Anarchic update news all over the world - 21.05.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #283 - unionism, Boomerang
      referendum at Air France: morale is at its highest (fr, it, pt)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  wsm.ie Our photographer threatened & assaulted at Rally for
      Life as an angry No campaign steps up hateful rhetoric
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1






80% of participation, 55% in favor of the "no", the president of Air France who resigns, 
and it is left for two days of walkout May 7 and 8. Almost 15 days of strike organized 
since mid-February, an inter-union of 10 organizations remains welded, airline pilots who 
do not play corpo ... But what happens in this box ? ---- It's been three years since the 
social climate hardened at Air France, after several stormy episodes. ---- October 2015: 
Air France management announced 2,900 job cuts, including 1,700 in ground staff, 900 
stewards and hostesses and 300 pilots. This announcement gave rise to the episode of HRD 
being torn off his liquette. Result: 5 dismissals decided by a boss Sarkozyist warmly 
congratulated by Valls and Macron who describe the strikers as " thugs " and " stupid " 
respectively.

November 2017: the plane mechanics spontaneously went on strike, reinventing radical 
practices of the 1980s and 1990s, notably the famous " African minute " - a sort of 
infernal racket or giant casserole paralyzing the workshops.

Finally, since February 2018, new offensive. It must be said that after years of smoking 
on bad economic results, widely relayed by the media as usual, the report is there: 11 000 
job cuts in eight years ; repeated blocking of wages ; increase in the filling rate of 
aircraft (+ 4.2 % of productivity in 2017) ; decline in payroll by 11.5 % since 2012 ; 
return of profits since 2013 ... " And at the same time ": a big leap forward in the 
remuneration of the executive management (+ 30 % !).

cc Red photo library
Pilots walk on eggs
The current inter-union includes ten pilot organizations (SNPL, Spaf, Alter), commercial 
cabin crew and ground staff (SNPNC, Unsa, CFTC, SNGAF, CGT, FO, SUD). The central demand: 
6 % overall wage increase, which corresponds to the loss of purchasing power since 2012 
according to INSEE. The strike is very well attended by stewards, hostesses and pilots, 
less in the staff on the ground, except the mechanics. It must be said that many are 
scalded by the past betrayals of the main union of airline pilots, the SNPL, and by the 
unequal character of the wage claim: 6 % increase for all, it means a lot for them. high 
wages, and not much for workers ...

Yet the pilot unions are trying to improve their image with the mass of employees. The 
SNPL and two minority pilot unions (Spaf and Alter [1]) integrated their 2015 failure and 
the poor image of their movement into public opinion. In addition, the technological 
evolutions and the progress of the low cost have weakened the balance of power of the 
pilots, who have an interest not to remain isolated. For example, they lowered their 
salary requirements to remain credible with the mass of employees.

Despite this, management has reinstated its usual strategy of negotiating separately with 
some to sow division. Alas for her, for now, it does not work. On the one hand, the pilot 
unions remained loyal to the inter-union ; on the other hand, the inter-union unanimously 
rejected the management's attempt to negotiate an agreement with the only representative 
unions ... which would have included the CFDT and the CGT, but excluded SUD-Aérien and Alter.

And finally, there was this referendum attempt with the employees to try to get the 
management's position approved. Violent disavowal: 80% of participation, 55% in favor of 
"no", the president of Air France who resigns [2].

Most wrestling unionists, therefore, welcome the current mobilization, even though they 
worry about the difficulty in the specific trades of moving away from categorical claims - 
not out of egotism, but rather out of desperation to impose general increase in wages.

The stakes are decisive for the future. Will the inter-union hold in the long term ? Will 
the categorical temptation be dismissed ? For the moment, each mobilized sector is more or 
less autonomous in its modes of action. If the strike wins on the single wage claim for 
all categories - even downward review - it will be a first for many years and it will 
restore confidence to many employees who no longer believed !

P. Semeniouta (AL Southeast Suburbs)

[1] Affiliated with Solidaires, Alter pushes for more solidarity with other categories of 
staff.

[2] The consequences of the referendum will be analyzed in a future article.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Referendum-boomerang-a-Air-France-le-moral-est-au-plus-haut

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Message: 2






On Saturday one of our photographers was assaulted and threatened at the ‘No' campaigns' 
anti-choice Rally for Life.  He wasn't injured and although his camera was punched (see 
video) no damage was done but this is yet another example of how the No campaign, having 
failed to make any impact in the polls, are becoming nastier in their desperation. ---- 
The ‘Love Both' anti-choice rally itself was very poorly attended, attracting around 1500 
people.  The feeling in the crowd was one of tiredness and demoralisation with a few 
people even admitting out loud that the turnout was miserable.  Radical Queers Resist were 
holding a small silent counter protest opposite the entrance to the rally so after 
counting the crowd we headed over to this.

We arrived after most of the hassle they received had ended ( we reproduce a bit recorded 
by Newsworthy in this video, see their full video ).  Shortly after we arrived a group of 
pink t-shirt clad anti-choice Americans arrived over, followed by a Buzzfeed camera crew . 
Because of the presence of this camera crew a couple of people on the counter protest were 
willing to talk with the Americans.  We'd have to say this group of anti-choice American's 
were well trained, not at all aggressive and unlike most other anti-choice activists we 
saw they maintained a reasonable body distance rather than getting in peoples faces and 
lecturing them.  The one off putting thing about them was that the two men were wearing 
Go-Pro body cameras that were obviously recording all their interactions.  Other 
anti-choice groups like IBCR with their gory giant banners outside hospitals wear these 
and then try and provoke responses that they can capture for ‘Gotcha videos' to push at 
people through paid advertising on Facebook but to be fair we detected no such intention 
of that in this case.

The presence of this group did however mean that other anti-choice activists also started 
to cross the road and some of these were more in your face aggressive.  And all were there 
to deliver patronising lectures rather than to listen and engage in discussion.  One 
particular guy was getting in the face of two of the younger, smaller people at the 
counter protest and they looked uncomfortable so another guy inserted himself between them 
to get this anti-choice man to back off.  What is obvious when we play our video back is 
that he spotted our photographer and moved into his blindspot but at the time the 
photographer was unaware of this.

Our photographers camera remained pointed at the counter protest but if you listen to the 
audio you will hear the mans voice suddenly demand from close up ‘Who are you for' to 
which the photographer replies "Who are you?"

The man gets closer, and says "Why are you" twice and our photograoher again asks "Who are 
you" and brings the camera around.

At that point, without warning, the man says ‘Don't photgraph me mate" and punches the 
camera.  Fortunately our photographer hangs onto it (it's worth 1,100 euro) and rather 
than being provoked to retaliate asks "Why not, who are you, what have you got to hide"

The man says "You don't photograph me" and swings a low punch just visible briefly in the 
bottom right of the screen as our photographer moves to avoid it.

Still keeping his cool our photographer asks "Why not, what have you got to hide" before 
asking "Are you threatening me"

The man replies "I am threatening you" to which the photographer replies in some 
bewilderment "You're threatening me!"  before adding "On camera.. That's a video by the way".

At that point the man, who had clearly presumed that still photographs rather than video 
were being taken, turns around and walks rapidly back across the road to the anti-choice 
rally without saying another word.

Our photographer recalls "The whole experience was pretty weird, the aggression really 
came out of nowhere, without warning. I kept my cool because I've some experience of this 
but it's mostly from contexts where you expect this to happen because you're recording a 
counter protest to a far-right event or other confrontational protest.  In this case I'd 
no interaction at all with the man in the video and have no idea who he was.  As you can 
see from the video I wasn't even paying any real attention to him until he was suddenly in 
my face, right beside me. He looks to be about a decade older than me, not really an age 
group you expect to get physical.   However a lot of the abusive behaviour I've heard 
about, mostly directed at young women, seems to come from men in that 60+ age group.  I'm 
just grateful none of my equipment got damaged."

"I think what happened is in part a reflection of the desperation of the increasingly 
angry ‘No' campaign.  That anger and intolerance is being transmitted every day by the 
leadership and is affecting the way ‘No' activists behave on the streets.  At some levels 
this is quite cynical. As a photographer it's obvious to me, for instance that the ICBR 
displaying gory banners outside hospitals, while wearing body cameras, is all about trying 
to provoke and then record people being angry with them.  And then in the last week of the 
campaign these videos will be pushed at all of us via paid advertising on Facebook in the 
hope of reducing the numbers voting. I don't think they are even trying to win people to 
No, just to reduce the vote so they can question the legitimacy of the result even though 
in 1983 only 53% voted.

It's become clear to me that this referendum is also about what sort of Ireland we want to 
live in after May 25th.  Do we want this angry, hateful Ireland of their past with its 
industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and the mass grave at Tuam? Or do we want a more 
hopeful, positive vision of an Ireland that takes the healthcare needs, including 
abortion, of women seriously.  I'll be voting Yes on May 25th, the only thing this 
experience changed is I'll now put even more time into convincing others to do likewise 
because I don't want to live in that man's Ireland.

https://wsm.ie/c/photographer-threatened-assaulted-rally-life

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