Red Leadership Needed STRIKES SWEEP FRANCE; SAILORS BATTLE COPS

PARIS, March 10 — Strikes have erupted across France as workers continue their long tradition of downing tools and battling to resist the bosses’ cops.

Marseilles Port Shut

The SNCM ferry company workers, on strike for 40 days, and having blocked the north and south channels of Marseilles’ port, were attacked by up to 700 cops — six companies of riot police, plus members of the national police force and maritime gendarmes. They swung riot sticks and used tear gas, arresting 14 strikers.

But the sailors fought back, throwing bottles and turning hoses on the cops from one of the ferries the strikers have occupied. “They’re the ones who want a clash,” declared one sailor. “We’re going to defend ourselves.”

Now all the maritime unions have called for sailors to launch a national strike on March 17 against deregulation, a policy the shipowners have been using to push through layoff after layoff “in the name of free and unfettered competition.”

Solidarity

The police assault brought an immediate and massive reaction as all port workers in every trade and occupation struck in support of the SNCM sailors. The port workers said they would not return to work until “all police forces have left the port area.”

On March 9, dock workers refused to allow two ferries originally bound for the then-blocked port of Marseilles to dock in the port of Toulon. “We refuse to be a back-up and we don’t want to be considered as scabs by our fellow workers in Marseilles,” said union leader Kadda Zerga. The dockers only allowed passengers to disembark from the ferries.

The sailors are striking against company plans to reduce the number of ferry voyages between mainland France and Corsica, fearing this will lead to layoffs. Further strikes include:

  • Thirty-five hundred JC Decaux workers struck on March 8 to demand a minimum 100-euro-a-month pay raise (US$136), refusing the company offer of 1.4%. JC Decaux puts advertisements on a variety of billboards, bus stops, and in public transport. In 2010, its gross profit hit 173 million euros (US$235 million).

     • Strikes have hit the hugely profitable communications satellite producer Thales Alenja Space. Workers are demanding a 5% wage hike and equal pay for women workers, plus bonuses. Four hundred strikers blocked truck access to the Cannes factory and 800 blocked trucks from the Toulouse plant, preventing nitrogen deliveries.

     • Rolling strikes hit Manitowoc-Potain, a crane manufacturer in central France where wages have been frozen for years. The CGT union agreed to a 60-euro-a-month increase (US$82) but angry workers are threatening to walk out again for a higher pay hike.

     • Steelworkers in Dunkirk and Florange have engaged in rolling strikes against the Arcelor Mittal group, demanding a 45-euro-a-month wage hike US$61), double the company’s raise. Strikers blocked the Basse-Indre plant and organized shift-end stoppages at three other mills.

     • A 3½-day strike by Peugeot auto workers won better working conditions against speed-up, creating 23 additional fitters and forklift drivers on each shift and slowing the assembly line from 46 to 44 cars an hour.

     • Over 800 factory workers, engineers and technicians have been on strike since January 13 against Cézus-Aréva, world leader in the zirconium market, a metal used to isolate nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. They’re demanding a bonus equal to 1% of the gross annual wage plus a pay increase triple the company’s offer of 1.1%.

     • A five-day strike beginning January 26 by workers at MBF Technologies forced the company — owned by one of the main auto subcontractors making aluminum castings — to abandon layoff plans and legal proceedings to expel the workers from the plant; agree to keep the factory operating; not to end the 35-hour week; pay workers for the five days they were on strike; open wage negotiations; and not file legal action against any strikers.

     • At the Spanish-owned Europac factory which makes paper and cardboard in Saint-Etienne du Rouvray, 160 workers struck for a 4% pay hike, a 75-euro bonus and against a two-tier wage system paying lower wages to new hires.

     • Over 1,000 Thales Communications workers in the northern Paris suburb of Colombes, voted to strike on March 9 at a general assembly held on a freeway off-ramp, demanding re-opening of wage negotiations. From 5:30 A.M. demonstrators blocked access to the plant. Actions spread to Thales factories in outlying areas. The company designs and makes information and communications systems for the military market.

     • Nine hundred auto parts workers at the Valeo plant in Issoire in southern France staged a work stoppage on March 8 to back up demands for higher wages in annual contract negotiations. It turned into a one-day strike, with pickets at the plant entrance. The Issoire plant makes electrical components for automobiles and auto engines.

A union leaflet protested that, “Workers are supposed to tighten their belts and be happy with crumbs, when 1.20 euros per share are to be paid…to shareholders…of a little over 78 million shares.” The company’s 2010 gross profit was half a billon dollars.

Without communist leadership to turn workers’ fighting spirit towards revolution, the fascists plan to turn it into the dead-ends of racism and nationalism. The fascist National Front announced today it’s establishing an “association for the defense of workers.” Belying that, the fascists condemned the striking unions as “anti-democratic and repressive.”

These strike actions demonstrate that workers’ militancy remains intact here, despite defeat in last year’s fight to stop the government from upping the retirement age. The only way to get off the treadmill of fighting for wage hikes that capitalism inevitably takes away is to turn that militancy into a commitment to fight for communism.