November 18, 2024 editorial of the New Anticapitalist Party-Revolutionaries (NPA-R) in France, translated from French
300,000 jobs are currently under threat in major chemical, automotive and retail companies, as well as at their subcontractors. Yet these companies are making profits, thanks to the work of the workers they now want to throw out.
Workers are constantly producing more, better and faster. But who benefits? The bosses, who impose ever greater sacrifices: layoffs, increased work rates and working hours, or loss of pay. After months of short-time working, the glassmaker Saverglass proposed a 5% pay cut!
The government is not to be outdone in the civil service, with its three unpaid days of sick leave and job cuts. On learning that billionaire boss Elon Musk had been commissioned by Donald Trump to wipe out thousands of public sector jobs, the French Minister for the Civil Service, Guillaume Kasbarian, posted a congratulatory message on social networks. Birds of the same feather…
And now, the Senate has tabled an amendment to the French Social Security Finance Act that would oblige employees to work an extra seven hours for free. A proposal that the Minister of the Economy finds “interesting” and “judicious”!
Faced with the anger of employees, Prime Minister [Barnier] is turning a blind eye to groups such as Auchan (supermarkets), Stellantis (automobile) and Michelin (tire manufacturer), which are laying off workers while making profits and pocketing public subsidies. But it’s to pay back these billions of gifts that Barnier wants to pass 60 billion in savings in the 2025 budget.
All together!
Strikes are underway or have already taken place against layoffs, as at Valeo in La Suze-sur-Sarthe (Sarthe), Vencorex in Pont-de-Claix (Isère), Michelin in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire), MA France in Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis)…
Others concern wages, as at H&M or the cleaning company Atalian in Bouches-du-Rhône, or at certain Keolis subsidiaries in Allier, Hérault, Oise, Yvelines and Val-d’Oise.
A civil service strike is scheduled for December 5. A day of mobilization will take place on December 10 in higher education and research. A strike will begin on December 11 at the SNCF (national railway) against its dismantling. In the meantime, farmers should also be mobilized…
The government and employers are trying to isolate us and pit us against each other. We need to arm ourselves against all attempts to divide us, whether between employees in the public and private sector, or between employees in different countries. Closing borders in the name of “protectionism” will not stop employers from exploiting and laying off workers. Their greatest fear is that our struggles will converge, that workers threatened with layoffs will coordinate, that joint actions will be decided by strikers.
The only solution is to fight together, following the example of the movement against the high cost of living that has been affecting Martinique (French colony in the Caribbean Sea) for the past two months.
So yes, each day of struggle must become a rallying point and a stage in the construction of a collective struggle! This is the only way to win a ban on layoffs, the sharing of working hours with no loss of pay, pay raises in line with inflation, the permanent hiring of precarious workers and the creation of jobs where they are sorely lacking, and quality public services, particularly in transport, health and education.
We’re the ones who make society run, it’s up to us to decide!
