See online: Original article on Zone Subversive
http://www.zones-subversives.com/2024/07/enquete-ouvriere-et-luttes-sociales.htmlThe world of work has become atomized and precarious. The restructuring
of production reduces workers' combativeness. It is becoming essential
to look at changes in working conditions to renew the class struggle.
Strikes, even local and sectoral, make it possible to spread practices
of self-organization and direct action.
To better understand the evolutions of capitalism, the workers' survey
remains an essential tool. The group La Mouette Enragée proposes a
questionnaire to examine working conditions in contemporary capitalism.
This study does not claim to be scientifically objective but prefers to
adopt a class point of view. The majority of the testimonies collected
come from private sector workers. These employees without specific
status remain at the heart of the process of extortion of surplus value.
Only strikes and struggles allow them to become visible. There are 20
million private sector employees in France today.
This atomized multitude remains considered amorphous and fatalistic.
These employees participate little in the large interprofessional
mobilizations. But it is these proletarians who influence the course of
the class struggle, who drive a resurgence of energy and radicalism. The
historical workers' movement is based on direct action, with the
perspective of a social revolution, before getting bogged down in
meetings and negotiations. However, isolation and competition promote
depoliticization. It is meetings and the sharing of experiences that can
open up a perspective of collective struggle. La Mouette Enragée
presents its investigation and its approach in the book Avant de faire
le tour du monde, faire le tour de l'atelier...
Workers' survey and class struggle
The youth who participate in the movement against the Labor Law, as well
as activist circles, have no connection with the world of work. The
struggle in companies is considered laborious and unrewarding. Activists
prefer symbolic happenings without consequences, but which can be more
easily publicized. However, work and exploitation remain at the heart of
capitalism.
The workers' survey is based on the questionnaire and the collection of
testimonies. This practice is adopted by political or union activists
outside the company. The experience of the Cahiers de Mai, in the wake
of the turmoil of the 1968s, illustrates this approach. The
investigation from the inside is conducted by political or union
activists who work in the company. The Porto Marghera Committee adopts
this practice. Then, the "hot investigation" emerges when the atomized
mass organizes itself into a collective. Bonds of solidarity then make
it possible to share experiences.
The workers' survey allows us to look at the evolution of working
conditions. Which favors the observation of the permanence of a
proletariat. Then, the survey also allows us to observe the
restructuring of the productive apparatus. But this practice of the
survey aims above all to favor meetings, to weave links and can allow
information to circulate.
The movement against the 2016 Labor Law marks a defeat for the unions.
Its activists remain a minority and weakened. They must be content to
intervene between two dates of national demonstrations. Then, the head
processions appear as a form of radicalism that is expressed outside of
companies. They bring together precarious workers, students, the
unemployed and militant unionists. The Yellow Vests movement also seems
to respond to this lack of recomposition of the workers' movement.
Identities are recomposed above all in and through struggle.
However, the workers' combativeness continues with victorious local
strikes. "In the period, we see that they pay off where determination,
the dissemination of information, effective support from outside the
company weigh in the balance of power," observes La Mouette Enragée. The
struggles of the staff of the palaces in Paris or the employees of the
Fnac illustrate this strategy. Above all, these strikes are part of the
long term to snatch a victory. Nevertheless, strikers who occupy a
strategic position can obtain victories more quickly, like the web
editorial staff of the newspaper Le Monde. Technical tools now occupy an
important place in the exploitation report.
The strike allows for the combination of joint action and reflection.
However, this practice remains in the minority. Many employees accept
their working conditions for fear of losing their jobs. Flexibility,
precariousness, the compartmentalization of spaces, the
individualization of tasks, the fragmentation of break times contribute
to disarming the class. The workers' inquiry then allows us to think
about the concrete situation in a collective manner. "Reconstructing an
imaginary to free ourselves from the chains of everyday life is in fact
dialectically starting from the radical critique of the everyday life in
question," emphasizes La Mouette Enragée.
Struggles in the medical sector
The health sector is increasingly subject to the influence of the
private sector. Even in public services, the logic of profitability is
becoming more important. Nursing homes illustrate this trend. On January
30, 2018, a national call invited nursing home employees to go on
strike. The deterioration of working conditions, with the increase in
the workload, causes physical and psychological exhaustion. Management
is putting pressure on staff to maintain an impeccable image.
On January 30, 2018, a picket line was organized in front of a nursing
home in Boulogne-sur-mer. Leaflets were distributed. A picnic brought
together about fifteen strikers. Nursing assistants participated heavily
in the movement. However, most of the strikers did not go to their
workplace. Exhaustion and anger predominated. Isolated struggles emerged
in some nursing homes. But this national day gave visibility to the
problems of employees in this sector. "They discovered and experienced
collective action and solidarity. A formative moment in life that will
remain significant for most of them," said a nursing assistant.
Private clinic employees are also experiencing a deterioration in
working conditions. Salaries are low and pressure from management is
increasing. While some stand up to managers, fear prevails. "Employees
are united among themselves, but it's harder to confront the boss," say
workers at a facility in Hauts-de-France. A two-week strike broke out at
this clinic in 2010. However, union representatives did not try to
involve all employees.
The last fight dates back to June 2020. "This strike remains for us a
friendly moment of exchanges and rapprochement between employees",
indicates this collective testimony. The management, which has never
experienced a real conflict, must give in to the demands of the
strikers. This fight leaves its mark and some employees continue to talk
about this movement. The ASH decide to slow down the work rate to oppose
the pressure from management. Sick leave and resignations multiply when
management no longer wants to negotiate.
Call centers are adopting the Fordist industrial model: submission to
the machine, control, pace and task fragmentation. The teleoperator,
equipped with a telephone and a computer, works under the direct control
of the machine. Software measures connection time, break time, and
waiting time. "The digital penal colony has nothing to envy its
industrial precursor, everything contributes to the most applied
dehumanization," observes La Mouette Enragée. Call centers recruit young
people in precarious situations and quickly offer permanent contracts
(CDI). However, employees are unable to cope with the stupefaction with
repetitive tasks. Turnover becomes the rule. Resignations and refusals
multiply while strikes can break out.
Struggles in the logistics sector
Logistics has become a major economic sector. Storage, road transport
and packaging are the main activities in this sector. In the North of
France, due to mass unemployment and the geographical location of a
European crossroads, logistics is becoming an important sector. La
Redoute, Vertbaudet and Amazon are the main companies in logistics.
Female workers paid at minimum wage check orders while men monitor them.
Class differences are clearly visible. Executives and small bosses are
mainly concerned with statistics and profitability. Temporary work and
turnover are becoming commonplace.
In 2013, a social plan was organized at La Redoute. A strike broke out.
The employees did not want to continue working but wanted to leave with
higher severance pay. The Redoutables formed a group of 150-200 people.
It included union members and non-union members. Most of them had
already fought in 2008 during a previous social plan. During this
conflict, the SUD and CFDT unions decided to sign agreements without
consulting the strikers. The Redoutables managed to impose themselves in
the inter-union and to shake up the course of the negotiations.
The last negotiation meeting is scheduled for March 21. Management fuels
the division between employees. The executives come to support the
social plan but they have to leave under the jeers of the strikers. The
agreement is not signed. Nevertheless, the CFDT decides to give in to
the pressure of the national bureaucrats of the union and the
politicians. Even if its base refuses this agreement. However, the
central delegate of the CFDT signs on the sly. The CGT and SUD decide to
end the movement. The Redoutables find themselves isolated.
The 2023 Vertbaudet strike begins with a CGT picket mobilization in
front of the logistics hangars. Discussions revolve around pension
reform but also low wages. The young CGT section launches a strike with
80 workers who stop work and organize a picket. The movement will last
83 days. In reality, anger has been growing since 2021 with the takeover
of the company. Management imposes infantilizing injunctions. The
strikers come up against the harshness of the bosses with sexist insults
and the hiring of temporary workers to break the movement.
However, a general assembly renews the strike every week. The workers
discover practices of self-organization and direct action. "For all
those mobilized, it is their first strike and spontaneity irrigates the
struggle and forges the determination to go all the way!", emphasizes La
Mouette Enragée. Sophie Binet, new secretary of the CGT after the defeat
of the pensions battle, seizes the Vertbaudet struggle to combine
unionism and feminism. The CRS dislodge the picket line. But the
struggle reaches a national scale with strong media coverage. A
demonstration is organized in Paris in front of the headquarters of the
investment fund that owns Vertbaudet. Solidarity and the balance of
power allow the strikers to win.
Local struggles and social revolution
The group La Mouette Enragée presents the most relevant social and
political approach in the period. The workers' survey allows both to
analyze the mutations of capitalism but also to intervene in local
struggles. This approach allows to insist on the central question of
exploitation and working conditions. Activist circles have largely
abandoned these problems which structure the daily life of the
exploited. Postmodern leftism seems more rewarding, but also more
superficial. The workers' survey allows to observe the mutations of
class relations and the production apparatus. The testimonies echo
real-life experiences which can be generalized. The pressure of
management, the objectives of profitability and productivity are
observed in many sectors.
The workers' survey also becomes a tool for intervention in social
struggles. La Mouette Enragé rejects the posture of exteriority to
insist on class solidarity between the various fractions of the
workforce. This approach stands out from the miserabilist approach of
the left illustrated in particular by François Ruffin. This approach
also contrasts with a sluggish unionism that is not very well
established in the private sector. This type of activism, supposed to be
based on intervention in the workplace, mainly brings together civil
servants who lock themselves into a leftist folklore.
La Mouette Enragée also mentions various strikes. Its observations can
also help to draw up some analyses. The fighting unions manage to
intervene when they decide to broaden the movement beyond their militant
bases. Open assemblies then allow the strikers to decide on their means
of action and their own strategy. However, the role of the unions can
also be harmful. The CGT tends to want to control and supervise the
movement, without keeping all the strikers informed. It is when the
unions are overwhelmed, with a strike that self-organizes and can rely
on external support, that victories are won. On the other hand, the
struggles fail when the unions decide to negotiate behind the strikers'
backs.
Strikes become a moment of intense politicization. They allow the
dissemination of practices of struggle beyond small activist circles.
Workers discover self-organization and direct action. Strikes allow us
to perceive our collective strength as proletarians to block capitalist
production. Struggles also allow us to escape from the routine of work
to discover the joy, solidarity and pleasure of revolt.
Local struggles such as the PSA-Aulnay strike express a combativeness
and determination that allow workers to stand up to the bosses. Strikes,
even local and sectoral, can become anchor points to oppose the
capitalist order. Strikers develop practices that must become
generalized. "Aware that there is no other alternative than combat, they
expose and explain the means they give themselves to fight day by day:
production shutdown, strike funds, occupation of sites, factory tours,
etc.," describes La Mouette Enragée.
From interprofessional strikes to the Yellow Vests, these movements
fail due to the low spread of struggle practices in companies. On the
contrary, the multiplication of strikes can allow the blocking of
economic production. The activists prefer to align themselves with the
CGT and its symbolic blockages. The leftists try to federate the
activist cores, especially in the public sector. On the other hand, few
groups try to broaden the struggle and walk out in non-mobilized companies.
Yet it is in the "union deserts" that the class struggle is played out.
It is when non-politicized employees join the strike that the movement
can take on decisive proportions. The generalization of strikes then
allows the capitalist order to be called into question. Who produces?
For whom? How? Why? become questions posed collectively to reflect on
overcoming the commercial world.
Source: La Mouette Enragée, Before going around the world, go around the
workshop... Workers' survey - Testimonies - Reflections 2017-2023,
Acratie, 2023
For those who are not yet familiar with Zone Subversive, we invite you
to visit the site without further delay.
Zone subversive presents itself as a publication that keeps its distance
from both the self-referential academicism of the university environment
and from journalism mired in the most futile news and the most servile
cronyism.
Having taken the pulse of the period marked by the eradication of all
forms of criticism, considered negative, Zone subversive has chosen to
disseminate reflections that break with the stifling effect of
intellectual conformism.
Breaking with ideologies, Zone Subversive intends to draw on all radical
and libertarian thoughts, from revolutionary anarchism to
anti-bureaucratic Marxism.
The choice is made of long articles, breaking with the immediacy of the
internet and always with the aspiration to shake up all aspects of life
to put freedom, desire, pleasure, passion back at the center of existence.
However, Zone Subversive does not intend to limit its activity to a few
analyses and the dissemination of a critical sensitivity against the
cold rationality of capital. Faced with the malaise felt by all in this
civilization, meeting seems just as essential to express ourselves and
discuss the means of struggle in order to bring down the commercial world.
Related articles:
The workers' survey in Europe
An analysis of the 2016 movement
Workers' revolt at PSA-Aulnay
The limits of the Yellow Vest movement
Workers' power in Veneto
For further:
Video: The fight is classy: Manon Ovion recounts the struggle of the
Vertbaudet, broadcast by the CGT on October 26, 2023
Radio: Around the workers' investigation, Radio Vosstanie broadcast of
July 25, 2021
Radio: Workers' Survey, L'égrégore broadcast of March 4, 2024
Radio: Before going around the world, go around the workshop, Micros
rebelles broadcast of May 2, 2024
Radio: The Angry Seagull on the Radio Vosstanie show of May 25, 2013
Radio: The struggle of the "formidable" and the union "betrayal" in the
Radio Vosstanie program of April 26, 2014
The Angry Seagull Website
The Class Site
Before going around the world, go around the workshop... , published in
the magazine Courant Alternatif n°337 of February 2024
Discussion with comrades from the Partisan magazine about the workers'
survey , published on the La Mouette Enragée website on June 5, 2024
Dominique Fonlupt, A new workers' investigation signed La Mouette
enragée, published in the magazine La Vie on April 24, 2024
Temporary work: the example of the Douarnenez canneries , published in
the journal Courant Alternatif n°341 of June 2024
Saint-Nazaire * Interview with the USM-CGT: A laboratory for industrial
restructuring , published on the website of the Libertarian Communist
Organization (OCL) on February 4, 2008
Jacques Wajnsztejn, Critical assessment of the activity of the Cahiers
de Mai, published on the Rebellyon website in May 2011
Conducting activist research today, published on the Acta Zone website
on April 9, 2019
In Montpellier, Toulouse and Marseille, militant collectives are
renewing the workers' inquiry, published on the website of the newspaper
Le Poing on January 19, 2018
https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4234
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