AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, FRANCE, March 9 — Over 2,800 striking auto workers have paralyzed the Peugeot plant in this Paris suburb since January 16. They’re protesting company plans to close the factory next year, which will eliminate 8,000 jobs. On March 8, nearly 200 strikers occupied the Paris offices of the bosses’ metal trades association.
“We are workers, we aren’t vandals, the bosses are the vandals,” chanted the workers in the hall of the seat of the metal trades bosses.
“We’re not coming out until our demands have been heard,” one union steward told Reuters. “We want a permanent job for everyone and early retirement for those 55 and over.”
An agreement signed by several union officials was rejected by the rank and file. “We are determined,” declared Mohammed Diver, a worker at the plant. “We want a guarantee of employment.”
The bosses have hired two rent-a-cop strike-breaking outfits to intimidate the workers. They have also threatened to fire some of the strike leaders. Meanwhile,the Peugeot bosses who claim they must close the plant and wipe out 8,000 jobs because they can’t make a profit from this plant are paying themselves handsomely. Peugeot’s CEO tripled his salary in 2010 to to $4.2 million; two directors doubled their’s to $1.62 million; and a director stationed in Asia raked in $1.75 million — altogether a total of nearly $10 million a a year for just four bosses!
The Peugot workers are also supporting the struggles of other workers, including those at Renault who are experiencing the same problems. On january 28, they stood in soldiairty in front of the French Natonal Assembly in a united demonstration with workers from Goodyear, Air France, Virgin and Sanofi.
However, the CGT union has undercut the workers’ position by accusing the government of “mak[ing] itself management’s accomplice” for refusing to name a mediator. No doubt the government is in bed with the bosses, but mediators will not win the workers’ demands. Only the power of the rank and file to shut off the bosses’ profits can have any chance of achieving that objective. Instead of depending on mediation, the workers must try to spread the strike across the metal trades industry since all workers will be suffering under the austerity program being promoted by the Socialist government.
The Peugeot bosses claim they must dump the workforce because they can’t make a profit from this plant. But this just exposes the need for the working class to exterminate capitalism, a system based on exploitation for the profit of the few sucked out of the labor of the masses that produce everything of value. Only a revolutionary party composed of millions of workers can accomplish that goal.
The Peugeot strikers are asking for financial support, donations to be sent to:
Association de soutien aux salaries
de l’automobile du 93
19-21 rue Jacques Duclos
93600 Aulnay-sous-Bois, France