France: Sarkozy prepares strikebreaking law for public transport

The right-wing president France elected a few months ago, Nicolas Sarkozy, is instituting a law against strikes by public transportation workers. It forces workers to announce to their employers that they're going to strike 11 days before the strike begins, it forces them to individually inform their employers that they personally will be striking, and it makes the continuation of the strike depend on a secret ballot, which allows for fraud. To me, this entire subject seems very strange. The idea of striking is simply refusing to work because one's demands are not met. Can't workers just organize themselves and decide to strike on their own, completely outside this framework? Of course, they could lose their jobs, but that seems like the price they have to pay, and there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid this possibility. It seems that striking is so fundamental an idea that it can never be taken away. As long as people are free to quit their jobs, they will be able to strike too. So why do workers have to pay attention to this framework that Sarkozy is introducing? If they follow its precepts, do they get any benefit from it? For example, the law could state that as long as workers met the law's precepts, they could not be fired for striking. If the law stated something like this, there would be a reason for workers to pay attention to it, because by following it they could express their dissatisfaction in a coercive manner while being protected from losing their jobs. But it sounds from the article that no protections for the workers like this are in the law, and it's completely one-sided against them and on the side of employers. If that's the case, it seems like workers should just take striking into their own hands, organize on their own, and ignore the law because it offers them nothing. It must still be legal to not show up to work in France, mustn't it? From the World Socialist Web Site:

France: Sarkozy prepares strikebreaking law for public transport
By Alex Lantier
7 July 2007

The newly elected government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to introduce a law to establish a guaranteed “minimum service” in the public transportation sector. The measure, which ruling circles have clearly been planning for some time, is now being shown to employers’ organizations and the trade unions for consultation. Approved by the government’s council of ministers on July 4, it will proceed to the Senate for debate on July 12.

During these discussions, the provisions of the bill are being kept secret by the relevant government ministries, industry groups and trade union leaders. However, some accounts have appeared in the French corporate media. It is already clear that the bill is a major attack on the right to strike, aiming to suppress the rail and transport workers, who have historically been one of the most militant sections of the French working class—launching important strike actions in the late 1980s and 1995 and participating in the multimillion-strong anti-pension reform strikes of 2003 and the “First Job Contract” demonstrations of 2006.

The first section of the law mandates a minimum negotiation period before any strike can be declared—a plan reportedly modeled on the “social alarm” system employed by the main Parisian public transport authority, the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP—Paris Autonomous Transport Authority). It would apply to the RATP, the national rail network (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français, SNCF), and all local bus, subway, train and tramway networks.

The second section obliges transport companies to formulate a “minimum service plan” to be put into action during any strike or “foreseeable disturbance.” The law reportedly does not define “minimum service” or “foreseeable disturbance” and leaves it up to each individual transport authority to decide what level of service to maintain. However, it allows for emergency requisitioning of non-striking workers during such “disturbances” to meet local authorities’ service targets.

It forces workers to “individually declare” themselves in favor of a strike to their employers two days prior to striking, and mandates that a secret ballot on continuing the strike be organized at employers’ discretion “at most” eight days after the beginning of a strike. The proposed penalty for individual strikers continuing to strike after a negative vote, or for failing to notify their employers of a strike, has not yet been made public.

The third and final section threatens local authorities with financial penalties—the obligation to reimburse passengers in case the guaranteed level of service during a strike is not reached. The benefits to passengers are unclear, as the local authorities will have themselves set the service level targets, but these will certainly be used as an excuse to dragoon strikers into returning to work.

Claims by government spokespeople that such plans do not violate workers’ constitutional right to strike are false on their face. Establishing a minimum level of guaranteed service means guaranteeing that at any given time, a minimum number of workers will not be on strike. The bill’s individual provisions also limit workers’ ability to launch effective strikes and violate their basic rights.

The requirement of a minimum negotiation period before declaring a strike—presented in the press as a neutral gesture meant to promote social harmony—is in fact a move, as historical experience shows, to limit and suppress strikes. The experience of the RATP’s “social alarm” plan, adopted soon after the 1995 strikes, gives some indication of the treatment transport workers will face if the bill passes. There is a minimum delay of 11 days between the first notification of management of a possible strike conflict and the beginning of an authorized strike; management refuses to recognize nonauthorized strikes even when supported by a majority of workers and punishes strikers by withholding weeks or months of pay, denying exam certifications and promotions, and canceling vacations. Wildcat strikers have reportedly been threatened with dismissal.

The conservative daily Le Figaro noted that “the [RATP’s] procedure has led to a noticeable decrease in the number of job conflicts: 90 percent of disagreements are resolved through dialog.”

The bill most openly and provocatively lines up with employers against the working class in its antidemocratic provisions for ongoing strikes. Workers will be forced to single themselves out for blacklisting by telling their employers they are willing to strike, but employers are under no obligation to notify workers of salary cuts, layoffs, decisions to put off investment in new equipment, or other decisions they may take. The decision to institute secret ballots instead of voice-voting on continuing a strike is designed to break strikers’ solidarity and leaves room for fraud at the ballot box.

The law states that strike days will not be paid, even though not paying strikers is already standard industry practice. This section can have no other aim than to make uninformed people think that transport workers currently are paid for strike days, stirring more politically confused elements against the workers.

The unions’ response shows they have no intention of mounting a serious political struggle against the law. So far, none of them—not even transport unions—are calling for strike action against the law.

The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT, the Stalinist-dominated union) issued a statement criticizing the law’s provisions and saying, “What we want is to avoid conflicts, negotiate about causes, and rebuild a truly fraternal public service.” This does not correspond to a situation where the state is tearing up workers’ right to strike, all the while—as the CGT’s statement notes—underfunding the transport networks, leading to breakdowns and service stoppages.

Other unions are taking a similar stance. François Chérèque, head of the Confédération Française et Démocratique du Travail (CFDT), has given several press interviews criticizing more provocative provisions of the bill. However, as its own web site points out, the CFDT initially proposed the RATP’s 1996 “social alarm” plan, on which much of the current law is modeled.

Sarkozy’s election has given the French elite new hope of a decisive settling of accounts with the working class. In its editorial on his victory, the center-left daily Le Monde wrote, “Rupture. The word was sweetened and then abandoned during the [election] campaign to hide its connotations of brutality, to reassure people. But that is indeed what is afoot: France is preparing to break with 20 years of immobility and errors that have led it into a spiral of relative decline.” Nicolas Baverez, a pro-free-market commentator close to Sarkozy, put it more bluntly in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes: “The 2007 election is the last opportunity, the last chance to modernize our country without a civil war.”

The French bourgeoisie feels itself inexorably impelled on a road of militarism abroad and social cuts at home due to the growing crisis of global capitalism. This fact was frankly stated in Prime Minister François Fillon’s inaugural speech to the National Assembly: “For centuries, France, and a few other nations, politically and economically dominated the world. This unequaled power allowed us to build a rich and prosperous civilization. Today, the world is waking and taking its revenge on history. Entire continents seek progress.... This new historical reality, both anguishing and fascinating, has demanded and demands more than ever that France make a long-delayed effort.”

Faced with intense and bitter competition from a host of rivals, in Asia, the US and the European continent itself, the French elite sees no solution except a ruthless assault on workers’ living standards and basic rights.

Underlying the toxic mixture of enthusiasm and bloodthirstiness in the French bourgeoisie is awareness that Sarkozy’s main goal—to carry out in France the changes seen in the US under Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980s—is massively unpopular. What the bourgeoisie sees as “20 years of immobility” has been, for the working class, two decades of struggles to maintain its social position. The last governments before Sarkozy—those of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Dominique de Villepin—both plummeted in the polls as the true character of their social program became widely understood.

While Sarkozy acts with more determination than his predecessors, his social base is no wider. This was underscored recently, when public airing of his regressive plans to increase sales taxes resulted in a far weaker result for Sarkozy’s party in the second round of the 2007 legislative elections. It is precisely to hide his social program and lull people to sleep that Sarkozy has included “left” ministers in his government, such as Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, formerly of the Socialist Party, and is now making a show of negotiating a strikebreaking law with union leaders.

France elects right-wing president

This BBC article does a fairly good job of summing up the French presidential election.

The new face of France under Sarkozy
By Caroline Wyatt
BBC News, Paris

On Sunday night, it was a jubilant Nicolas Sarkozy who performed France's traditional presidential victory parade - around the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysees, to popping champagne corks and the raucous cheers of his staunch supporters.

There is a feeling in Paris tonight that France, as Mr Sarkozy said in his victory speech, has turned "a new page of our history".

"In the republic that I want to serve," he said, "there cannot be rights without obligations. All must have their opportunity, but they must earn it by work, by personal commitment, by belief."

No-one is quite sure what will come next, but there is a sense of relief at a decision finally made, even if it is mingled with a fear of the future under its new leader, who has promised change and reform.

France's new president is a man best known for his energy and his will to power: a human dynamo, who left his opponents trailing and exhausted in his wake.

The Socialist Segolene Royal worked hard to beat him, but without the real backing of her own party and without a clear manifesto for France, she failed.

The 52-year-old Nicolas Sarkozy scandalised the Paris elite a few years ago when he admitted to constantly thinking about becoming French president, "not only when I am shaving in the morning".

'American neo-con'

Yet he was never part of that elite. He is the son of a Hungarian immigrant, who abandoned the young Sarkozy and his two brothers when they were young. According to several biographers, this left him with a burning desire to prove himself through sheer hard work and merit.

Nor did Mr Sarkozy attend the traditional elite school, ENA, but studied instead as a lawyer.

He went almost immediately into politics at the age of 22, becoming mayor of the upmarket Paris suburb of Neuilly at just 28 with the aid of the UMP's predecessor, the RPR - the party of President Jacques Chirac, who took the young Nicolas under his wing.

Today, Mr Sarkozy's enemies on the left mockingly call him an American neo-con, who just happens to have a French passport, or deride him as a short, power-hungry man with a Napoleon complex.

His supporters, however, claim with fervour that he is the only man who can save France from its economic and social ills.

What is clear is that the former interior minister - known for his tough stance on crime and illegal immigration - is a deeply divisive figure for the French, thanks partly to his un-ministerial language in 2005.

At the time, he re-assured a woman on one housing estate that he would hose the "scum" or "racaille" from the streets, and helped set France alight during the riots.

'Danger to democracy'

But French voters have decided that his brand of tough leadership is exactly what France needs to reform this ailing nation after 12 long years under Jacques Chirac, who later became Mr Sarkozy's implacable enemy.

In the long battle between the two, Mr Sarkozy finally won his gamble, taking both Mr Chirac's UMP party and now the presidency from his former backer.

During the campaign, the Socialists tried to scare the French planning to vote for Mr Sarkozy, by warning that he was a danger to democracy and an aggressive politician who could not be trusted to keep his cool as president.

It was a tactic that clearly backfired.

Christine Lagarde, France's imperturbable and elegant trade minister, insists that image is a political fabrication.

"He's a man of action, who wants to get things done, who is driven," she says.

"France has many politicians with a lot of good ideas, but very few with the passion to act on them. He has real passion. It's what some people refer to as brutality, but he's a very passionate individual who is engaged in finding better solutions for this country."

Mr Sarkozy's former campaign manager, Franck Tapiro has known him for 22 years and says the new president's talents will change the face of France.

"He's a courageous man who has the guts to act and fulfil his promises. He believes that politics can change lives," he enthuses. "He is very dynamic, and for him life is about movement. He's the locomotive and always one step ahead - you just have to follow him."

However, Mr Tapiro acknowledges: "You either love him or you hate him. There is nothing in between."

Merit

In his recent head-to-head debate against Ms Royal, Mr Sarkozy very clearly set out his priorities and vision for France.

"France's moral crisis has a name. It is a crisis of work," he told the 20 million French voters watching.

"I want the workers to be respected. I want to protect the French from seeing their jobs going abroad. I don't believe in living on social welfare. I don't believe everyone is the same. I believe in merit, I believe in effort and reward for that effort and I believe in social mobility. But above all, I believe in hard work."

With that almost Thatcherite rhetoric, Mr Sarkozy has made putting France back to work top of his agenda.

The 74-year-old President Chirac leaves behind him a stagnating economy, unemployment at 9%, and even higher among the young, with some 25% of the under-24s out of work.

So Mr Sarkozy has promised to make the 35-hour working week a minimum rather than a maximum, calling it one of France's most poisonous legacies. He also wants to encourage wealth creation and bring down the number of French bureaucrats.

Foreign policy

He is a clear admirer of the Anglo-Saxon work ethic and of the US. On Europe, Mr Sarkozy is in favour of a mini-Constitutional Treaty to be ratified by the French Parliament, rather than risk another referendum. And like most French, he doesn't want Turkey in the EU.

As for key alliances, he said in an interview with Paris Match that his first visit would be to Berlin, then Brussels, America and Africa. He didn't mention Britain.

Mr Sarkozy was, though, the only candidate to campaign for the French vote in London, seeking to woo the young back to France, and winning 40% of the vote there in the first round.

So would his foreign policy differ all that much from Jacques Chirac's? Government spokesman and minister Jean-Francois Cope believes not.

"There will be a large continuity on many questions, such as Iraq," he says. "And that is true for other big issues where France is involved. Then I would say it's a question of generation, of sensibility. Of course they will be different - Mr Sarkozy is 52, part of a younger generation of politicians."

Change

Yet, as leader of one of Europe's most stubborn and unpredictable nations, will Mr Sarkozy really be able to institute the reforms he has promised if the trade unions and others take to the streets in protest?

Political analyst Gerard Grunberg of Sciences-Po University in Paris wonders if he will be able to fulfil the promises made during the election campaign.

"He's a very good politician on TV - part of a new generation of media leaders, like Tony Blair was 10 years ago," he says. "He was able to convince the French that he incarnated movement and change. At the same time, he promised he would protect people, so they felt secure.

"The French people are contradictory about that - we don't want change because we are really frightened by the future. But another part of us acknowledges that maybe we will have to change."

Nicolas Sarkozy will certainly need to try to unite this fractious, divided and uncertain nation, which fears it has lost its dominant role on the world stage.

However, the new French president remains a divisive figure. As interior minister, he took a hard line on uncontrolled immigration and talked frequently during the campaign of the need to instil French values via a Ministry of National Identity.

This made some in the multi-ethnic French suburbs feel uncomfortable and excluded - although many of immigrant origin agree vehemently with his idea of advancement on merit, rather than family ties or the elite background demanded by many leading French employers.

Unlike many French politicians, Mr Sarkozy has long been a straight-talker, even if it did get him into trouble during the riots - and may again in the future.

However, as president, he is well aware that his job is to unite the nation and act as the almost regal head of state the French expect from their leadership in the Elysee Palace, as well as kick-starting the reforms he has long promised.

Above all, Mr Sarkozy is determined to lead a nation that is able to entice back and put to use all the talent and the energy that France has lost over the past 12 years of stagnation.