France: 200,000 March vs. Job Cuts Sarkozy, Socialists: ‘Same Hot Air’

PARIS, March 5 — Tens of thousands of workers demonstrated here today against the fraudulent agreement on “secure employment.” Nationwide, 200,000 joined 174 protest marches.
The loudest contingent in the Paris march comprised 250 Peugeot auto workers from nearby Aulnay, who chanted “Forbid layoffs, no factory closures!” and “We’re here today, we’ll continue tomorrow!” One worker, Mohamed, declared, “I didn’t vote for [Socialist president] François Hollande because I knew it was the same thing, the same hot air.”
“There has been no break with the previous [Sarkozy] government,” said Jean-Pierre, who marched here. At 66, having just retired, he fears retirement pensions will “not be guaranteed.”
In Lyons, Renault autoworkers waved signs reading. “Shame on the agreement!” In Toulouse, the main banner condemned “the blackguard January 11 agreement.” In Nantes, large contingents of metalworkers and workers from the Airbus factory participated.
In Le Mans, the workers chanted, “Flexibility, competitiveness, mobility, no, no, no!” In Rheims, the demonstrations halted bus and tram traffic. Over 200 Michelin rubber workers joined the protest march in Clermont-Ferrand. “Young people don’t want to see their careers made precarious,” commented one rubber worker.
In Lille, contingents from the Dunkirk ArcelorMittal steelworks, the Valenciennes Peugeot factory, the Toyota auto factory, the Conforama furniture chain stores, and the Fraisnor lasagna factory all marched.
The demonstrations were organized by three union confederations, the CGT, FO and Solidaires against government plans to adopt anti-worker laws in May. The “lesser-evil” Socialist government  sponsored talks between the unions and the bosses’ associations. On January 11, three union confederations, the CFDT, CGC, and CFTC, representing a minority of workers, signed a sellout agreement on which new laws will be based.
The main feature of the proposed law allows a company to cut wages and change working hours, supposedly for a limited two-year period, in order to “increase competitiveness” — exploitation — and allegedly avoid layoffs.
The law would also create “intermittent permanent job contracts” — allowing bosses to bind a pool of workers to a company, free to employ them as much or as little as they choose. It would also allow bosses to close a factory in one region and open a new one in another region. Workers who refuse to follow their jobs will be fired and will be ineligible for unemployment benefits.
In exchange for these give-aways, the three sellout unions supposedly won “compensatory rights” for workers. But none are in the signed agreement that was signed. All are subject to future negotiations and no one is discussing guaranteeing them legally.
The deputies belonging to the right-wing UMP party, which lost the last presidential and legislative elections, will vote for the Socialist Party’s law, although former labor minister Xavier Bertrand criticized it for “not going far enough.”
The Socialist government, says it will allow superficial changes in the future law, but none are substantial.
Neither these union leaders, elections or laws will guarantee workers a decent life, much less the full value of the products their labor creates. As long as the bosses hold state power, laws will always favor them.
Clearly, the key to obtaining real rights for workers lies in our class eliminating the bosses’ government. That can only be done by a revolutionary party leading the working class in a communist revolution to destroy capitalism and create a society run by and for workers.