French Workers & Youth Fighting Hollande’s Anti-Union Legislation

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FIERCE battles broke out between French workers and police as over 170,000 workers, students and youth took to the streets in 110 cities across the length and breadth of the country last Thursday.

The entire population of France is up in arms at the so-called ‘Socialist’ government of Hollande’s new labour laws. The movement demands the abolition of the working legislation, which was ‘approved’ in July. The labour legislation is also rejected by most of the French Parliament members, meaning that in July Hollande had to drive the laws through by dictat, bypassing a vote in parliament.

The labour laws curb workers’ rights and make it easier for companies to fire employees. The law will be exploited by employers to cut overtime pay from a 25 per cent markup to 10 per cent. Riot police fired teargas and water cannon at protesters who hurled bottles, beer cans and on occasion makeshift firebombs in retaliation.

This was the first day for national protest, convened by the main trade unions, after the summer, and the 13th protest after the start of the popular movement against the legislation, in March this year. In Paris, tens of thousands of people went from the Bastille to the Plaza of the Republic in a march headed by Philippe Martinez, secretary general of the General Labour Confederation (CGT).

More than 40,000 demonstrators joined to the demonstration in the capital. The march was surrounded by a strong ring of hundreds of armed police officers. Battles between youth and police broke out in Paris and the western city of Nantes. Seven months from a presidential election, the head of the Force Ouvriere union Jean-Claude Mailly said: ‘This law will be the chewing gum that sticks to the soles of the government’s shoes.’

The bourgeois media in both France and the UK billed the demonstration as the unions’ ‘last stand’. The French CGT union put out the following statement to counter the attack.

The CGT said: ‘You said this was the last stand? The return of social action is like the weather, hot and stormy, no offense to those who already have stated that the social movement is buried. Throughout the country, more than 110 demonstrations and rallies that took place at the call of the seven organisations who mobilised the masses to continue to say “NO to the labour law!”

‘Despite draconian security measures imposed by the state, blocking workers from joining demonstrations in certain places over 170,000 people braved the protest bans and took to the streets for the 14th time. All continue to fight against this sickening law. The CGT will continue to fight, on any terrain for the preventing of the application of this law.

‘Point by point, measure by measure, either locally in businesses with employees or nationally, until we achieve justice, we will continue to mobilise to block this law. This law was not passed, it was arbitrarily imposed on the workers of this country! Like the labour laws of the past, the CNE, the CPE, nothing is set in stone. What has been “validated” by the government can be cancelled by the people. The CGT demand more than ever the repeal of this Labour Law.

‘Legal channels at national and international level, demonstrations at particular businesses, are also among the means of action. Here, in the heart of the Paris at the demonstration on September 15, protesters targeted Alstom, PSA Peugeot Citroën, and at subcontractors of Aéroports de Paris. Employees are mobilising for the law not to be enforced.’

Last Friday the CGT Metalworkers Federations, of Railway, Transport and Interfédérale Transport Union (ITU), signed a joint statement denouncing the deliberate endangering of staff by the management of Alstom at its production sites in France, purely for financial gain. The organisations reiterate that the Alstom site in Belfort is viable and continues to produce goods.

‘They have called a rally for September 27 from 8.30am outside the headquarters of Alstom St Ouen (93), during its Works Council meeting. In unison, the inter-union factory in Belfort organised a demonstration and rally in front of the People’s House. In an earlier demonstration 700 protesters stood at the factory gates chanting ‘Alstom is Belfort, Belfort is Alstom; Alstom will live’. When the demonstration reached the House of the People, in the city centre, the rain did not hinder the gathering and 2,000 people participated.

• An estimated 5,000 people marched through the Belgian town of Charerloi, on Friday, in protest at planned job cuts by machinery maker Caterpillar. Early this month, the US-based firm said as many as 2,000 positions could go at its factory in Gosselies. Executives say they plan to move production shifts to other facilities worldwide.

The company is undergoing a ‘cost-cutting exercise’ and wants to slash 10,000 jobs by the end of 2018. Unions and workers organised the demonstration, but they were joined by local people who wanted to show their solidarity with those affected. The protest comes just days after Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, told MEPs that he wanted the European Union to be ‘more social’.

That call was met with scorn from Caterpillar employees. ‘I’d ask him to be in our shoes, even if only for one day,’ said one employee. Before he’s spent in a day in the shoes of a worker in our situation, he can’t say anything because he knows absolutely nothing. We need the bosses to have fewer benefits in Belgium,’ said another. The multinationals, we always give them more dividends, but we the rest get nothing back in return.’

• Earlier this week a French air traffic controllers strike brought the airport to a virtual halt. The air traffic controllers are in a battle over pay and hours. There is an attempt to make them work longer hours, which they rightly say will be dangerous. Ryanair and EasyJet had to cancel dozens of flights as French air traffic controllers organised their fourteenth strike this year. Ryanair said it cancelled 22 flights on the first night of the strike last Wednesday and even more on Thursday.

EasyJet had to axe 64 flights that were scheduled for Thursday, including 22 due to operate from or to the UK. British Airways also cancelled flights. The strike ended at 4am on Friday morning.

• Police in Paris have begun destroying a camp holding around 1,500 refugees who have been living on the streets of the French capital for weeks. Two operations, one for women and children and another for men, were launched on Friday morning on a stretch of pavement between Jaurès and Stalingrad Metro stops just west of Montmartre.

Most were forcibly transported to ‘temporary shelters’. Their future status as refugees will also be ‘assessed’. Most of the people relocated in Friday’s operations were from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan and it’s thought that many were headed for Calais, in the hope of stowing away on a lorry bound for Britain.