social movement can bring together working people and jobseekers, women and men, French citizens and immigrants, and all those who believe that the limits of what is tolerable were crossed long ago. *
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