Indefinite general strike brewing in France

Submitted by AWL on 8 October, 2010 - 10:51 Author: Ed Maltby

Over the last 48 hours, one sector of French industry after another has issued notice of its intention to enter into a "reconductible" strike.

That means that striking workplaces will have workplace meetings every 24 hours where a vote will be taken on whether or not to continue the strike.

These "reconductible" strikes haven't begun yet (they are due to start on October 12) but they will mark a qualitative escalation of the action from the previous model of union leaderships calling national days of action every few weeks. In certain areas, some sectors of industry are already out – college students, are walking out; and dockers and petrochemical workers in the South of France are already engaged in bitter strikes.

Why now? Well, the union leaderships have been calling days of action for a while, and on the last two, 3 million workers came out on the streets to strike and demonstrate. This has created a certain amount of pressure on the union leadership, and French comrades in the NPA I've spoken to seem to be of the opinion that the union leaderships have not escalated the action out of choice but out of necessity - their hand has been forced by the pressure of the 3 million workers they have mobilised in spite of themselves.

Some of these strikes have been decided on centrally, by union leaderships, and others on a local basis. In many cases, such as the ongoing petrochemical and dock strikes on the Mediterranean coast, the strikes are fuelled by local issues and disputes as much as by the struggle over pensions.

Obviously, none of these strikes have started yet; and the government still has nearly a week to come up with some wheeze for postponing the action. But this is a very big deal indeed. It is possible that an indefinite general strike is about to sweep across France.

There is a sector-by-sector breakdown of the strikes in an article in Le Monde.

A brief summary:

National rail - a national reconductible strike

Urban transport in Paris - reconductible strike

Petrol and chemicals - national reconductible strike

Ports and Docks - CGT has called for a national strike. At the mouth of the Rhone (on the Med), a refinery is still blockaded, having been on strike for 10 days already as part of a number of ongoing disputes in the petrochemical sector

Road Haulage - a national strike is hinted at by the CGT

State television - national strike by two smaller national federations. Demands include the re-instatement of 900 posts eliminated under 'natural wastage' in 2009

Gas and Electricity - EDF and GDF: 140 workplaces will go on reconductible strike

All of these are due to start late on 11 October.

Details of the situation are still emerging and we can expect some dramatic twists and turns in this struggle. Workers' Liberty will attempt to send a delegation over - if you are interested in taking part, contact awl@workersliberty.org or call 07775 763 750.

Comments

Submitted by AWL on Fri, 08/10/2010 - 16:31

The French union leaders have now called a further "day of demonstrations", to fall four days into the escalated indefinite strike action.

What does this mean? It's the rhythm of a real strike - 2 big demonstrations in 4 days is the action of a workers' movement that means business. Of course, these are demonstration days called from above, and it is necessary to build rank-and-file networks during the strike, on the model of the "inter-professional general assemblies" which co-ordinated some of the action in previous big strikes. But this is a positive step.

Let's just see what happens between now and the first strike day on 12 October. It seems that the French bourgeoisie is firing the first shots in what will likely be a very concerted campaign between now and the 12th to have the strike called off: a minority rightwing union on the Paris Metro, the UNSA (which I understand to be a sort of equivalent of elitist craft unions like ASLEF in the UK), has said that they will not be striking. But the majority union federations which organise Metro workers say they will still be going out. I expect someone in UNSA head office was offered a lot of money or other favours in return for that declaration!

On the 16 Oct demonstration: see this article in Le Monde (a left-liberal mainstream newspaper, like the Guardian).

On the UNSA: in Le Figaro (a high-brow but violently right-wing mainstream newspaper).

Ed Maltby

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