Wednesday, November 21, 2007

"Nous ne cederons pas, nous ne reculerons pas"

The public sector sister trade union to UNISON in France, the CGT and others are in battle with right wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy over pensions. He declared yesterday "We shall not give way, we shall not retreat". Is he having his Maggie Thatcher moment?

While on paper at least, the unions seem up against it, a newly elected President who had reform of public sector pensions in his manifesto and it appears marginal public support for taking a “tough line”.

However, this is France! Here in a republic founded on barricades and revolution where there is a tradition of successful street protest blocking change. Street protest last year was able to overturn a law passed overwhelmingly by the National Assembly which reduced employment protection for young people.

Of course, soon after this, France elected the conservative Sarkozy, despite a very good Socialist opponent. The same thing happened after the famous protests of 1968.

I can’t really comment on the pensions issue itself since I haven’t seen any real independent analysis of what the real concerns are, apart from an assumption in the media that since this is France and it is about the public sector, the unions must be in the wrong. After the nonsense and misrepresentation about the Brit public sector pensions last year I won’t believe anything the mainstream media puts out about French pensions.

There is one other thing. I have posted before about the crazy (or perhaps not) contradiction that in France, the trade unions can influence the political agenda on certain issues by being able to organise massive street protests despite having appallingly low membership levels. France has a trade union density of only 9% compared to the UK 29%.

Despite relatively very few members, the French trade unions can mobilise large numbers of people on the streets. Often their demo’s in Paris have more people on them than the total number of members in that union across the country.

Finally, I may be wrong, but French right wing politicians have a well deserved reputation of talking tough in public yet being pragmatic in practice. While the petty bourgeoisie Thatcher hatred the trade unions so much that she would have risked everything to defeat them. Viva la difference!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our CGT Brothers and Sisters are showing the way and while it may last until Xmas

The Cgt may not win everything, but they will secure an agreement and this with a very low union membership

disaplined socialists and communists and a broad based appeal and approach works

But we should also look at the role of the media, which I believe is more balanced in France

we in the trade unions need to build better communications with our members and the public

UNISON and Labourstart radio/TV may start to build that stratergy.

Some better UNISON branches have good newsletters but that is all to rare

So how do we get our message across ?? discuss !

John Gray said...

Maybe in the UK we need to be able to talk to our members in a real modern language? Do our members understand (or care?) what we activists say?

Are our members really always so "angry" or "furious" with management proposals? Should we always "demand” or ask for things “unconditionally”?

"Betrayal", "sell-out", Maverick are all emotive and potentially very divisive and destructive terms? Discuss?

Anonymous said...

Sarkozy has been democratically elected on a clear mandate to bring about change to France's antiquated labour laws...lets hope he is not pushed off oourse by some Left wing unelected militants.
It seems he is also winning the support of the public over this. Good for him!

John Gray said...

Hi Anon

It is interesting that Sarkozy is not trying to “Thatcherise” this dispute and has come up with genuine compromises and meaningful offers to settle this dispute.

The world is changing.

Anonymous said...

Thatcher did a great job on the unions - thats why she kept being overwhelmingly re- elected...even Gorodon had her round to ask her advice.

John Gray said...

Hi Anon

No, she didn't keep on winning elections. Ever heard (one of the few times I will quote Powell) "all political lives end in failure". French Tories have a different "one nation" approach?