France: trade union leaders derail fight against privatisation
8 August 2004
In June the French government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, one of the most hated in Europe and already weakened by two heavy electoral defeats this year, succeeded in carrying through two neoliberal attacks against the working class: the privatisation of EDF – the public sector energy provider – and yet another "reform" of the Sécurité Sociale, the national system providing health benefits.
How did Raffarin manage to complete his "July" counter-reform given his evidently weak position as Prime Minister and the recent electoral reverses? After all, the EDF rank and file was ready to fight. They were – and are – supported by the whole of the working class, opposed to the privatisation and ready to help them defend the public services. However Raffarin could count on the passivity of the reformist parties and on the treacherous role of the trade union bureaucrats.
One year ago, after a fierce strike lasting more than a month for many teachers, the same right-wing government pushed through a reform of the pension system whereby all public sector workers will now have to work 40 years (instead of 37.5) in order to gain full pension rights. The consequences of that defeat still weigh heavily on the labour movement and emboldened the government into thinking it could press for more changes.
The masses of workers hate Raffarin and his ministers and have repeatedly used the ballot box as way of expressing their discontent. In the March regional elections the reformist opposition parties won in 20 of the 22 regions, registering absolute majorities in most cases.
Such a national slump in electoral fortunes has not been seen for 20 years at least. A series of struggles (cultural workers and artists, researchers, unemployed) showed that the combativity is intact but that the masses also need a clear action program and determined leadership. Of course neither are to be expected from the reformist parties (PS, PCF), who are merely biding their time until the next presidential elections in 2007 when they hope to get back ito office.
The trade union bureaucrats fear any new struggle where they could lose their absolute control over the struggle. They prefer in each case to mount a token resistance in order to be able to negotiate as they wish. This is what happened with the EDF dispute.
EDF, despite being a state-owned company, is already much closer to a multinational corporation than to an old-time state monopoly. It has 172,000 workers of which 80,000 are employed outside France, providing energy to 46.7m houses in 24 countries. Its goal is to realise 50 per cent of its sales outside France.
The reform in question (from a state company to a private corporation) was nominally to comply with the EU neo-liberal policies but was also seen as necessary by the company management to be able to raise the capital needed for its further expansion. While this is only a formal step, it is evident that deep changes for the workers (EDF workers enjoy significant benefits) and for the masses of users are to be expected. The case of California, where Reagan's deregulation of the energy industry ended in both sky-rocketing bills for the users and a failure meet the demand for energy, is en example of what could happen in Europe in the next years.
The struggle began in the usual routine way – more designed to test the patience of the workforce and the users than strike a decisive blow. Days of action (8 April, 19 May, 27 May, 15 June) saw tens of thousands of workers attend national demonstrations. Trade union leaders thundered from the after-march platforms.
However, once again the situation started to slip out of control of the bureaucrats. On 7 June several Parisian train stations were blocked for a few hours. In the following days, the principle of grève reconductible (prolonged strike) started to spread through the EDF plants. The electricity supply was cut to the private houses of right wing ministers and MPs. And the workers carried out other extremely popular "Robin Hood" actions, like re-connecting electricity to many families who are simply too poor to pay their bills.
At the height of the struggle, 20 strategic sites were occupied by the workers, and others were organising a reduction in energy production. The whole country was close to a general black-out. The highly unionised EDF workers (an exception in France) were capable of defying and defeating the government.
However in the end the government was able to isolate the movement by threatening penal sanctions. The trade union leadership dissociated themselves from the most radical methods of the rank and file and threatened not to defend them against the repressions and victimisation.
Isolated, suffering from a hideous media black-out, fearing that their action could be misinterpreted by the masses (an argument repeatedly used by the bureaucrats), the EDF struggle finally ran out of steam despite all the sympathy that their case still attracts.
At the same time, the government was pushing through a reform of the national health care where once again the workers will pay more to get less. The potential for a joint national struggle against privatisation, against neoliberalism and finally against the whole government really existed and was squandered by the cynical line of the trade union leaders.
The French workers urgently need a revolutionary party with a clear action program to steer the struggle away of the dead-ends where the bureaucrats and the reformists drive them.
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