Unite and fight !
Most strikes at the moment are about wages. It was the same before the 1988 presidential elections. That time, the radicalisation was quite uneven, with big companies disrupted between February and
June, growing unrest in small and medium enterprises in the second half of the year, and strikes of nurses, Post-Telecom workers and the
Paris mass transit utility (RATP) coming one after another towards
This time there is a cumulation of salary-based strikes in large companies (including Renault), which is sparking a growing number of disputes in a large number of small and medium sized enterprises.
International Viewpoint #265 April 1995 the end of the year. by Jean Dupont
ONE IMPROVEMENT ON 1988 is the popularity, among the strikers, of demands aimed at reducing vulnerability (Alsthom) , maintaining and creating jobs (Air Inter), and, to a lesser extent, reducing the working week. We can add the struggle to defend the public sector, opposition to some of the directives of the European Union (the railway company SNCF) opposition to privatisation (France Télécom), recognition by qualified health workers of the qualification of nursingassistants, and the demand for incorporating new and temporary teachers into the unified seniority and grading system. And all this in a context of increased public concern about homelessness and marginalisation, and a growing radicalisation of senior citizens to protect their pensions. In short, we are witnessing a generalisation of strike movements and other protests, in which social questions are at the centre of the political debate. Why all this activity?
Profits are up considerably, the employers as a class are discredited, and we are in the middle of an election campaign. And all this after years of *responsible' Socialist Party sermons about the limits of realistic' policies. *Why not take yourself what the election is unlikely to give you?' That is what people are saying.
Young, recently employed workers were the force which sparked the strikes as Alsthom and Renault. Technicians from the research division were behind the strike at Renault's Rueil plant. The work force is changing, but the old generation of militants is still in place (the average age of workers in French auto plants is 45). Both ends of the generation chain are involved in the current strike wave. This may be part of the reason for the unequal intensity of the combative spirit of workers across some of the larger companies.
To what extent will this new combative spirit increase the political consciousness of working people? To be sure, there is no mechanical relationship, and there can be quite different results in different sectors.
But in large state-owned enterprises, the strikes will certainly result in increased support for the left. In the immediate, this means more votes for the Socialist Party candidate in the presidential elections. And this return to the left will be noticeable even among those workers who have been heavily deceived in recent years, and have tended to abstain from all kinds of politics. Some workers will be radicalised enough to vote for Robert Hue (Communist Party candidate) or Arlette Laguiller (Trotskyist, leading member of the Lutte Ouvriere party). Others will vote for Jacques Chirac just to get rid of the aristocratic prime minister Edouard Baladur.
What this means is that, if we want to stabilise the reconstruction of the left-wing sectors of the workers movement, we need to inject more anti-capitalist elements into the current struggles. Unity
The rank and file has obliged at least the three main trades union federations to unite at the local level. The work force as a whole is happy with this development. But unity in the middle of a struggle has not meant the democratisation of the unions at the branch level. At the Renault Flins plant, a rank and file strike committee set up by Trotskyists seems to have developed into a very useful "mobilisation committee" as the dispute spreads. Shop stewards, hostile at first, are now neutral or
A LA NON PRIVATISATION positive about the committee. In other plants, however, we have to recognise that workers might want trades union unity, but they feel too much debate about politics and the future of the unions would divide the movement.
As for the union leadership, the CGT and CFDT at Renault have been very careful not to propose anything that might spark off a coordinated, simultaneous strike across the group. And yet such a massive strike is not just necessary, but completely possible in the current circumstances. Support for such a strike is growing in the CGT, but only now, one month after the local strikes began. Once again, the CGT "surfs" on a wave of combative spirit, tries to keep the momentum going as long as possible, but does everything to stop things getting out of hand. A tense social situation is good for the Communist Party. A sharp crisis would be threatening for the leadership.
Thinking in the CFDT differs from sector to sector and branch to branch. Shop stewards are active at Renault (especially in the Paris region) divided at the electricity utility (EDF) and mainly inactive at the Post Office. But the recent CFDT congress showed that there is an increasing demand from the base for greater unity with the other federations, including the CGT. As for the FO federation, their shop stewards unite with their colleagues in the other federations when they are obliged to by the rank and file, but the federation as a whole tries very hard not to make this into any kind of general tactic. *
France: the new militancy
No go at Renault
The Renault group, with 59,000 employees in France, is the symbolic heart of all the great strikes of modern French history.
But in recent years, Renault workers have been on the defensive.
the first three months of 1995. So what about the workers? *
* Air Inter is a private company, mainly owned by Air France, which is scheduled for privatisation.
International Viewpoint #265 April 1995
What should militants do?
* agitate for a generalised wage increase of
1,000 or 1,500 Francs. Point out that the share of income received by wage earners been cut by 10% over the last 12 years
* help improve the coordination of the strikes The wave of strikes in recent weeks could change all that. Danielle at the branch level. The Revolutionary Mezzi tested the temperature in three plants Communist League (LCR) is campaigning in all the unions for a mobilisation of all the Renault plants in the Paris region. This kind of activity is necessary before we can hope to organise a strike of the whole Renault group. * there is no real dynamic of cooperation between unions representing different professional categories inside the plants on strike. But as the various groups find the limits of isolated action, we can argue for greater unity in the future. * the same can be said about the lack of understanding between workers in the industrial, public sector, and civil services sectors of the economy. We must hope that the situation develops in a way that allows us to make realistic and reasonable propositions for greater coordination between strikers in different sectors of the economy, and between the trades unions that represent them. * the trades union movement needs a plan of general demands that can increase the consciousness of working people in an anticapitalist sense. It is incredible that the unions come together nationally only at the initiative of the bosses' federation (CNPF). We should argue for such a plan in all the unions, at all levels. * the development of this kind of general plan of demands requires the unions to find and implement new democratic structures and practices, which would include the members in future debates on the union's demands, and on the possibilities of industrial action. The CFDT congress shows that the unions can change. It shows that the leaders of the unions do not represent all the members, and that much greater unity is possible and desired at the local
Billancourt: This is one of the biggest mobilisations ever of the categories employed at the group's headquarters -mainly technicians and managerial staff," says Patrick. "It's a bit of a historic moment. Unity [between the trades union federations] has been rebuilt in only three weeks. And with each new upsurge, there is one more union at the table! The change in mentality is particularly strong among the technicians.
"But what we don't have yet is a set of precise demands for the Renault group as a whole. And we already sense here that, united around a central initiative, people would feel stronger, more radical.!"
Management at Billancourt is playing for time. Their latest offer is an 0.5% salary increase starting from July, and a further 1% begınning in October. A concession? Not really, warn local militants, who see the offer as an attempt to distract workers from the spontaneous demands for a 1,500 FFr (SUS 250) monthly increase for all workers. Management knows that such a demand would oblige the unions to work together. And with strong strikes in several plants, the last thing management wants is a set of demands that could result in coordinated strikes, culminating in a national day of action.
Sandouville (6,600 workers): Workers have been locked out for over a Head to head at Air Inter week, after they started threatening to disrupt production for one hour in the middle of each shift. According to local militant Jean-Marie, workers are "ready for something harder, if nothing changes soon... No new workers have been taken on here for years. Many workers ' children have been 'employed' in the plant on all kinds of 'training' programmes. This strike is now about having these young workers taken on with proper contracts. I have a 20 year old son, still a "trainee" in the eyes of Renault. If I didn't do something to have him employed properly, how could I look him in the face in the evening?
"Shortening the working week is important too. In Germany they won a wage increase and a 35 hour week! Why not at Renault too?
Dimitri (900 workers):"We know profits are up. They' would have been cleverer if they had offered us a reasonable increase right from the start... Young workers finish their apprenticeship, start work at a machine, and come home with little more than the minimum wage (SMIC). Immigrant workers too have had enough of being the last in line. In this plant, most workers were born outside France.
"We can win a 35 hour week. But we should take on new workers too: people here want to see their children taken on...
and regional levels of all the unions. Nine out of 10 air staff and half the ground staff of Air Inter have taken industrial action since
March 13. Some 100 strikers finally caught up with company President M.Bernard on March * It goes without saying that we want the 21. The workers managed to keep their director's attention for three hours, before he was unions to take on board questions of full able to excuse himself. Bernard pleaded the poverty of the group. Workers preferred to employment, part time work, reduction of the believe the official chairman's report for 1994, which reported profits of 220 m. FFr, despite working week, and so on. The challenge, of the purchase of two Airbus A330 for cash during the year. The central demand is the course, is to find ways to link the unions to suspension of the "social plan" imposed by management in July 1993, and based on a social movements like unemployed persons' wages freeze, elimination of 600 posts over two years, and increases in compulsory associations, women's groups, associations overtime. Workers have also had enough of the unwritten annex to the social plan - the working against marginalisation and secret restructuring of the company based on the massive use of subcontractors. The plan homelessness, senior citizens' initiatives and is to sell off the freight, refreshments, maintenance, and general service divisions, so as to so on. increase the capital reserves of the company, in order to attract new shareholders. * It is time to demand a 35 hour week. After It is also increasingly clear that the profits of Air Inter are being syphoned off to pay the the success of the German metalworkers, we debts of the major shareholders, including the Crédit lyonnais bank. Even so profits rose in should try to make this into a general demand of the European trades unions and social movements. * [JD]
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[JD]
Corsica: The strike is solid, but who will lead it?
(French, English, Dutch, Spanish and German spoken)
International Viewpoint #265 April 1995 by Serge Vandepoort Civil servants have been on strike since early February, demanding a 300 FFr ($US 50) increase in their transport allowance. The government is so far intransigent on this and other demands related to the high cost-of-living on this French-controlled Mediterranean island. Not surprising, since private sector workers will demand the same subsidy once the government awards it to its own employees.
France/Corsica
J'AI DIT:
PAS DE
PANiQUE!
In mid-March, however, the government offered to sign an agreement with all the trade unions representing the Prime Minister Edouard Balladur - "Don't panic !" strikers, except for the most radical, the CGT. Divide and rule, clear and simple! And by announcing the concession, and demanding a return to work just before the major unions were due to hold large consultative meetings of the strikers, the government (and union leaders) hoped to isolate militants in the "moderate' unions too. The concession came at a time when new groups of public sector workers, including teachers, were increasingly ready to join the strike.
At which point, the independentist Corsican National Liberation Front questions. Why are prices on the island so much higher than in France, when the French government invests so much money on "territorial continuity?" Why is infrastructure of the island deteriorating so fast? Why are the workers continually asked to make sacrifices, while the debts of farmers and shopkeepers are frozen by special government programmes?
The trade unions are supposed to articulate the solidarity of the working people. But they completely mystify the political dimension of events on the island. In 1989 trade union bosses benefited from the activities of a nationalist movement which was determined to prevent the workers from dominating the political scene, and terrified that the striking workers would be an independent actor in any negotiations on the island's future status. Are we heading for the same crisis in 1995? Now, more than ever, the lack of an independent political organisation representing the working people of Corsica is deeply, deeply felt. *
(FNLC)
fire-bombed
40 some administrative buildings and offices of the
IMF/World Bank: Enough is Enough!
scandle-ridden Crédit lyonnais bank. The separatist group later claimed to support the "legitimate" demands of the strikers,
Over 1,200 people participated in the international meeting organised by the Belgian
Committee to Abolish Third World Debt (CADTM) in Brussels on 18 March.
thought the explosions were of course condemned by all the trades unions on the
Michel Chossudovsky's detailed critique of the United Nation's Copenhagen summit on island except the nationalist Corsican development is reprinted on page 29. In next month's issue, we hope to reproduce extracts
Workers' Union (STC). The tactic of the from the speech given by Indian ecologist and feminist Vandana Shiva on the way multi-
FNLC seems to be to reassure their social national companies are using intellectual property (copyright) legislation to claim ownership base (small businessmen, doctors, lawyers, of plants and plant extracts, naturally available in the third world, striping the majority of the architects, craftsmen and shopkeepers) that world's population from control over the seed they use, and making them pay for what used they still count for something, without directly alienating salaried workers.
The CADTM plans a number of actions between now and the G7 summit of the leading
Although the main unions deny it completely, the FNLC attacks show that the strike does have a connection to the basic political question in Corsica - the relationship with France. Ever since the strikes of Spring 1989, Corsican workers have had to ask themselves difficult to be 'folk' medicines.
imperialist powers in Paris in July 1996.
For more information contact CADTM,
29 rue Plantin, B-1070 Brussels, Belgium.
tel. (+32) 02/523 4023, fax 522 6427
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