France : Union Misleaders Divert School Strike into Dead-end

PARIS, September 16 — A national teachers strike — backed by the biggest high school students union and the main federation of parents — is looming in both the public and private schools. The teachers’ unions are calling for a 24-hour walkout on September 27. They’re demanding “an end to job cuts, a different budgetary logic,” and “a democratic transformation of the educational system to ensure the success of all pupils.”

But one-day strikes are no threat to the bosses or the government. They’re a tactic the union misleaders use to keep control and divert workers’ militancy into a dead-end.

Over 52,000 jobs were cut in education in the past four years. Another 16,000 have been axed this school year, and still another 14,000 are slated to go in 2012. Meanwhile, the student population has risen by 60,000 this year.

All this leads to larger classes, difficulty finding substitutes for absent teachers, and the elimination of optional subjects and individual aid for pupils.

In budgetary terms, real teachers’ salaries have been frozen for 16 years. According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), “even if overtime and bonuses are included, the average salary of teachers [in France] remains below the OECD average.”

An opinion poll published yesterday showed that 64% think the schools “operate badly,” up from 40% in 2007; 60% say the school system does not ensure equal opportunity.

Indeed, 31% of the university students are the children of executives and highly-paid academics. On the other hand, 12% come from white collar families, and 10% are children of factory workers.

Capitalism, Class Bias and Racism Go Hand-in-Hand

It can’t be any different under capitalism. Education in capitalist society is aimed at reproducing the domination of the ruling class. The children of the rich go to the best schools. A gifted minority gets scholarships. All other children are taught just enough to hold down a job, along with patriotism to make them loyal to the bosses and racism to keep them divided. In fact, a secret government report obtained in August by Le Monde newspaper says that racist and anti-Semitic insults and acts, aimed at both teachers and pupils, are becoming everyday occurrences in the schools.

Higher wages and no job cuts are reform demands that might be won, but the present economic crisis and social climate makes that highly unlikely. An isolated 24-hour strike certainly won’t win these demands. And there’s no way that the ruling class will permit “a democratic school system that ensures the success of all pupils.”

The French teachers’ unions are hardly raising revolutionary demands, aimed at winning teachers to realize the need for a revolutionary communist transformation of society. They’re promoting the illusion that their demands can actually be met under capitalism, and that they’re seriously fighting to obtain them.

The union hacks are looking to boost their popularity among teachers in the upcoming Oct. 13-20 elections to the labor-management boards that help run the school system. The outcome of those elections will determine each union’s representation, and consequently public financing of the union officials’ jobs. (Each union is apportioned a quota of paid hours during which its designated representatives are relieved of teaching duties. Not surprisingly, the union hacks leave the classroom permanently, and are paid full-time to “do union work.”)

The one-day teacher’s walkout is also a build-up to the October 12 national all-trades 24-hour strike. Widely-spaced one-day walkouts are the hacks’ recipe for appearing to act while ensuring that momentum has no chance to build and workers remain manageable. In reality, both strikes are aimed at mobilizing workers to vote for the Socialist Party in the first round of the presidential elections on April 22, 2012. This, despite the fact that during the 2007 campaign, Socialist candidate Ségolène Royale was tape-recorded in a behind-closed-doors’ meeting planning to double teachers’ class hours!

Communist teachers need to bring revolutionary politics to the organization and staging of the September 27 strike. By denouncing the union hacks’ corrupt scheming, and exposing how capitalist education serves to maintain the profit system, the strike could become a school for communism.J

French Jobless Mounting

Official July unemployment in mainland France was 9.1% (2.6 million workers). If you include workers who’ve given up looking for a job and those working part-time because they can’t find full-time jobs, the jobless rate rises to 16.1% (4.6 million workers in a labor force of 28.6 million people.

Official unemployment rates in the French overseas departments are much higher. The latest figures available — for 2009 — are 22% in French Guiana and from 22% to 27.2% for the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion. The 2011 unemployment rate on Mayotte Island is 25.4%. According to a 2010 government survey, 60% of the French population said unemployment was one of their top three worries.

In 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, 8.2 million people (13.5% of the population) lived in poverty, set at a monthly income of 954 euros or less (US$1,335).