French radicals create new trade unions
Recently formed, non-aligned trade unions played a major role in the December 1995 strike movement. Christophe Aguiton of the SUD union of post office workers explains how and why.
MOST MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR trade unions found themselves in the streets in December 1995. And militants of the CGT, the largest militant force, traditionally been very connected to the French Communist Party, found themselves shoulder to shoulder with members of Force Ouvrière (FO), a smaller movement, which identifies with the social-democratic tradition. Anti-clerical, and anti-communist.
Also present in the demonstrations and committees were members of the independent unions, like FSU (education), SUD (Post Office and France Telecom), CRC (health) and the SNUI tax collectors' union. And opposition structures and sections of the country's second largest federation, the Catholic-inspired CFDT. The CFDT was once the union which was most in phase with the ideas of May 1968. But its more recent "repositioning" has led its leadership to strive to replace FO as the government and employers' prime partner. CFDT leader Nicole Notat openly supported the government throughout the strike. She was joined by a number of small Christian and "professional" unions.
The paradox of the French trade union movement is that it has an important influence among working people — as the winter 1995 movement showed - but less than 10% of workers actually join a union. A percentage which continues to fall, even after the recent mobilisations.
SUD was born seven years ago, at La Poste (Post Office) and France Telecom, as a response to the bureaucratic repression of two very active sections of the CFDT, the Paris Post-Telecom section, and the Health section, by the union leadership. Frustrated and repressed militants created new unions called SUD (Solidarity, Unity, Democracy) at Post-Telecom, and CRC (Co-ordinate, Regroup, Construct) in the health sector.
Why did these expulsions take place? The union leadership apparently wanted to
Cent of the left oppreement with the goverment on the reform of the public statutes which established the post office and France Telecom as public utilities. This reform had been delayed by labour mobilisation, and the Paris regional CFDT structure at Post-Telecom was strong and confident.
This was the general situation. But what caused the CFDT leadership to expel whole sections of the confederation was their determination to split away those sections where coordinations (directly elected and recallable inter-union and inter-professional stewards' committees) had been established.
Coordinations first developed in 198688, as a way of overcoming the division of the union
Telecom movement, and to bring together unionised and non-unionised strikers. During the Autumn 1988 nurses' strike, coordinations allowed a very weakly unionised milieu to quickly discover the power of mass, unitary collective action. The Paris CFDT Health section was at the head of these coordinations. At about the same time, CFDT-PostTelecom built coordinations during a Post Office drivers strike.
SUD-PTT was created at the beginning of 1989. Geographically, we were confined to greater Paris (Ile-de-France). Some CFDT oppositionists in other towns, notably Nancy and Lille, joined us, but they were few. Nine hundred of the 1,000 CFDT members who sunched SUD were in Paris. A modest start
France for the union, considering that the PTT then had over 500,000 employees! But among this initial 1,000 were most of the militants from the old CFDT section.
Three months later, SUD was put to the test, in national professional elections. SUD won almost 5% of the vote: over 20,000 votes for the new union. Results in the Paris region were even more impressive: 25% of voting Telecom workers in the capital chose SUD to represent them. These results gave SUD a national legitimacy, and the necessary structure, to begin building "a different kind of trade unionism." Rapid growth
Seven years later, on the eve of the recent mobilisations, SUD won 14.5% of votes in professional elections at the Post Office, and 27% at France Telecom. We were now the second largest union at France Telecom, behind the CGT (32%) but ahead of both the CFDT (17%) and FO (15%). SUD now counted 9,000 members, more than half outside the greater Paris region! We had an implantation in each region of the country. Our growth is partly explained by very specific reasons: The Post Office and France Telecom are very centralised enterprises. The debates and decisions are national. Most agents are assigned to a Paris workplace at the start of their career, and later arrange a transfer to their region of origin. So any new union created in Paris is bound to have a national effect. And members in Paris are gradually transferred to other regions, taking the union's ideas with them.
Over the last seven years, most of the opposition structures in the CFDT came over to SUD. More generally speaking, a whole generation came together in SUD-PTT. La Poste and France Telecom had recruited heavily in the 1970s, and thousands of left and far left militants had come into the enterprise. Most no longer had the same level of activity as before, but they shared a number of values which a union like SUD was able to express and defend.
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France
Developments had also allowed employees to compare the different unions present in both utilities. The public charters of both bodies had been changed. Telecommunications had been liberalised, and competition introduced. A plan for privatising France Telecom had been drawn up. In the mobilisations on all these issues, SUD played an important role. Particularly at France Telecom, SUD was the union which made possible a high enough degree of union unity to force the government to step back. At least union movement to organise a large number of general movements and wide-ranging days of action. Activities which only the confederations could initiate. But in the 1980s, union activity shrank back to the level of individual enterprises, or, at best, individual professional categories. The confederations were now often perceived as heavy, completely bureaucratic bodies. Many employees came to feel that the independent unions represented the workforce better.
standing for Agir contre le chomage, Act Against Unemployment). In AC., the unemployed, peripheral workers with lousy contracts, and trade unionists work and act side by side.
The same story can be told where the defence of women's rights is concerned: SUD was one of the first trade unions to commit itself to building mobilisations like the large demonstration for women's rights on 25 November 1995.
Activities in the field, like these, combined with our approach to the general so far... AC/
The last specific factor behind SUD's rapid growth is the speed of technological evolution in the telecommunications sector, combined with liberalisation, competition and looming privatisation. These changes have overturned established professional categories, including the exchange operators, who were traditionally strongly unionised. Such moves have led, in several countries, to the subsequent growth of more radical unions. Gerieral factors
The most obvious general factor behind our success is obviously the crisis in the CFDT. The rupture in the CFDI in the early 1980s transformed the union into the most right wing of France's large confederations. The preferred union of the employers, and of those workers who vote for the right wing parties.
In reaction, a structured left opposition had grown up, over almost 15 years, coming to represent 25-25% of CFDT members, and a majority of members in some national branches and regions. A network of experienced militants, with a common history.
This was the base which enabled us to build SUD, with a structure of experienced cadres in each region of France. Cadres able to lead struggles, bring union branches to life, and to represent the personnel with management on a day-to-day basis.
But, since day one, SUD has been a breath of hope for larger sectors of workers, including many people who had not previously been in the CFDT. In workplace elections, for example, SUD scores higher than the CFDT used to do. In greater Paris, SUD represents 40% of France Telecom workers, and the CFDT represents less than 10%. Before SUD was born, the CFDT hardly collected 30% of votes!
The growing electoral support and membership is also a result of SUD's autonomy. In the 1970s, the Left Union (between the Socialist and Communist Parties) and the general desire to change society led the trade 8 International Viewpoint
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But this is still an inadequate explanation. Not all the autonomous trade unions have enjoyed the same rapid growth as SUD. And none of them has had the same force of attraction outside its own professional milieu. SUD was perceived as a rupture with the sclerotic and institutional practices of the old unions. As an alternative.
Most unions reacted to the coordination movement by stressing the need to defend the prerogatives of the "representative" unions. But SUD adapted itself to these new forms of struggle. We totally accepted the democracy of this new movement, with its coordinations and its general assemblies.
And when the unemployed began to organise themselves, and establish autonomous groups, all the classic trade unions had a defensive reaction: rejecting, for one reason or another, any autonomous movement of the out-of-work. The CGT organised its own unemployed networks, FO and CFDT "supported" the new movement, but failed to give it any real support. SUD and the other independent unions (CRC, SNUL) recognised that this was a genuine autonomous movement, with its own rhythms and demands. Its development corresponded to the situation: mass unemployment had become a stable part of the economy in countries like France. Together with the CFDT opposition, the independent unions threw themselves into the construction of a federal movement, AC! (pronounced like 'assez!", enough!, and and global questions, marked SUD as the expression of a real rupture with the day-to-day activities of the big confederations. And they show the possibility of a deep and thorough renovation of trade unionism. Similar unions
Alongside the significant development of SUD at the Post Office and France Telecom, similar unions have imposed themselves in other fields.
In the health sector, CRC, which was born at the same time as SUD, has not experienced our levels of rapid growth. CRC still represents less than 5% of health workers. But this is also because the trade union 'world' in the health sector is very local: CRC has an impressive presence in the départements of the Paris regions. It is the largest union in two départements, and won 20% of votes in the latest workplace elections in the capital's public hospitals.
Left wing members of the CFDT who were expelled from the union in 1985 have built the SNPIT into the largest union at Air Inter, the domestic airline (now part of the Air France group). And the SUPPER union formed by expelled CFDT metalworkers at Thomson has become the largest union in a plant with almost 3,000 workers. Education
The independent union grouping FSU has different origins from SUD. It regroups teachers' unions which were already the main forces in their sector (lycée teachers) and new unions formed by minority groups in other sectors (primary school teachers). Together, they have created a new unionism in education, in a surprisingly short time. The FSU experience is another testimony to the need — and possibilities — for the renovation of trade unionism.
The experiences presented here are not conclusive enough to illustrate any "royal path" which would enable us to force the total renovation of French trade unionism. And we also have to consider all the partial
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unemployment levels) into existing texts (like the convergence criteria for the single currency) could separate those of us who accept such texts, and those
Thirdly, there is obviously a legitimate debate within trade unions and assosuccesses (ie. partial failures) and the whole range of "less impressive" results. SUD since December 1995
The strikes of November and December 1995 represented a major trauma for the CFDT opposition. They were no longer in the position of opposing the general orientation of the confederation. They saw the CFDT leadership oppose, from day one, the most important strike movement this country has known since May 1968.
The "class struggle" networks of CFDT militants threw themselves into the December movement completely. The question of whether or not to stay in the CFDT was obviously posed. Most of these left wing "teams" have decided, so far, to devote their energies to the internal struggle in CFDT. Their new newspaper "Tous ensemble" (all together) takes its name from the slogan of the December demonstrations.
A smaller number of these militants have been disappointing, because neither FO nor the CT has been willing to follow the path of regroupment. FO is losing speed, caught between a "modernist" reformism à la CFDT and the radicalism of the other unions. The situation with the CT is different. The union is gaining ground in professional elections, but its leadership hopes to continue to advance by playing the role of big leader. And by preferring alliances with FO and the CFDT, wherever possible, rather than with autonomous or minority forces. Which way forward?
The creation of SUD unions could represent a real gain for the French trade union movement. But we cannot pretend to solve all the problems facing the union move-
In many sectors, SUD unions must work alongside other independent, combative unions: FSU in education, SNUI in the finance
France * sector. These unions do not share the CFDT origins of most of those who launched the SUD unions. This is another reason why our rapprochement must go through a series of stages. But it would be absurd for these unions not to work together. And absurd not to think that, one day, we will do so in some common umbrella or framework organisation. A similar situation exists in other sectors, where we meet regularly with militant teams of CT activists, and those CFDT dissidents who have decided to stay in the confederation for the long term fight, we see that we need to adopt a long term line, working for the widest possible regroupment. This line must be addressed to all those trade union teams which want to defend workers' demands, and which put themselves at the sides of the wage-earners. The struggle for "class struggle" militants in the trade unions is a double one: renovate trade unionism, and regroup those who are willing to struggle! *
Euromarch against Unemployment decided that they can best continue the trade union struggle in other structures. After the
Open letter from SUD to European trade unionists
December strike, some CFDT rail workers
Sommed SUD-Rail, which presented itself in
The agenda of the European Intergovernmental Conference (EIG) is ofessional elections in March 1996. The dominated by institutional questions. And far removed from the day-to-day esults are better than those we enjoyed when preoccupations of Europe's citizens. Public services and employment are major we founded SUD-PTT. The dissident rail concerns here in France, as we saw during the strikes of November and workers scored 5% nationally, and up to 28% in the regions where they were able to present
In fact, unemployment is probably the question which brings most people s andidates. The union already has 2,000 meinterests together. After all, the number of jobless is increasing in Germany and mibers. Ingredients like this provide the basis
Scandinavia, as well as in the south of Europe.
fior rapid growth in the coming years.
We should recognise the contradiction between the expectations linked to a
A range of trade union currents in other re-discussion of the goals of the European project, and the demand for ears have come to similar conclusions.
determined, effective policies to reduce unemployment. And we should use this
SUD Education has recently been formed, contradiction to organise a broad, pan-European mobilisation.
grain by dissidents from the CFDT education eration (SGEN). Several networks in the ing sector are trying to create SUD
There are similar initiatives in the
December 1995.
Political problems
The most important problem is the perception that "Europe" has a far-away ale sector.
centre, where decisions are made, but about which it is difficult to know the
The choice to build SUD unions in a details, or to establish who we can put our demands to. This reduces the credinge of sectors is partly a response to the bility of a pan-European mobilisation, for large sections of the population, unless
Hockage of the trade union map after the we can combine European and national preoccupations. Such demands are
November-December 1995 strikes.
Two easy to formulate, and easy to win wide support for. This would create, in each poles developed: those in and around the
CFDT who opposed the strikes, and those
Also, the priority demands of the trade union and civic associations in the who, despite their diverse practices and various countries of the European Union are not the same. The campaign for yses, came together to support and adthe reduction of the working week does not have the same contours or priority ce the strikers' demands. Many militants ted to see this second pole, CGT, FO,
Nor is it easy to find demands which can most appropriately be raised at the
SUD and the CFDT opposition, con-
Europe-wide level. The European institutions have no "mandate" to carry out struggle, and draw closer together, social policy. And demanding the incorporation of social demands (like sition to the fragmentation of the nion movement. FSU, SUD, SNUI the CFDT opposition have done much in few months to encourage all such tenmung together. The results have country, points of support, and allies.
in Germany, France, and Britain.
who do not..
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ciations over the content and articulation of demands for reducing unemployment and exclusion, and more global demands: is reducing the working week top priority? Should we demand that this be achieved without any loss in salary? Shouldn't we prioritise industrial policy, and job creation? What is the nature of jobs created like this? What about delocalisation, social clauses, and quotas? What about the immediate demand for a minimum personal revenue?
One solution is to draft a pan-European radical text, denouncing unemployment and its consequences, criticising the European policies which aggravate the situation, but rather general about our proposals: job creation; shortening the working week; full employment as our goal; fighting labour precarity, etc. We would leave it to those in each country to refine the detailed demands. It could also stress the co-operation agreements between trade union and associative forces in the different countries. Practical problems
To shock people, shake up their consciousness and lift their enthus lasm, we need a mobilisation which marks their spirits. It has to be significant. Hence the idea of European marches which, over a three month period, would traverse the continent, demonstrating the extent of the unemployment problem, and the depth of our determination to fight it!
There are, of course, numerous practical problems. Including the intrinsic personal problems, difficulties in organising reception in the towns visited, logistic difficulties, and so on.
There is an unequal level of mobilisation in the various European countries. Difficulties in the initial stages become insurmountable in the final stages. Imagine the consequences of a failure of the Belgian march, or the Dutch organisation! 10 International Viewpoint
And what about the European coordination and impulsion of the marches. If this initiative is to have a sense, it cannot be simply a "collage" of national marches. They need an European identity. This implies propaganda material, logos, and speakers who are ready to move from one country to another. It also implies a "general staff" which can centralise the essential minimum, and deal with the Europe-wide finances. The effort is justified.
Despite their limits, the 1994 French marches against unemployment were the beginning of the launch of a wide movement of the unemployed, AC! One of the specificities of this movement is the close alliance between unemployed and working members, thanks to trade union participation.
The marches we are suggesting would be the first attempt to carry out a mobilisation of this size at the European level. Previous international demonstrations have been more limited, or sectoral (farmers and rail workers, for example). So this is a real challenge, at a moment which Europe is re-discussing its own future. This is the moment for the social movement to affirm itself, and to show that it is an actor for tomorrow's Europe. What can we do now?
By July 1995, we need to agree on the principles behind any common initiative. If we want to organise marches of this type, but we do not agree, in concrete terms by July, then we will not have the time to organise them the way we want. Obviously, the exact architecture of the project can be worked out a little later. But geography imposes a time constraint. Madrid and Rome are at least 1,600 km from Amsterdam. If we plan to walk 20 km/day, this means a minimum of 80 days. Which means leaving at the beginning of April 1997 in order to arrive in Amsterdam in the second half of June. If we want to start marching from Southern Italy, Greece, Portugal or Andalusia, we will have to start even earlier. The other main points of departure are closer to Amsterdam: Stockholm is 1,300 km away, Dublin is only 850 km from the Dutch capital, and Berlin only 650 km.
We need to fix the general route and dates by the end of January 1997. The best way to fix these details, and launch the project, would be an European meeting (conference, forum, whatever), which would enable the militant networks in the various countries to become acquainted with each other, to learn about the specific situation and social problems in each country, and launch a debate on the European-level solution to these problems. This discussion is particularly important, in that we will probably not be able to draft a platform of demands which is as detailed as we would like. This means taking the time for debates and exchanges, with the participation of a wide range of trade unionists, activists in civic associations, intellectuals, and political representatives. Once we decide what actions to take, the marches can be fixed in greater detail.
Such a meeting could be held in December 1996 or January 1997. The minimum goal should be to attract 600 participants. And maybe as many as 1,000. We need to find a place (Brussels?) which is suitable in terms of transport networks, availability of meeting space with translation facilities, and space to sleept.
Before this mid-term meeting, we need to widen support for the marches among Europe's trade unions: within the European Trade Union Congress, but essentially through a commitment of each union, on a country by country basis.
We also need to involve the associative milieu, at the national and the European level (such as the European networks of organisations of unemployed people, of anti-poverty groups, of family groups), and the various national and European political groupings (including the European parliamentary groups). We should present our viewpoint to them, and ask for their support.
The first thing we need is a discussion bulletin, covering the practical and political questions, so as to collectivise, at the essential level, our preoccupations. And this is the precondition for success of a pan-European event of this size.
Paris, 24 April 1996