In its February 2024 issue, the monthly magazine Courant Alternatifdiscusses the release of "Before touring the world, touring theworkshop...". We warmly thank these comrades and encourage those whowould like to do so to send us their point of view on the book. It isthrough the exchange and comparison of our common experiences that wewill advance in a better understanding of the period we are goingthrough, as well as the modes of intervention it requires...It is a maxim of Benoit Frachon, a young libertarian worker who becameleader of the PCF, which titles the work published by our comrades fromthe anarchist communist group of Boulogne sur Mer. And that is what thiswork is about: give body and voice to a working class that is too oftenerased, by touring the workshop, that is to say by reconnecting with theworkers' investigation.This book is not a sociological or statistical study on today's wagelabor. Beyond the testimony or the list of grievances, the objectivepursued is the emergence of a word which is situated in the classstruggle and which participates in the reconstruction of a commonimagination, of a class consciousness, as is very clearly explained inthe first chapter devoted to The Workers' Survey: its history, itsnature, its scope and its necessity, which is always repeated accordingto the changes in wage-earning.Invested in this project since 2017, at the end of the fight against"the labor law" of the Hollande five-year term, La Mouette enrageecollected the words of employees through an online questionnaire (1) andin the form of interviews conducted mainly in Pas-de-Calais, the Northand Brittany, during meetings or box fights.Once the why and nature of this workers' investigation have beenestablished, the work is chaptered by sectors of activity: the medicaland health sector (EHPAD, private clinic, midwife, ambulance driver);logistics (Amazon, La Redoute, Vertbaudet); call centers; agro-foodproduction... But it also contains transversal chapters dealing withchanges in contemporary capitalist exploitation: uberization andself-entrepreneurship; managerial influence, temporary work... With, atthe end, a summary of elements of response to the questionnaire whichprovides a "look at the living and working conditions at the heart ofproduction or services by the workers themselves same" and clearly showsthe cohesion of a common experience of exploitation beyond theprofessional specificities of each person.Each chapter is introduced by a general point on the sector considered,with a priority on showing how any activity essentially becomesproductive of added value. And how, behind the terms of flow,digitization or robotization... behind this ideological discourse whichtends to evacuate the human element from work, this extortion of addedvalue is always done as a last resort by an even more rhythmic andtraced overexploitation of production or service workers.Thus, digitalization, platform capitalism, or the Uberization of workblur the lines between producer and consumer and lead to the erasure ofwage employment in favor of new forms of "independent workers" or"self-entrepreneurs". These new operating statuses produce more ideologythan income: "90% of self-employed people in France receive less than90% of the minimum wage, without the social benefits of salariedemployment".Focused mainly on Hauts-de-France, the historic basin of theindustrialization of France, this book also offers us remarkable pageson the incessant industrial conversion of the region. Throughout theinterviews, it is the story of working families that emerges accordingto modernizations, concentrations, "de" and "re"-territorialization ofcompanies. She shows how "capital has long instilled a total socialrelationship in predominantly working-class societies". We thusunderstand how, from textiles or steelworks, to call centers or Amazonwarehouses, a lineage of mechanisms of ever more intense exploitation oflabor is established. And this for the profit of the few large familieswho count among the first fortunes of France, while Roubaix, historicheadquarters of La Redoute, is today classified as the poorest city inthe country.But it is not just the steamroller of capital in perpetual restructuringthat is revealed in this book. Fortunately, the interviews also take usinto the movements of struggle and resistance in EHPADs (2018), privateclinics (2021), among Uber delivery people (2021), at Vertbaudet (2023),and others. These strikes show us a working class more alive than themedia let it appear, and a class struggle as close as possible toeveryday life: "For several years, management has sought to sow discordbetween day workers and those of the night. Afterwards, there are the"pro-bosses" and the others, but the lower your salary, the less"pro-bosses" you are! Since the strike, the pro-management andpro-management clan has crystallized; previously the staffrepresentatives were pro-bosses..." (2) Strikes which often concernsalaries, but which are also imposed according to working conditions,and first of all the wear and tear of bodies that are increasingly indemand "People are damaged but do not dare to leave. There are a lot ofhealth problems through the carpal tunnels, shoulders, knees. InWattrelos, we carry a lot (...) knowing that there are only manualpallet trucks. At the time of sampling, we walk between 22 and 25 km perday. (...) So retirement until age 64? They are already killing usslowly" (3). But the interviews also bear witness to the processes ofalienation specific to work: "(...) "now I am my own boss, I can takeleave or go on vacation whenever I want"[declares this platformdeliveryman]. His own boss, but he specifies that he is struggling for"three platforms at the same time"! Is three bosses for the price ofnone really a deal? Especially since if he "earns as much as in thefactory, he pays URSAFF and does not contribute to retirement" (...)"(4) It is therefore a book rich in humanity as well as in analyzes thatLa Mouette enragee offers us today, and which are worth reading. Betteryet, if this work could in turn inspire other groups, it would helprefine our understanding of capitalist exploitation and possible modesof resistance, in order to better construct the "science of ourmisfortune". (5) This is what the comrades from Boulogne are now workingon by organizing a round of debates around the presentation of thisinvestigation. Do not hesitate to contact them, their address is on page2 of Courant Alternatif.And for the future they have no shortage of perspectives, particularlywith a very interesting workers' cartography project that they presentin the appendix. Because if "geography is primarily used to wage war",at a time of the great capitalist rearmament announced by PresidentMacron, we always need new weapons for class war.Saint-Nazaire January 2024The Enraged Seagull. -Before touring the world, touring theworkshop...Worker survey - Testimonies - Reflection 2017-2023Editions Acratie (in bookstores or to order on"https://editionsacratee.com")Notes:1- see the site laclasse.noblogs.org]2 - p.57, Collective testimony, private health establishment, June 2020strike3 - p.109, Testimony of Anaïs, striker from Vertbaudet4 - p.92, At random wanderings in "Reflection on the strike of Uber Eatsdelivery men in Boulogne"5 - In the words of Fernand Pelloutier, kingpin of the Federation ofLabor Exchanges: "What he (the worker) lacks is the knowledge of hismisfortune; it is to know the causes of one's servitude; it is to beable to discern against what one's blows should be directed" The LaborMuseum in L'ouvrier des deux mondes, April 1, 1898https://lamouetteenragee.noblogs.org/post/2024/02/19/recension-par-la-revue-mensuelle-courant-alternatif/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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