- Claude Gabriel
Strike brings Renault to
La halt A TWO week pay strike has brought the French state-owned car manufacturer Renault to its knees.
The strike, although until now confined to the company's main gearbox and engine plant at Cléon, west of Paris, has halted all domestic production in what is France's second largest company in terms of sales. Renault is now losing 5,000 vehicles a day, and the stoppage is estimated to have cost the firm several hundred million francs.
Over the past ten years, more than
40,000 Renault workers have lost their jobs, while wages have declined by 17% in real terms. Cléon has a long history of struggle and a particularly militant CGT (General Confederation of Labour - France's biggest trade union federation, associated with the Communist Party) tradition. A factory management renowned for its arrogance has denounced the striking workers as "terrorists" and part of an "extremist plot", , and attempted to organize a number of physical provocations.
The French employers' organization has supported the Renault management in calling for police intervention to allow scabs through the Cléon picket lines - CGT pickets have blocked all access to the plant.
The Socialist Party government of Edith Cresson, increasingly beleaguered as its standing in the opinion scale. Under the pressure of the health industry lobby which represents massive investments in this sector, European governments have reduced the social safetynet and promoted the concentration of health services in the hands of a few large private groups who compete with each other. Health has become a commodity, hospitals big business, patients clients. In this framework, the policies of the Rocard and now Cresson governments and their health ministers have been to dismantle public hospitals.
The hospital reform, which has been presented as a delayed response to the 1988 demonstrations, has in fact only responded to the needs of capitalist rationalization in the framework of the market. The crisis of the public hospital is manifested especially by an unprecedented crisis of personnel, which has been amplified by the departure of staff discouraged by the lack of response to the problems they have expressed.
Last but not least was the emergence of a new form of self organization. For the first time at this level, a movement of wage workers forged a recognized leadership which came out of the movement itself, even forcing the government to accept it as a negotiating partner. The majority of union organizations for their part, were swept aside by this phenomenon. The CFDT(Democratic federation of French Labor) even went so far as expelling from its ranks those unionists - especially in the Paris region — who actively participated in the steering committee. In order to maintain their union organizations the latter formed their own federation.
Today, three years later, another movement is being formed which has drawn on past experiences and their lessons. The health sector is continually experiencing movements among all job categories. They have been answered by 1. See International Viewpoint issues #149 of October 17, 1988, and #152 of November 28, 1988. 2. "Cohabitation" refers to the period when Socialist President Francois Mitterand was forced to appoint a Prime Minister from one of the bourgeois parties — Jacques Chirac of the neo-Gaullist RPR (Rally for the Republic).
polls plummets, and facing pressure from a wave of industrial action in the public service, as well as the continuing revolt of French farmers (see IV 215), appears to be divided on what course to follow. The minister for industry supports police intervention, whilst other sectors of the government are mindful of the possible explosive consequences of this -but the government is united in rejecting the demands of the strikers.
The strike has the support of more than 80% of the 5,000 plus workers at the factory, and pickets are several hundred strong. In addition, the stoppage is massively popular among local people. A support committee of strikers' wives and companions has been set up, and the local farmers' confederation has organized a march to the factory gates in support of the strikers.
Messages of support, donations, and requests for further information: Comité d'établissement RNUR, B.P. 7
114, 76410 Cléon, France. *
EUROPE government refusal. These developments have also revealed the crises of the ruling social democratic majority. After ten years in power, including a two year period of "cohabitation, the social democratic leadership is in the defendants dock. It has shown itself incapable of satisfying the needs of the great majority of the population concerning both employment and wages. In addition to the scandals that have shaken the government as of late, the entire public service system is in crisis. In such sensitive areas as the social and sanitary sectors their record is truly dismal.
This time all the categories of health personnel have mobilized together, even if the nurses continue to play a leadership role. The demands concern jobs, wages, working conditions, job training and concern all job categories. The movement is still experiencing the difficulties of organizing itself nationally and forging a truly nationally recognized leadership. Although divisions along job lines still exist they have been largely overcome.
The same is not true concerning organs of representation. One part of the nurses movement is today organized in groups organized strictly along vocational lines, like the nurses union or the national nurses coordinating union (CNI), which are products of the 1988 events. The former, although weakly implanted, managed to take advantage of the fact that it had the same name as the democratic body formed in 1988, as well as the media attention it has received, to occupy center stage with its spectacular tactics like non-stop sit-ins in the ministry. But this group has not sought to build a national movement for which it has neither the will nor capacity. The CGT (the General Confederation of Labor) for its part has drawn the lessons of its marginalization from the 1988 movement. It has participated in the movement without being able to chart an orientation towards building a national organization built upon democratic and representative structures. It continues therefore, to go against the grain of a large part of the health workers' movement for which democratic aspirations remain strong.
The consciousness that has developed out of these past movements has led to the desire to coordinate nationally. The only union organization that has played this role is the CRC (Coordinate, Rally and Construct), but it lacks the forces of the principal union confederations. Nevertheless, through its active role, it has earned the recognition of the most mobilized sectors.
At first the government turned a deaf ear to the demands of the movement, responding instead with an enormous police presence at the nurses' demonstration on October 17, which it broke up with the use of water cannons and tear gas. This resulted in a great public outcry and forced the health minister to open negotiations. But these negotiations rapidly floundered due to the lack of authentic responses to the demands. It is questionable whether the government will be able to find a union willing to sign an agreement and thus undercut the current mobilizations. The strike continues to spread in the hospitals and a national demonstration of all health workers has been called for November 7, in Paris.
The failures of the Socialist Party(SP) in power are most clearly seen in the health field. Their policies are suicidal and criminal as the current scandal concerning blood transfusions demonstrates.3 Only a strong, united, and determined movement of all health workers can stop the dangerous direction that health services in France under SP rule are heading. 3. It has recently been discovered that up to 400,000 people have received blood transfusions contaminated by viruses including HIV and hepatitis over the last several years. The Socialist Party govemment has been accused of being responsible for this affair.