The media are forever telling us that M. Juppe' has given way to the demands
of the railway workers, that there are ways forwar, that negotiations have
begun.
In point of fact Juppe' has done nothing of the sort. He has simply
continued, as he has done since the beginning of the strike to try to forge
a gap between the railworkers and other groups of strikers. This leads to a
quite different conclusion than the one which sees the Levert commission as
a victory which deals with retirement conditions for government employees
(and which is far from clear) and the freezing of plans for the industry.
Reading the prose of his publicity (or that of the communication services)
paid for dearly by tax payers and published in nearly all papers proves most
instructive. Far more so for what it doesn't say than for what it oes: not a
word in fact on the debts owed by the bosses and the state to the social
security system, not a word about all the regular gifts received by the
bosses, not a word about reducing working hours (the word 'adjustment' is on
everyone's lips), not a word about insecurity and the numerous schemes that
the state uses as much as it can to fill in the needs for personnel which
are not covered by the benefit system . In some parts of the country it is
those workers who are in insecure jobs who make the local machinery work and
assure most services.
No sign therefore to show us that the government has changed course and
indeed M Chirac has said repeatedly that there will be no change.
In our view we must be prepared for nothing other than further attempts to
divide workers, the undermmining of the conflict, media manipulation and
support from the government for those options chosen by the bosses and the
stock exchange.
We must not hide the difficulties which we currently face at Nanterre
University: the movement has come as far as it has by means of a dynamic
whose internal force has indeed been weak; to begin with it was the students
who took the initiative; then we were carried away by the wave which went
through the whole public domaine after the transport strikes. Today noone
can say if the movement has reached its climate, if it has run out of breath
due to the divisive efforts of the government or if, on the contrary, a more
durable movement is taking shape. We are putting our money on the latter.
The moment therefore has arrived for us to avail ourselves of the tools
which will allow us to begin a serious discussion between ourselves and our
non-striking colleagues, by coming out of the haze which has dominated up
until now, to follow more closely the debate which is developping between
the sector assemblies which are in struggle and to follow the governments
manoeuvres.
In other areas: interprofessional assemblies, demonstrations, leaflets etc.
the debate is growing; if it is the withdrawal of the Juppe' plan for social
security which remains the unifying force behind the movement other themes
and objectives are ccoming to light:
- is it possible to talk of social security and pensions and their financing
without dicscussing working hours and the need for their fundamental
reduction to solve the twin problems of unemployment and exclusion?
- can we speak of a solution when faced with the tendancy for employees
standard of living to fall and without envisaging the end of insecure
employment and the need to create real fairly remunerated jobs?
- can we invite the private sector to join us without discussing the
question of equal access to pensions without demanding a return to the 37.5
working years for everyone
- can we forget that some of the unions who today are sitting down with the
government are the same ones who signed the 40 year deal for the private
sector hardly two years ago? Can we avoid asking ourselves who is giving
them their orders, what their agendas are and where they will negotiate? Can
we dispense with grassroot control of their present and future activities?
Our assembly has therefore decided to set up a strike committee and a series
of work commissions responsible to the general assembly of campus workers
made up of union and non union members in order to respond to all the
demands which have come about due to the widening of the movement. For the
moment we have decided to put together a body which will edit an information
and discussion leaflet (for ourselves and non strikers), a commission
responsible for collecting funds to support the drivers of the SNCF and the
RATP who will see their December salaries greatly reduced in order to show
them unquestioning solidarity. A delegation has met with the university vice
president to demand details about the role of insecure employment at
Nanterre. We must envisage further commissions to maintain contact with
other striking sectors.
(...)
>(Extrait de "Nanterre en Lutte", journal du Comit=E9 de lutte du personnel
>IATOSS, =E9dition du 15 d=E9cembre 1995)
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