Strikers, occupiers, don’t wait for union leaders!

Submitted by Anon on 9 April, 2009 - 2:40 Author: Olivier Delbeke

Olivier Delbeke, a CGT union activist in Paris spoke to Solidarity about the trade union day of action in France on 19 March

How did 19 March compare to the day of action on 29 January?

The demonstrations were bigger than those of 29 January: between 2 and 2.5 million demonstrators on 29 January, at least 3 million demonstrators on 19 March.

All the observers agree that it was not exactly the same people marching this time. More workers from the private sector joined the demos — the effects of the crisis: plant closures, sackings everywhere.

But there were fewer strikers in the public sector. All the national leaderships of all the trade unions decided not to call to “a general strike” but instead “strikes or demonstrations”. Why go on strike if it is not for a serious fight? In the transport sector, the union federations refused to call for a strike on the pretext of “helping people to go to the demonstrations”.

But the anger of public sector workers against the wages freeze and cuts in jobs and services is strong. This anger is expressed by the demonstrators and strikers but the leadership refuse to make it stronger.

What have all the actions achieved?

January’s action was described as being the result of a long and intense preparatory work beginning in October. But that is a myth!

After the 29th, the union leaders waited until Sarkozy summoned them in mid-February. Inevitably “social dialogue summit” gave nothing except empty words.

So… they decided to take one more month to call for something else, and that resulted in 19 March.

Has the victory in Guadaloupe had an effect on the French labour movement?

The movements in Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion draw a lot of sympathy among metropolitan workers and militants. But the strategy of French union leaders is the opposite of that pursued by Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (LKP) in Guadeloupe.

LKP is based on true unity (more than 50 organisations: unions, consumers’ associations, youth and cultural associations, political groups, etc.) with a strong platform covering all the workers’ demands you can imagine (wages, prices, employment, etc), and the call to fight is a clear one. LKP didn’t go from one day of action to another day of action... one or two months later. No, they engaged in action and they saw it through!

What is needed in the French movement now?

The rank-and-file must organise to be able to face the disasters befalling workers, and not leave organising action to unaccountable leaders. A growing number of union activists are showing dissatisfaction with the non-serious calls to action by leaders.

At each new advertisement of a plant closure, workers are more and more going into occupation. There are some signs that show the depth of the anger: when a CFTC delegate (the most quiet and shy people among French workers) throws a stone at a manager, that means that something is happening, that class struggles are intensifying. Once again there are kidnappings of managers, something quiet rare since the 1970s.

The last days saw that form of struggle at Caterpillar (in Grenoble), and FNAC and Conforama workers blocked Pineau, a big shark, in his taxi as he was trying to fly from an official meeting with union delegations. The police freed him after two hours, but they would not be able to free all the bosses if dozens, hundreds, thousands of bosses faced the anger of millions of workers.

To centralise all the anger against the government and the bosses, a call for a national demo against sackings and plant closures would be a way to put one, two, three million demonstrators on the Paris streets directly confronting the government, like the famous demonstration in January 1994 against the law initiated by Minister Bayrou against public and secular school. Bayrou did not survive the numbers of demonstrators that day...

That’s quite a different thing from waiting for 1 May to call for demonstrations, as the national leaders are doing: they are leaving the whole of April to Sarkozy and the bosses to act unchallenged.

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