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woensdag 3 juli 2024

WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, OCL CA #341 - JOP, salaried employment, volunteering: precariousness "higher, faster, stronger" (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]


How could an event which requires the completion of work in record time,
hosts a tax-exempt Olympic body and offers no social compensation for
this not be a vast job of precariousness? This, within the framework of
the JOPs, is based on three phenomena: the massive recourse to
volunteering, the flexibility of labor law and the overexploitation of
undocumented immigrants. Nothing stands out in the current patchwork of
employees: uberized, civic services, RSAstes who work for free, missions
within the framework of the SNU, interns and temporary workers depending
on the needs of the moment... In addition, the organizers of the JOPs
and the associated companies benefit from a prime source of labor: the
young proletarians of Seine-Saint-Denis particularly affected by
unemployment.

"Don't spoil the party"

To ensure a smooth process (meaning without a "so French" social
movement), the international organizers (the COJOP - Organizing
Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games) and the employers
managed to domesticate, not too much with difficulty, their union
alter-egos. On June 19, 2018, the CGT, FO, CFDT, CFTC, CFE-CGC signed a
"social charter (1)" with our jailers, which obliges them, by being part
of the JOP organization, to not don't get too agitated during the
period. This social charter is the variation in the field of work of the
"Olympic law", an exceptional law as we are now accustomed to. To
"organize the first inclusive and united Games in History" the charter
"aims to determine and promote social commitments aimed at leaving a
strong social legacy". In particular, "Paris 2024 is committed to
fighting illegal work, anti-competitive practices, discrimination,
ensuring the quality of working conditions and limiting precarious work"
(sic!). The charter sells us "bridges between volunteering and
employment, by promoting the commitment of volunteers mobilized by the
validation of acquired experience", an Olympic village transformed into
social housing, integration...

So, since the JOP is almost socialism, Sophie Binet announced on
December 11, 2023 that "the CGT is not going to have fun spoiling the
party for millions of French people" and Céline Verzeletti, leader of
the Federation of Civil Service of the CGT, was satisfied that thanks to
the JOP, "discussions will resume in earnest" with Stanislas Guérini,
the minister in charge of the Civil Service. It's stupid, they just
forgot to specify that the social charter offered absolutely no
quantified and concrete guarantee...

45,000 people will work for free to ensure the smooth running of a
highly lucrative event. The initial enthusiasm was very high because
before May 2023, 300,000 people had applied. These volunteers
(incorrectly called "Volunteers 2024" - see the Eco section) in reality
have indirect employers, since they contribute to ensuring the profits
of the organizers (CIO) but also of the sponsors (Carrefour, AirBnB,
Coca, etc.), of construction and surveillance technologies, that is to
say of all those who pocket millions thanks to this event. They will
sometimes even be directly under the orders of companies, such as Omega
luxury watches, in charge of timekeeping.

The Ministry of Labor provides a Practical Guide for use by organizers
of major sporting events (2) to prevent the possible reclassification of
voluntary missions into salaried employment. The guide directly
announces the color: "The word "work" will be used in the generic sense
to designate the activity and/or mission of the volunteer, throughout
this guide.» It mentions everything that must be avoided so that the
missions of volunteers do not fall under the scope of labor law: not
entering into a contract, giving orders while avoiding subordination,
knowing the case law in force, the labor inspection and its
possibilities of sanction...

"It is appropriate to take as a reference the limits which are
applicable to ordinary employees" so these volunteers will work between
5 and 10 hours per day, six days a week (48 hours per week). But all
possible guarantees of labor law will, however, be absent: unpaid,
without payment of transport or accommodation costs for those who come
from far away... Volunteers will have job descriptions associated with
missions, a schedule, hierarchical superiors (who can fire them) and
their presence will be essential to the smooth running of the Games:
driver, statistician, manager of equipment, storage areas, processing of
accreditation requests, ball collection, reception and information of
spectators, assistance to medical staff, support of athletes during
anti-doping controls... In short: the presumption of employment is total.

To avoid getting in trouble, the Ministry of Labor has mobilized the
Internal Security Code so that visits by the labor inspectorate during
the JOP are only possible "after an administrative investigation by the
Ministry of the Interior (3 )". Practical. Paying volunteers the minimum
wage would cost 8 billion. We therefore understand the State's
precautions...

The official bob of the "Paris 2024 Volunteers"

For many workers, JOPs are above all an overload of work, most of the
time without compensation. For businesses and services: "We are asking
employees to give up their summer vacation without even a salary
compensation, (...) we are asking provincial employees (...) to come and
reinforce the workforce in the Paris region without even providing them
with decent accommodation, employees are asked to work on Sundays from
June to September, (...) a much longer period than the Olympic Games,"
listed the general secretary of the CGT. Added to this are the ordinary
abuses of payment by task, non-payment for all working hours, overtime
and hellish pace. This is also the case for the hotel and catering
industry, transport (network preparation), hospitals (800 additional
full-time equivalents needed for AP-HP), tourist sites, and certain
public agents (waste ). The latter could even be requisitioned to be
posted as reception agents (4).

On the side of Pôle emploi, CAF, CROUS, injunctions to follow training
in private security are raining in to meet the demands of 24,000
additional agents for the event, to the point that other training is
often refused. And once the training is accepted, good luck refusing a
job offer in the field... Normally, you have to follow 175 hours of
training to obtain a professional title of prevention and security
agent. But urgency dictates, and a professional qualification
certification "Participate in private security activities for major
events" was created on December 6, 2022 by ministerial decree. The
training lasts only 106 hours and is completed in just three weeks. This
offer particularly targets students and the unemployed: free and paid
training (not for the unemployed), bonus (mobility, training), jobdating
during training for special JOP recruitment, creation of a card to work
in security of festivals for a year, additional training to obtain the
professional title, and free place to watch a JOP event. We understand
the pressure from Pôle Emploi because "these are 3-week contracts (the
time of the Olympics), poorly paid, with more hours of transport than
actual work, and schedules that are not compatible with family life .
(5)» Even some security agents refuse positions during JOPs on the
grounds of "unfair competition": downward pressure on salaries and a
deterioration of working conditions.

Caught between the hammer of volunteering and the hard place of work,
the two tending to merge, we can only hope that the fight takes one side
or the other. On volunteering, the Saccage2024 collective is trying to
set up a campaign to sabotage volunteering: not go there, go on a
work-to-rule strike, put pressure on the unions to reclassify as
employees, go there to publicly denounce the JOPs... There would be more
than a hundred "involuntaries", infiltrated for the occasion, after
skimming 800 people from radical ecology or Islamism, including 15 on S
files, spotted by Darmanin's services. The numbers therefore do not
allow us to envisage massive sabotage of JOP, but a little chaos and
possibly legal procedures under labor law. On the other hand, it is a
safe bet that a large number of volunteers will become discouraged
before or during the event, as was the case at the last editions of the
JOP (several thousand resignations in Rio and Tokyo). To see if the
replacements among the 300,000 volunteers will be motivated to
compensate for the absences...

A union and association campaign (CGT, CNT, CNT-AIT, Saccage2024,
Solidaires) took place on March 23, 2024, for the volunteer training
day, in order to inform volunteers about the labor law guarantees they
should benefit from and denounce exploitation. Several other broadcasts
took place in front of employment centers at the initiative of the
CNT-AIT under the slogan "Precarious not poucaves!"», to denounce
nationalism, encourage people to refuse to become a police assistant,
and give practical advice on how to refuse training without being
removed. In both cases, it was the police and/or the big guns of Pôle
Emploi who evacuated the activists, after productive discussions with
volunteers or the unemployed.

On the labor front, union duplicity is at its height: two CGT trade and
services demonstrations were held on January 17 and April 15 behind a
banner promising "social fire" if "the flame of the Olympics burns the
labor code ". Since it was the CGT which held the lighter... Strike
notices were filed in the three public services, at the RATP and the
SNCF (6). To avoid any large-scale conflict, the State or the bosses
promise or release bonuses in order to avoid large-scale conflicts in
sectors where there is no shortage of reasons to go on strike, and which
the unions do not seek. to be developed... From EUR800 to EUR2,500 for
hospital workers who move their leave, bonuses for full service or for a
certain number of consecutive days at the RATP and SNCF, employment
service vouchers for childcare, places in crèches and two additional
weeks of leave outside the JOP period for public employees, from 70 to
100 euros per shift during and after the JOP events in exchange for an
Olympic truce at Paris Airports... To the city of Paris, the unions in
dispersed order obtained a bonus scaled in 6 levels: from 0 (the main
one) to 1,900 euros. Its employees are also awarded places (4,000 for
the Olympics and 6,000 for the Paralympics out of 50,000 workers) and
JOP t-shirts (!). Parisian garbage collectors and sewer workers, thanks
to two days of strike on May 13-14 (30% strikers), obtained an increase
in compensation of a few dozen euros per month. Those of Marseille
obtained nothing despite their mobilization during the passage of the
flame...

It remains to be seen whether, as certain conflicts have suggested
recently (Mint of Paris, Eiffel Tower), sectors essential to the proper
functioning of the JOP will seize the opportunity of the balance of
power to extract bonuses or salary increases. Hoping that between now
and then the "Proposal for a law aimed at reconciling the continuity of
the public transport service with the exercise of the right to strike"
will not be relaunched. This provides for capping the days of strike
notice to be filed over one year, suspending the right to strike during
peak hours, public holidays, vacations, elections or major events,
requisitioning agents after 3 days of strike and to extend the deadline
from 48 to 72 hours to declare oneself a striker...

What about undocumented immigrants?
Of course, major projects in record time mean deterioration of working
conditions and undocumented employment of undocumented immigrants. There
was therefore perhaps an opportunity to create a balance of power.
The first difficulty is that these large projects involve subcontracting
in a cascade. Undocumented immigrants are therefore dispersed between
multiple companies and multiple sites, unlike DPD and Chronopost which
had a collective force due to the same employer. There are therefore, it
is certain, many undocumented immigrants on the Olympic sites, but for
whom it was very difficult to organize collectively. However, it is this
collective organization that makes it possible to go beyond case by case.
As a result, there were several tactics, reflecting different political
lines. The CGT has obtained quite a few regularizations on a
case-by-case basis, the public authorities being ready to regularize so
as not to risk hindering the smooth running of the construction sites.
On the other hand, there is no question of them giving an inch in the
area of the social balance of power. So, no collective regularization,
which would have risked creating a precedent. And to give visibility to
the employment of undocumented immigrants (France, compared to Qatar?
Don't you think about it!).
There was a successful attempt last October. The CNT-SO organized an
occupation of the Arena construction site at Porte de la Chapelle. It
should be noted that the occupants were not necessarily workers on this
site. The same day, the CGT occupied 17 construction sites. The two
actions were coordinated, obviously. They managed to make noise, to get
people talking about the call for undocumented immigrants for the
Olympics projects, and obtained the Cerfa (the paper signed by the
employer indicating that he is employing the person necessary for the
obtaining a residence permit). On the other hand, contrary to usual,
these decisions did not result in regularization. A longer struggle
would undoubtedly have been necessary, and a larger-scale mobilization
on the part of the support and in particular of the opponents of the
Olympic Games. Especially since it must be remembered, the stakes are
high: they are ready to pay dearly (millions in the case of DPDs and
Chronoposts) rather than giving in, and thus creating a collective right
to regularization, to recognize a new labor law.
On the other hand, we can remember that the undocumented immigrants
tried to transform the infamy of the Olympics into an opportunity for
struggle. If they have not been able to go very far, it is firstly
because no other social movement has taken up the issue.
CJ of Île-de-France, May 21, 2024

Notes
(1) Charter available online on the ess2024.org website
(2) "Practical guide for use by organizers of major sporting events,
Using volunteering, General Directorate of Labor", December 2022
(3) "Controls of labor inspection during JOPs subject to prior
authorization?», sud-travail-affaires-sociales.org
(4) The Solidaires trade union lists the number of civil service
personnel mobilized for the following JOPs: 25,000 police officers,
7,000 customs officers, 20,000 soldiers, 1,500 ecological transition , a
few hundred for consumption and fraud prevention and labor inspection,
around 600 consular agents, around 700 for justice
(5) "Pôle emploi and the 2024 Olympics: second round...", CNT-AIT.info
( 6) Note that at the time of writing these lines, a very active strike
is taking place in Parisian SNCF transport at the call of a broad
inter-union movement, on the eve of a negotiation on bonuses, which is
completed at RATP (bonus between 1,000 and 2,500 euros gross on
average). Other movements are starting this week in the city of Paris:
cleaning, activities, librarians... To be continued

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4184
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