Changing the labour movement
France's second-largest trade-union federation, the CFDT, has been in turmoil since General Secretary Nicole Notat broke with the other unions and supported the Juppe government in the nationwide public sector strikes last November and December. Sociologist Pierre Cours-Salies, an activist in the CFDT teachers union SGEN, brings us up to date on the situation. International Viewpoint: The CFDT leadership now portrays itself as the government's negotiating partner of choice. P. C-S: Leaving aside our righteous fury at the leadership's destructive carryings-on, it's in a very bad position right now. Its record is catching up with it. It had a mandate from the rank and file "to defend Social Security while reforming it." This meant there had to be a open discussion. The CFDT leadership did just the opposite, announcing that "agreed 80%" with the Juppe Plan".
Negotiating about the work-week has not led to any concession by the bosses. On the contrary, the bosses are demanding "flexibility" and "annualisation" (variable shifts and the right to make workers work overtime without overtime pay in return for shorter hours another week- -trans.); they are offering nothing in return, no shortening of the work-week and certainly no new hires.
The government, which sees that the deadline set for a settlement is approaching, is getting ready to impose a settlement through a law that would make it possible to break out of national contracts and negotiate company by company, even with worker "representatives" who don't even belong to a union. They're also pushing a three-year deregulation law similar to the one called for by the hard-liners among German employers and the most trigger-happy wing of the German Christian Democratic Party.
This will give the CFDT leadership another chance to lose more of the little bit of credibility it has left with the media and even in its own apparatus. It had gambled on this framework for "responsible" negotiations instead making the demands it should have made from November 1995 on: "Cutting the work-week and hiring a million unemployed will save Social Security, give new hope to labour and stimulate the economy." • Many oppositionists have left the CFDT in frustration. Doesn't thisgive the leadership freer hands thanbefore? Wasn't January the time to force a split, denouncing this leadership which had so obviously sold out?
In November-December 1995, with the union's statements on the one hand and the mobilisations on the other, how could activists feel that they belonged to the same union as Notat? The leadership was in a minority throughout the strikes. But it was able to stay in the saddle, for a whole series of reasons.
First of all, you have to understand, the sell-out wasn't experienced with the same in-
France * tensity in different regions and sectors. In the private sector the level of activity was uneven. The federations didn't put forward French militants disagree on how best to build a current which will give a voice to those who were radicalised in the public sector strike of Nov.-Dec. 1996. See also the article by Christophe Aguiton of SUD in IV#278 (June).
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* France demands like a shorter work-week with new hires, or wage increases, or a change in status for temporary workers. In these sectors, in January, the most active people thought that it would take several months of discussion before people's rejection of the leadership's position turned into the determination to throw out the leadership.
The proof is that in April, at the steelworkers' union convention, without the issue of the federation leadership being raised, 60 percent voted for a categorical rejection of the federation's orientation. This doesn't get rid of the federation leadership, but it shows that most of the activists and union bodies don't identify with this kind of leadership.
Should we have decided to "leave the CFDT" in order to re-orient the French union movement on the basis of bringing together forces coming almost exclusively from the public sector or civil service? The overwhelming majority of CFDI activists thought that we had to do something ditferent. The idea was to join together everybody's efforts in order to demand a CFDT special convention. The leadership wouldn't have been able to resist a force demanding that the debates about orientation and activity be reopened, if the current organised for this battle had intervened publicly on a trade-union line and pushed the debate forward with actions and not just in the internal
We couldn't pull it off, because people in a certain number of sectors left the CFDT. But in order to understand the situation now, we shouldn't hide the opposition's weaknesses. Its real strength is its actions; outside the CFDI it doesn't have much visibility For years the press has not paid much attention to it, except during the March 1995 CFDT convention in Montpellier. In order not to fall into the trap of entrenched camps and "old-fashioned" polemics, it wanted to prove itself with trade-union proposals. Suddenly it is incomprehensible except where its activists are. Who else is familiar with its ideology or its positions?
The people who split, many of whom are long-time far-left activists, instead of using activists' impatience to attack the leadership, have in reality split the CFDT left. Some of them think that the best think to do is what you think right, on your own. They're convinced that the CFDT leadership is impossible to dislodge, too solidly bureaucratised to be thrown out by a majority of trade-union forces. Some of them chose, using the label SUD [Solidarity, Unity, Democracy: first an independent union based among postal and telephone workers, and now other independent unions of for example ex-CFDT railway workerstrans.] in their own way, to turn their back on the old workers movement, which they say is "too bureaucratised, petrified, impossible to change from the inside" So you think that setting up new SUD unions is really helping out the CFDT leadership?
There is a difference between splits provoked by the leadership and choices made by activists who in terms of their union activity are for the most part pretty close to us. We have to remember that the postal and telephone workers who founded SUD (or the CRC in health care) were expelled by their unions and by the CFDT federation leadership in 1988-89. Today, after the November-December 1995 movement, things are very different. All the unemployed and all the workers have seen how the CPDT leadership acts "when push comes to shove", and activists in other unions have also seen where most of the CFDT union forces really are. Everyone is asking, "How can this Notat still be around?"
So on the one hand the federation leadership wants these people to leave; it's even proclaiming in the press, "Let the troublemakers leave of their own free will." The political effect of these splits is to hold back the unity around of the CFDT left around the Tous Ensemble (All Together) newspaper. Many activists are saying, "Fix the CFDT, don't break it up." We feel the same way: why turn your back on the overwhelming majority of the CFDT instead of talking with everyone who wants to change its orientation, its rules of functioning and its leadership? This is what we've chosen to do. But for the moment the leadership has created a climate of suspicion by identitying us with splitters.
I ask the people who are leaving: Do you want to see the trade-union movement atomised? I have some memories, which I thought these comrades had learned from. In the 1970s, we had people from "vanguard" sects who were demanding for example that the Committee to Support the Chilean People's Struggle change its name. It has to be "the Chilean People's Revolutionary Struggle", they said, otherwise you've lost the real meaning. So there was a vote, and the left "disengaged". Three months later there was nothing left, and the Socialist Party and Communist Party were the ones
"Disengage the left"? "More radical than thou"? Are we going to see this kind of "creativity" in the union movement? Do people want to build one more federation, or a new organisation "of a new type?
As far as the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International) is concerned, twenty years ago, we never tried this in the union movement. In the social situation today, more than half of the wage workers in reality have no social rights: the six million people who work in small and medium companies, 80 percent of whom have no union at all, plus undoubtedly over two million people who are temporary workers and at the mercy of their employers. We also see that with the persistence of long-term unemployment, racist ideas are penetrating the poorest layers: this is something we had better think about. Are you going to make nice little unions for just us folks in the most protected sectors, and turn your back on solidarity and on the battles to reorient the whole of the union movement? Particularly when you see that the majority of CFDT activists rejects the leadership? Why not have the patience to work with all these forces in order to build a new leadership majority?
I don't think there's a single worker who thought in December 1995 that what you needed to win that battle was one more union
Of course most of the people who are leaving don't want to create a federation, but they can't stand being in the CFDT any more. So what will they do if we manage to change the CFDT? They'll come back. So why fragment the forces whose impact could change the CDT's orientation and leadership much more quickly? So you're hostile to the projects of SUD and the Group of Ten La new alliance of ten independent unions—trans.]?
They have to face the question: Do they want a new federation, yes or no? On the basis of what demands, what trade-union practice? If it's not a "vanguard" federation, then are they just going to lump together different sectoral demands? And perhaps invoke "a few overarching values? How are they going to respond with this baggage to issues like the work-week, full employment, unemployment, financing Social Security?
If they develop solid reference points, do they want to build an organisation that will have some weight in the labour movement? With what positions? We know perfectly well that a call to unity can be used to divide: "Tm more pro-unity than you are, because unity is only possible with my slogans and my
We should be more realistic: the forces that can come together with the Group of Ten and ex-CFDTers aren't very homogeneous. Whoever the leaders may be, the social reality of their different organisations weighs on them. For example, the SNUI (tax department workers' union) refused to take part in the Social Movement Congress and in various actions because its members wouldn't understand "getting involved in too many different things" union is involved in AC! (Act Together against Unemployment!); some of its leaders are even very active in it. But they didn't want to participate in an initiative proposed by AC! and other groups, for example, which would have had all the unions in the tax department call on their members not to help prosecute poor taxpayers for delays in paying
Price: £5/$10/60FF plus 10% postage charge for orders of 1-4 copies. Order trom vour local agent, or directly from International Viewpoint, BP 85, 75522 Paris taxes. The big bureaucratic CGT and CFDT agreed, but not the SNUL, which decided that its rank and file didn't want to take up this kind of attitude towards the administration. Let's say that SUD's activists in similar circumstances would have backed the campaign, like the CFDT left. Overall, the Group of Ten shows that left people wanted to go further to the left than governments of the left do. That's something to be encouraged, while finding unitary frameworks for it. Then we should make it a model of recomposition for the whole union movement!
More broadly, can we re-orient the French union movement by creating a new union organisation based on civil servants, alongside of and in competition with the other federations? Whether you like it or not, that puts you in competition with the others, which will have divisive results. Beyond the CFDT, are we really taking note of the forces in the CGT that are carrying on discussions about the necessary transformation of relationships between the union apparatus and the rank and file? • That seems to be the case with SUDEducation, which came out of a split in the SGEN [CFDT teachers' union]. Why didn't they join the FSU la large independent teachers' union that came out of an earlier split in the FEN, until recently the largest teachers' union trans.]?
A minority in the SGEN in Paris wanted to leave as early as 1990 or '91. They wanted a "left" union. The FSU is too "corporatist" for them. They decided to join the Group of Ten. When you see the range of unions that exists among teachers and the evolution of the FSU, why would anyone put together a about 25 percent of the membership would say yes. "Do you think we need an immediate CFDT convention in order to change the leadership?"-35-40 percent would say yes. "Would you like a six-month discussion period in order to prepare an early convention (in early 1997 for example, since we can't wait for the regularly scheduled 1998 convention)?"-
The federation leadership cannot agree to poll the members, since it can be sure of losing. It is not getting results out of bargaining. No split will make it possible to build a union movement that unites employed and unemployed, that can fight against the disintegration of society, against the challenges to women's autonomy and to the right to real jobs at real wages, and for new rights for everyone. We have to re-orient the whole union movement, and changing the CFDT leadership would be an enormous encouragement and a tool for action, for mobilising people's efforts. Our decision to transform the CFDT is based on the assumption that the workers see perfectly well that there are two different currents in the federation; it would be unbearable to be confused with Notat's acts and statements, which are widely promoted by the media. Fortunately this is not happening: more and more often the media are mentioning the existence of an "opposition in the CFDT". We must intensify our independent initiatives and publications, in order to re-orient the CFDT and change the whole union movement. This puts us right in line with the needs expressed during the November-December 1995 movement.
France * • All Together now
Since January 1996 the CFDT in Struggle tendency has been putting out a 16-page, tabloid-format monthly, Tous Ensemble (All Together). More than 60,000 copies of the first issue were sold, and 40,000 copies of later issues. This success bears witness to the earthquake that hit CFDT activists in November 1995, and their desire to find a vehicle for discussion as they confront a leadership that would like to stifle every critical voice and every idea that it hasn't first cleared itself. This leadership has closer ties to the CNPE (employers' federation) and center-right politica leaders than to its own rank and file.
The monthly paper devotes much of its space to discussion among unionists about demands: how to frame a basic law for a 32hour work-week, how to co-ordinate demanding a law with the indispensable role of negotiations, how to increase unemployment benefits, etc. It reports on the "negotiations" under way about the work-week, which basically are a sounding-board for employers demands for "annualisation". A regular column points out the situation facing women workers.
At the same time, of course, articles from a variety of sources show how CFDT unions and leaders want to turn the CFDT around. It calls for a democratic debate, and proposes a new Tous Ensemble 47 rue de Paradis, 75010 Paris, France fax: +33.1/48000736
Transformation and regroupment new union, really not much different, and compete with the SGEN, which is still in op position to the CFDT leadership? Why did
The collapse of Stalinism and the continuing capitalist they do it when during the SGEN Paris concrisis has contradictory effects. Myths and illusions vention on May 21, 62 percent voted to take part in Tous Ensemble, four percent connected to the restoration of capitalism in the postabstained, and 32 percent voted to "leave"?
Stalinist societies have dissipated, faced with the
Let's think about this in a broader conactually existing market economy. But reactions to the text. To my mind, this splintering of activist socio-economic crisis all too often take the form of forces reflects an immense disorientation.
reactionary tendencies of an ethnic, nationalist, racial
People are asking, What's the point of active or religious character. Hence the urgent need to unionism in a country like France? Many rebuild a world-wide movement of anti-capitalist activists don't know any more what the point struggle, taking account of the recomposition of the is: the period of decomposition since the late workers' movement which is underway as a result
1970s has gone on so long. Some people, of the double failure of social democracy and thinking that they are coming up with new answers, instead of thinking above all about
Regroupments of forces determined to learn the how to propose ways to unite people in action in order to recompose the whole of the lessons of the historical abomination that was union movement, are continuing the de-
Stalinism and to continue, against the winds and composition. A true recomposition of classthe tides, to fight against capitalism are being realised in a struggle unionism requires proposals for lasting unity in action.
The organisations of the Fourth International are ready to be part of the re-
• Inside the CFDT, how much influence groupment process. We consider this as an important step towards the does the opposition have?
recomposition of the anti-capitalist left on a world scale. At the international level, the Fourth International is an active participant in re-groupment, bringing with it the
In terms of numbers, not many people advantages of a long tradition of combat against capitalism and Stalinism.
have left. Many more people have joined the opposition, including in regions and sectors where we had almost no one a year ago.
If you asked: "Do you approve of the leadership's actions since March 1995?"number of countries.
cedex 11, France
•October 1996 #281 27