Unions hold demonstrations

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In response to a call launched by four of the main French trade union confederations (CFE-CGC, CFTC, CGT, and CGT-FO), but with the notable exception of CFDT, demonstrations were held all over France on 16 October 2001. The issues at the heart of the protests varied, but centred on pay, employment and social welfare.

In September 2001, the five French trade union confederations with representative status started planning a joint day of action in October. These confederations are the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT), the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière, CGT-FO), the French Christian Workers' Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC) and the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff-General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l'encadrement-Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC).

The themes for the day of action, and the forms that action should take, were the subject of heated debate between the unions. Employment and wages seemed to be the most obvious issues around which joint demands could be formulated. CGT-FO wanted to include the defence of retirement pensions, while CGT suggested also replacing this on the agenda along with the more general item of defending social welfare. CFDT, CFTC and CFE-CGC, however, felt that the differences between the unions on this issue were too great to allow an agenda for mobilisation to be drawn up.

Despite these differences in perception, CFE-CGC, CGT and CGT-FO adopted a single statement calling for a united day of demonstrations and a strike on 16 October 2001, the agenda of which was the following:

• an increase in wages, retirement pensions, minimum wages and welfare benefits;

• new guarantees against redundancy and the growth in low-paid and insecure jobs; and

• the consolidation of the social welfare system.

CFTC, although it did not sign this statement, joined the call for the demonstration on 16 October alongside the other three representative unions. The call was also backed by the independent Unitary Union Federation (Fédération Syndicale Unitaire, FSU), which is the largest organisation in the education sector (FR0102126N), the Group of 10-Solidarity (Groupe des Dix-Solidaires) umbrella group, to which various independent unions are affiliated, and Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (Solidaire, Unitaire, Démocratique).

CFDT and the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA) refused to join this action, deeming it to focus on too much of a 'rag bag' of different issues.

Participation in the call for the day of action varied between sectors. The civil servants' federations affiliated to CGT, CGT-FO and FSU decided to participate in the 16 October activities, but those affiliated to CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC and UNSA refused to take part. However, the civil servants at the Ministry of Culture, strongly united at a time when they are negotiating the changeover to the 35-hour working week, decided to take joint action, and CFDT, CFTC, CGT, CGT-FO, FSU, SUD and UNSA called for joint marches to be planned in this sector.

As far as the public transport unions were concerned, in the Paris Region Transport Authority (Régie autonome des transports parisiens, RATP) strike notices were filed, and in the French State Railway Company (Société nationale des chemins de fer français, SNCF) the call for strike action was unanimous among all unions except for CFE-CGC.

On 16 October 2001, demonstrations took place in all provincial cities, but with varying levels of support. Not including public transport workers, the total number of strikers was relatively small. The Civil Service Ministry calculated that 5.9% of civil servants supported the strike, while the management of the Post Office (la Poste) put its figure at 6.7%. These figures, while they lack precision, do indicate that mobilisation for this day was indisputably more difficult than it had been for previous joint actions.