French pension strikes must be generalised and indefinite

On Thursday 18 October six transport, energy and education unions will strike and take the streets to try and derail President Sarkozy's plans to end the pension rights of half a million public sector workers. Keith Harvey says the stakes are higher than in previous rounds of struggle in 1995 and 2003 and the unions' leaders are a big obstacles to the workers' chance of success.

And so it begins again. After the great pensions struggles of 1995 and 2003, the French government and the public sector trade unions are locked in battle once more over this issue. On 18 October rail, gas, and electricity workers will strike and take to the streets to repel President Sarkozy’s attempts to make them work longer before getting their pensions.

Sarkozy’s short-term goal is to achieve what previous governments have failed to do: rob transport and energy workers of their “special regimes” — a series of pension benefits which allow around 500,000 public sector workers to retire at 50 or 55.

The pensions issue is perceived by Sarkozy as an easy target since it aims to abolish gains made by a minority of workers and not available to others.

But the fiscal crisis of the French state is such that curbing government deficits is fairly urgent and the government plans a whole raft of measures – jobs cuts, pension cuts, increased medical fees etc – to cut these deficits, as well as measures designed to weaken the public sector trade unions’ ability to fight back against these “reforms”.

For example, in August Sarkozy announced the closure of 268 rail stations. Parliament also passed new “minimum service” legislation, which forces individuals to tell their boss 48 hours before a strike whether or not they intend to take part.

Then on 18 September Sarkozy went public with his plan to end the “special regime”. After several weeks of negotiations over the plans the employment minister, Xavier Bertrand, last week confirmed the intention to re-align the pensions of rail and metro workers, as well as state utility employees with the rest of the French civil service. Bertrand said a measure to increase the number of working years to obtain full pension from 37.5 to 40 by 2012 was "non-negotiable."

Indeed, the end of the “special regimes” is intended as an overture to a greater root and branch attack pensions – public and private sector – from next year.

Although talks with the union leaders this month resulted in some concessions – for example, early retirement for workers with "burdensome" jobs would continue to apply except for new recruits and unlike the private sector and pension rates would be based on a worker's final six months' pay – it was not enough to get the union bureaucrats to call off Thursday’s action, now supported by six unions.

The reaction of the main union leaders to Sarkozy’s attacks has been muted. They have been keen to enter into “dialogue” with him over the measures. They refrained entirely from taking action in response to the announced public sector job cuts.

Sarkozy has met regularly with leaders of the major trade union confederations — including, amongst others, François Chérèque of the CFDT, Jean-Claude Mailly of Force Ouvrière (FO) and Bernard Thibault (CGT). The trade unions have collaborated closely with Sarkozy since the 2006 demonstrations against the First Job Contract (CPE). At that point Sarkozy, as interior minister, acting in concert with the trade unions, succeeded in ending the demonstrations and forcing the then prime minister Villepin to withdraw the CPE.

On pensions, however ,the union leaders have been forced to act. They remember how strong the opposition was to the 1995 attempts to attack pensions. At that time three weeks of strikes forced Alain Juppé’s government to back down. So for now the union leaders make the right noises. CFTC Transports union said it was determined to "lead strong action on 18 October and perhaps beyond," intimating the strike could be extended. The biggest union, the CGT called for a one-day strike to "thwack" the government. But Didier Le Reste, head of CGT's SNCF branch ominously said a longer strike could "isolate" the unions from the public.

It is clear that the officials really only want to be treated as respected social partners by the government, as a layer with a vital role in selling the concessions to their members. CFDT head, François Chérèque said: “We cannot accept such a reform without dialogue and consultation” between government and the unions. At the same time he says the CFDT is favorable to negotiations on the pensions cuts because “if they are not made to evolve, they will go bankrupt and people’s pensions will not be paid.”

Bernard Thibault of the CGT said that there would be “sport” if the government “proceeds by presenting us with a fait accompli.” But in the same breath he called for “real negotiations” between the government and the unions. Yet Jean-Christophe Le Duigou, head of the pensions portfolio of the CGT, in an interview with the center-left daily Le Monde conceded: “The CGT is willing to discuss the special regimes, but ‘one enterprise at a time, one industry at a time.'” Meaning? He would prefer to avoid a general mobilisation of the unions such as took place in 1995 and 2003.

As before then it will be down to the rank and file militant vanguard in the public sector unions to make the running, organise the strikes on the ground and make alliances with the private sector workers, the public and the mass immigrant rights community. Mass meetings have been held at workplaces across France, with very high attendances. At a recent such “general assembly” at the Quatre-Mares depot in Rouen, 450 rail workers out of a total of 750 were in attendance.

Polls show that there is less public backing for the pension rights of the transport and utility workers than existed in 1995; incessant propaganda against “privileges” has had some effect. Also Sarkozy has an electorate mandate for the attacks that his predecessors did not have.

But the public sector unions’ successful battles in the last 15 years have not only protected their own position but have also warded off attacks on the whole of the working class in education, health etc. Instead of bowing down in the face of the attack on their pension rights the unions must argue for the extension of their terms and conditions to the whole workforce and that this is paid for out of taxation on the rich.

But it is clear that, as in 1995, the strikes must be more than one-day protests and they must draw in the whole of the union movement and beyond in a general strike if Sarkozy is to be knocked off course.

The next six months to a year will be critical for determining the fate of the Sarkozy government’s plans for a wholesale restructuring of the French state’s welfare commitments. By extension it will also determine whether the public sector trade unions have the ability to resist and organise solidarity from others.

The rank and file must overcome the obstruction of their leaders and the lack of organisation in the private sector workforce. But above all a new revolutionary political leadership must take root in the French working class vanguard that recognises that either French capitalism will regenerate itself on the ruins of working class gains and self-organisation, or the working class will overthrow the government by its own actions and establish a revolutionary workers’ government, based on its own councils of action.

On this basis workers can take power and wealth away from the French bosses and use both to establish a socialist, democratic planned economy.

As the battle lines are drawn in France international solidarity is needed. The determination of the French unionists can be strengthened by delegations of workers from the rest of the European Union; a blow against Sarkozy will be a blow against the whole Lisbon Agenda of welfare cuts for the EU and at the same time European brothers and sisters can "learn to speak French!"- that is, be trained in the best of the contitnent's militancy.

Tue 16, October 2007 @ 13:42