Parisian Migrant Workers Strike

Submitted by edwardm on 12 May, 2008 - 12:39 Author: Edward Maltby

Since the 15th of April, following a sustained organising campaign amongst undocumented migrant workers undertaken by the CGT, the CNT, and Solidaires unions, a series of unprecedented strikes by undocumented workers is taking place in France. In the greater Parisian region alone, an estimated one thousand undocumented workers are involved in strike action. The strike is led in large part by the CGT, and action is mainly concentrated in construction and restaurants. Many different workplaces and employers are involved in the action, but the disputes all have in common the demand for the mass regularisation of undocumented workers. The strikers chant, "Le cas-par-cas, on n'en veut pas!" – "We won’t accept case-by-case treatment !"

The strike is taking place in the context of a general upsurge in sans-papier militancy. There have been numerous demonstrations in recent weeks, hunger strikes and disturbances in detention centres, and an increase in activity on the part of neighbourhood sans-papiers collectives across France and Paris.

The strike has caused considerable disruption to many businesses in Paris. But due to the fact that sans-papiers are generally isolated, with only one or two at a time in a given workplace, only a few workplaces – a couple of dozen in Paris – have been shut down or seen business seriously affected. I spoke to a member of Co-ordination 75, a federation of Parisian sans-papiers neighbourhood collectives, who summed up the situation: "We have around 600 workers in Co-ordination 75 who are involved in action. But those 600 workers between them have 300 bosses! The CGT is unwilling to organise joint picketing with regularised workers to support striking sans-papiers. They're telling us to go it alone. It's too dangerous for isolated sans-papiers to try to picket or blockade their workplace, and it's too hard and dangerous for Co-ordination 75 to organise flying pickets to go around the different sites." Several restaurants have been occupied, such as the Charlie Birdy restaurant near the Champs Elysée, organised by the CNT and Solidaires, or the Chez Papa, organised by the CGT.

In response to this disruption, French bosses have been putting pressure on the government to "resolve the situation", by granting some sort of amnesty to striking sans-papiers. The Sarkozy government remains publicly opposed to mass regularisations, preferring a "tough stance". But the CGT has brokered a deal with the immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux, to obtain 1,000 regularisations for the striking sans-papiers immediately. Opinions are divided within the sans-papiers movement on this issue. Some consider this to be a sell-out deal to divide and prematurely end the strike movement, others see it as a principled and necessary short-term move to preserve the will of the strikers for the long term.

Ali, an Algerian electrician and member of Co-ordination 75 explained, "Hortefeux has said, OK, we'll regularise 1,000 sans-papiers to end the strike". The CGT gave him a list of only 600 names, and without consulting us, refused to add any more. They're hoping to resolve the strike this way. The idea is to regularise 600 of the leaders of the various collectives, the best organised, most militant workers, to shut us up. 600 is an insult, though – there are tens of thousands of sans-papiers in the Parisian region alone!"

But a member of Solidaires union defended the decision in light of the extreme difficulties facing the strike, saying “The activists who are leading this mobilisation are at the end of their tether. They aren’t able to open up any new sites, they can’t extend the mobilisation. Seeing as with their current forces they can’t continue the fight, they have decided to retire in good order, so as to strike harder later. Sans-papiers want the regularisations for which they have fought and taken risks. If we don’t prove now, in practice, that struggle pays, the movement will shrink back to vain agitation. The desire to cash in our gains today so as not to find ourselves isolated tomorrow is legitimate.”

Neither side, however, denies that the leadership of the CGT has acted in an authoritarian, unilateral way, not consulting with other activists and unions, and stifling criticism.

The LCR points out that the way Hortefeux has dealt with the deal, by suddenly declaring to various ministries that only regularisation requests rendered by the CGT would be considered, effectively locking out other organisations, was calculated to divide the movement, by putting activists in competition with each other.

600 members of the various collectives (most of them syndicated in the CGT, ironically) that make up Co-ordination 75 have occupied the CGT-controlled Bourse du Travail (rough equivalent of a Trades Council) on Rue Charlot. I spoke to one of the elected leaders of Co-ordination 75 in the occupied Bourse, while furious CGT full-timers glared at us from an office. "We haven't come to make enemies of the CGT here, but to change the way they're intervening. We want to work together with the CGT. We want a real deal for our members. So the strike will continue indefinitely, and we'll stay in this building indefinitely, until we get that."

The Co-ordination 75 is a federation of four different Parisian neighbourhood organisations – the 11th, the 10th, the 18th and the 19th Collectives. It was formed during 2002 following the occupation of the Basilica Saint Denis, where the occupation of a church by a few dozen sans-papiers sparked a demonstration of 30,000 undocumented migrants, who marched to demand their regularisation. Since then, the government has received delegations from Co-ordination 75 every three months, to receive regularisation requests. One part of the major day-to-day work of Co-ordination 75, aside from political campaigning for mass regularisations, is to help its members make formal regularisation requests. Following the long process of compiling a file, the Co-ordination organises mass depositions of regularisation

I spoke to Yiribou, a member of Co-ordination 75 from Cote d'Ivoire. He had lived in France since 1999 without papers, and had been regularised, thanks to Co-ordination 75, just this year.

"Without papers, it was tough. I'd switch jobs, do a month here, a month there. Normally I'd borrow papers from friends to work on – the bosses often didn't realise, but sometimes they knew I was a sans-papiers. Since I got my papers, I've stuck with a job as a train station security guard. It's more secure.

"The worst thing about not having papers was always being afraid, hiding from the cops, knowing that at any moment they could come and say 'you, show me your papers'. But all the same you had to go out every day and work to feed your family, in spite of the risk.

"Co-ordination 75 was a big help. To get your papers, you've got to go and make your request in a big, big group. If you go alone, they mess with you. The officials in the Prefecture think you don't know your stuff, and refuse your request on made-up grounds. Then you can get arrested. If you go in a large group, they know you can't be fooled, and it's harder for them to arrest you.

"But you have to fight for your papers. You can't just go and make the request, because the government is against you. You have to fight."

The LCR is supporting the strikes energetically, but considers the occupation divisive. Jérôme, an activist from the LCR involved in the strike movement, said, “The laws on residency and freedom of movement are imposed on workers, not on bosses, experts, celebrities, or famous sports stars. Workers’ families are obliged to be “whiter than white”. When workers fall ill they become a so-called unbearable burden, working-class pupils and students are undesirable, pensioners are told to go and look elsewhere. By grounding this battle firmly in the terrain of the class struggle, the initiators of this movement have done a great service to all sans-papiers, and to the whole working class.”

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