France: Repeal the scandalous pensions law, let’s have a real fight!

O is a white-collar worker and a contact in France who spoke to us about the planned general strike there on Tuesday 12 October.
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What is happening right now?

We are in the last moments before the big strike on Tuesday; either we succeed in getting a move toward a general strike, or we lose. In Marseille, the strike is on already: in the oil industry, the dockers, the women who make the dinners in school canteens.

For six months, the union leaderships have controlled the situation through the so-called “intersyndicale”. This is not the true unity of workers around real demands, but the unity of the union apparatuses in order to avoid a full-on confrontation against the Sarkozy law attacking our pensions.

Is there an “intersyndicale” at the grass roots?

At my workplace, my union has produced six leaflets since September. We are calling for a general assembly [AG] of workers, and we expect to mount a picket line, which is something unusual for us. Grass roots and “intersyndicale” are antithetical.

Perhaps I don’t fully understand the term “intersyndicale”... When you speak about your union, you mean just CGT. Are you having meetings with others workers/unions in your workplace, across professions/grades?

The “intersyndicale” is a united front at the top of the union bureaucracies, maintained in order not to rock Sarkozy’s boat. It is the formal unity of the CGT, CFDT, CGC, CFTC, FSU, UNSA and, until 2 October, SUD union federations.

Real unity will be something like the CGT, FO6, FSU, SUD bloc that existed in November 1995. We are shifting toward that.

In my workplace, there is a CFDT union which is straight down the official line: demonstrations are OK, but strikes – no, on the grounds that they are seeking to have good negotiations with the government in the framework of the counter-reform [pension cuts proposal].

In my workplace, the CFDT refuse to make any common call with my union because we are for “repealing the law” and they are for “good negotiation”.

There is also another CGT union, with the official line of the CGT leadership, that is, the Bernard Thibault line: so they are not very active.

There is my union, a CGT union with a good line: repeal that scandalous law, and come on, guys, let’s have a real fight!
The crux of the situation in France is what will happen inside the CGT. The “saviour” of Sarkozy is Thibault!

Given that the strikes seem to be growing and growing, why? Is it just the anger over the pensions, or is there something else underneath?

As things go on, more and more rank and file militants and higher officials are now aware of the stakes: we should not be demanding “good negotiation” within the framework of the counter-reform made to lower our pensions – unions must fight directly against that law!

People understand more and more that if we lose on the pensions issue we will then lose on all the other issues: social security, labour law, and so on.

So, the great mass of the militants are going to work for a real fight, against the official line of the main unions who form the “intersyndicale”.