Photo de Martin Wilhelm
The unions and organizations which called, on this day, for a mobilization in the form of strikes and demonstrations on Tuesday, October 5, can measure how far they have yet to go to unite the discontent of the population.
However, the claims put forward were all common sense and were indeed a response to the questions of the world of work in these socially troubled times. While all the polls announce that it is the purchasing power that is the first concern of the French in the presidential perspective, far ahead of migration issues, it appears that these citizens do not come to support their demand in the street!
The majority of the Mulhouse procession was formed by public service personnel: normal, since all successive governments have liquidated entire sections of this public service that the French ardently defend. However, there too, the users (who should be the first to defend their hospital, their post, their services…) were not there! So, fiasco? Or the first step in resuming a mobilization under construction?
Is a weekday appropriate?
This is certainly not the main thing, but one can still wonder. Every Saturday for several weeks, thousands and thousands of people have been present on Saturdays in demonstrations denouncing the attacks on freedoms represented by the health pass! If these protests took place on Tuesday, would they have the same success? To ask the question, is to answer it. Why do the unions persist in calling for action on a weekday when the majority of employees are at work? The hardliners will tell me: but there is a call for a strike, and if the employees go on strike they will be able to come to the demonstration. Yes, but what if they can’t strike?
One has the impression that these calls have been repeated for years, without the unions taking into account the evolution of the situation and of society. The observation is clear: employees in the private sector are having difficulty going on strike and therefore cannot leave their company. And that is easily understood. It is true that employees of the public service have more possibilities to strike: this explains why they form the majority of processions. But what is a majority of 500 demonstrators in a city that has known Saturdays with 6,000 people marching with family in the streets of the city!
It would be urgent that the unions update their software to allow all those who wish to express their discontent to be able to do so without having to go on strike. And for that, only Saturday remains to meet.
Are the unions still heard?
L’Alterpresse68 was “kindly” criticized by a leader of the CFDT because we would have been too critical of this organization (incidentally absent in the organizers of the October 5 protest). And anyone to remind us that the CFDT has become “the first French trade union organization” and that we lacked respect for democracy not to integrate this.
It is clear that the unions, the main players in social democracy since the end of the 19th century, no longer have the means to significantly influence the economic and social policies of the employers and the government.
In short, as we are the first organization, we have the support of the world of work to our union policy. It is true that in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed are kings! To be the first trade union organization in a country where trade unionism is less and less recognized and is losing members en masse, that is an achievement!
No, it is clear that the unions, the main players in social democracy since the end of the 19th century, no longer have the means to significantly influence the economic and social policies of the employers and the government. We will have the opportunity, in these columns, to carry out in-depth work on the trade union crisis, but it is clear that the acceptances of social setbacks (as do the so-called reformist unions like the CFDT) and the impossibility of organizations more combative to prevent them, have made the working world doubt the effectiveness of trade unionism in effectively defending it.
Nothing prevents a rebound is possible in the future. But nothing says either that this will happen: because it is not written that a population which suffers socially, revolts spontaneously.
However, the lack of reaction does not imply acceptance of his fate. It suffices to listen to those around you to measure the dissatisfaction of a majority of citizens in the face of social injustices that are developing day by day. Even helped by the media of a rare complacency, the government and the employers are not able to convince of the merits of their social policy.
So where could it possibly sin? The dissolution of the links between unions and the world of work is blatant and the few bastions that are still illusory do not change anything: unions must re-establish new and different links with workers of all social categories and all generations. .
The presidential elections: a ground to occupy
If things continue as they started, the presidential election debate will focus solely on migration and security issues. It is a common will of Mr. Macron and the right, the extreme right included. We even wonder why the PS is invited to the same table … There is hardly that part of the Greens, around Sandrine Rousseau, France Insoumise and the Communist Party with Fabrice Roussel, who try to put the question social at the center of the debates.
This is likely to be largely insufficient! The unions see a boulevard opening up for them! Is it not they who claim to occupy the social field? And why should the unions, or at least some of them who can still talk to each other, not define, together, a social platform to be submitted to all the candidates and to campaign around the commitments of the candidates? Or other ideas, much more relevant than ours, could spring from the unity union reflection to put the social as the main subject to be debated during the next 6 months?
Plus a few demonstrations in the street to support their suggestions, proposals and demands. And hope to bring together a little more than 500 people, the next Saturday of mobilization.
Below, the photographic gallery created by Martin Wilhelm
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