Lack of resources, teachers and staff, overstaffing, implementation of the Pact and the government’s new Islamophobic offensive with the ban on the wearing of the abaya: the 2023 school year opened with a deepening of the crisis in National Education. From the start of the school year, the Utrillo high school in Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis) mobilized strongly. In an open letter published Monday September 25, its staff appealed to the unions to invite them to enter – finally – into the battle.
Call on trade union organizations for a battle plan and offensive slogans
In their ” Open letter to our unions », the staff of the Utrillo high school emphasize that “ the potential for mobilization is great, but we do not have the resources from our high schools to orchestrate [l]the big fight necessary “. This is why they are calling on the unions to mobilize “ behind offensive slogans, in order to achieve dignified working conditions in the service of the emancipation of our students “. Against union division, the letter specifies the need to act in a united manner, while emphasizing that “ it is imperative to coordinate days of strikes and actions on a national scale ».
Under the slogan “ More resources for our students. No to their stigmatization », the mobilized staff of Utrillo call on the union organizations to build an offensive battle plan, making demands that are both economic, on means and working conditions, but also anti-racist and anti-Islamophobic, by demanding the end of the ban on abayas and qamis. These demands are all the more linked because, as the open letter underlines, “ the ban on wearing the abaya and qamis at school and the continued deterioration of learning conditions for students in working-class neighborhoods are witnesses to the progression of neoliberal ideology and that of the extreme right in our society and particularly at school ».
Staff on strike at the start of the school year, instigating a first rally
The call to the National Education unions comes following several days of strikes and mobilization within the high school. From the start of the school year, 70% of the staff at Utrillo high school were on strike to demand resources for the school and against the ban on wearing the abaya. The high school is thus one of the rare establishments to have mobilized both against the offensives on the public education service and against the government’s Islamophobic offensive, in a context where repression is becoming increasingly strong. .
The striking Utrillo staff also initiated an inter-establishment and inter-union rally in front of the Ministry of National Education. Trying to make demands that concern the entire sector heard – as demonstrated by the various interventions – and to break the isolation of struggling schools, colleges and high schools, the Utrillo high school showed the way to organize against the attacks of Attal and Macron.
An approach in which the union organizations were involved at the establishment level, but were withdrawn at the local and national level, even though, as the open letter underlines, they are able to organize the struggle . We can thus emphasize that Sud Éducation, but also certain sectors of the CGT Educ’Action and the FSU, present at the September 13 rally, displayed positions similar to those of Utrillo strikers. Beyond demonstrations of support, the open letter asks them to play their role as organizers and coordinators of the struggles.
Faced with attacks from the Macron government, call for an overall movement and a real battle plan
As the open letter points out: “We can only lose and become exhausted if we continue to fight in scattered order.” Thus, it is necessary, as the mobilized staff of the Utrillo high school are calling for, for the union leadership to stop playing the game of social dialogue to finally play their role with the world of work, by carrying our demands and by organizing, coordinating and massifying our struggles. Called by trade union organizations on a European scale, the date of October 13 can be a point of support in this regard – if it goes beyond the framework of the traditional day of mobilization with no future at the start of the school year.
For this, we must impose slogans that go beyond artistic vagueness, whether for schools, for public services, but also for salaries and against the racist and reactionary offensives in progress, and demand a real battle plan. In fact, the school reproduces what is happening in the rest of society, where austerity policies reinforce poverty and precariousness, in a context where inflation further lowers real wages – while not preventing not the profits to reach records. By reinforcing racism and Islamophobia, through its measures and laws targeting Muslims at school and migrants to France, the government is playing the game of divide and rule and trying to make them bear the blame. responsibility for ongoing crises.
While asking for resources for schools and public services, it is necessary to build an overall movement, which carries demands affecting the sectors. Let us demand resources for public services, and for all, an increase in salaries, pensions and social minimums to the tune of €400 and their indexation to inflation. And because neoliberal and reactionary policies go hand in hand, let us demand the repeal of all racist and Islamophobic laws, from the ban on the abaya to the immigration law, the opening of borders and the regularization of all Homeless.
Find the full open letter here :
2023-09-27 19:00:53
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