France: The right to strike is not negotiable!

The text below is a translation of an appeal against French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to attack French workers’ right to strike; it is addressed mainly to the trade union federations urging them to fight, and to fight together. The signatories see attacks on French workers’ rights to organise as Sarkozy’s preparation for an all-out assault on workers’ social conditions.

To read the appeal in French and to sign it visit http://droitdegreve.wordpress.com/

Introduction and translation by Joan Trevor, Sept 2007

The ultimate aim of Sarkozy with the “minimum service” is to ban the right to strike in big organisations. The following quotes give the game away: “To whoever is against the obligatory strike imposed by a minority, I propose democracy by the obligatory organisation of a secret ballot in the week following the start of any industrial dispute.” (N. Sarkozy, [public meeting in] Agen, 22 June 2006). "These new rules will apply first of all in the enterprises providing a public service, in the universities and government.” (Xavier Bertrand La Tribune, 29 January 2007). "The secret ballot would start in the public sector and could be extended more generally to the private." (Rachida Dati, 1 February).

They speak to us of “democracy”, but the reality of the labour market is the obligation to sell our labour power or to be unemployed, an obligation imposed by a minority: the capitalist minority. The consequence of this in the workplace is that the bosses have all the power. Every genuine strike is a forced strike against this prevailing order: it is never without its price. Picket lines are often the only way that the majority can, when it wants to, conduct a strike. And that is what many young people also, in their schools and colleges, learned in the struggle against the first employment contract [Contrat première embauche (CPE)] in 2006. Without picket lines this victory for democracy which the withdrawal of the CPE represented could not have been achieved. If we let them get away with this, they will not stop there.

In Britain Thatcher imposed the secret ballot, under the control of a government official, before any strike, and outlawed industry-wide and solidarity strikes. In the 19th century the right to strike was won by illegal and violent strikes and it could not have been otherwise. Since then, it is a constitutional right, albeit a right which is also always difficult to exercise, particularly by private sector employees.

The government’s plan is clear:

1. Establish “through dialogue” a minimum service in transport and education, before the end of 2007 in transport at least, to say little of their plan for the private sector workforce aimed at dividing them from public sector workers. According to the statistics of the SNCF [French state railway] itself, 3% of non-running trains are due to strikes. The fewer strikes there are, the later the trains will run, because attacks on public service will multiply.

2. In 2008, if they have got the laws in place, they will be able to try and break any strike of train drivers to defend their pension regime, the last bastion along with workers in electricity and gas of the right to retire after 37.5 years of contributions: they could try to suspend and sack the recalcitrants.

3. Having thus altered the balance of class forces, they will then impose, over the course of 2008, the “personal contract”, facilitating redundancies in the big enterprises and shutting off the right to strike everywhere, in order to impose a complete dictatorship in the workplace.

But they know that in reality they will be widely opposed in this, they know that the workers will decide to fight, and they fear that a showdown over the right to strike could become a head-on collision in which it could be the French working class that is defeated, or it could be Sarkozy.

The right to strike is not negotiable. … In light of this, we call on the trade union federations CGT, FO, CFDT, FSU, UNSA CFTC, CGC and Solidaires to demand the withdrawal of the plan for a minimum service and the threat to the right to strike, and on this basis to develop a united resistance across the whole union movement.