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French rail strike: Workers battle attack on pensions

Published Nov 25, 2007 7:06 PM

A majority of striking French rail workers have voted to continue a strike that began Nov. 14 and will now last beyond Nov. 20, when teachers and civil service workers will also walk out to demand higher pay. All may join with students in mass protests against the latest anti-worker attacks from the rightist government of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The French ruling class has come to the conclusion that its control and influence over the mass media—newspapers, radio and television—isn’t enough to break the strike. Sarkozy’s party has taken the extraordinary step of ordering 2 million leaflets printed with anti-union propaganda and having its party functionaries distribute them in the streets. The workers who have severely disrupted transportation and the students who have blockaded or struck over half of France’s universities have clearly been winning public support.

The ruling party is attempting to make rail workers pay into their retirement fund for 40 years before getting full pensions, instead of the current 37.5 years. This would end a feature of railroad pensions that was introduced in 1855. The government refuses to negotiate with the unions on strike unless they agree to accept this pension “reform” and suspend their strike.

These special pensions cover 1.6 million workers, of whom 500,000 are currently working and 1.1 million are retired. They allow workers in dangerous and strenuous outdoor jobs to retire 2-1/2 years early with a full pension. Or they can retire at age 50 with a smaller but adequate pension, which many do.

The government is also trying to explain why it wants to let each French university set its own level of student stipends. In France, there is generally no tuition for higher education. Each student gets a small stipend from the state.

Gas and electricity workers are also on strike. Their walkout creates little disruption unless they start cutting off service.

Two unions, which represent a small proportion of the workers in the railroad system and the Paris metro, have accepted the government’s proposal, called off their participation in the strike and will negotiate how much the workers they represent will get for giving up their “special” pensions.

Equality for whom?

Sarkozy justified his attack on these special pensions by appealing to the principle of equality. But the left has responded by pointing out that equality could be better served by extending the earlier retirement to all workers.

Though the rail companies claim 70 percent of their workers have returned to work, still only one of three high-speed trains are running, regional service is only at 15 percent, some lines in the Metro have no service and others are running only once every 25 minutes.

In France, every worker has a constitutional right to strike. On the railroads, unions have to file notice that they are going to go out, but once that is done, even workers who are not in that union but work for the railroad can legally strike.

According to the French newspaper Rouge, published by the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), many supervisors and managers walked off the job Nov. 14 when the strike began, but have gone back gradually since then. But 50 percent to 100 percent of the operating workers—train drivers, conductors, switch operators, ticket sellers—have stayed out and firmly support continuing the strike. This is a higher percentage of operating workers out than in 1995, when workers defeated a similar attack.

Rouge also interviewed Hassen, a young RATP bus driver on strike in the Paris suburbs. He pointed out that these pension “reforms” would set up a two-tiered pension system for bus drivers and that they could also be changed to force workers to work years longer for a full pension.

While strikes are called by the union leadership, in France they are continued by “general assemblies” at each site. These assemblies are open to members of all the unions involved in the strike and also to the non-unionized workers who walk out. They generally meet every day and discuss issues, such as continuing the strike and setting up picket lines or blockading services, and they have voted overwhelmingly to continue the strike at least through the seventh day.

French workers have shown that they are willing to fight hard to defeat their ruling class’s attempts to cut workers’ benefits to U.S. levels. Whatever happens next, it is clear that there is a tremendous class struggle going on in France.