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NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2005Workshop Talks
French workers defend 35-hour week
by Htun Lin As a gesture of reconciliation after their public
dispute over the war in Iraq, George W. Bush shared an order of French fries
with Jacques Chirac, France’s president, during Bush’s visit to Europe. But
the presidents of both countries are in lockstep about one thing: shoving the
bill for a precarious economy down workers’ throats. Emulating U.S. efforts to increase productivity, the
French president got a parliamentary majority to eliminate France’s 35-hour
workweek rule. No less than 100 protest demonstrations erupted across France. Herve Gaymard, the young, recently appointed finance
minister, broke a taboo last week by noting in a radio broadcast that France had
the lowest employment level of working-age people of any major nation. "How
can you compete like that?" he asked. Banque de France governor Christian Noyer put the
problem more bluntly: "We will not beat the competition by working less and
opposing the reforms that promote growth." Apparently he presumes that
forcing workers to work extended hours will lower unemployment, not increase it. This is the kind of sophistry we American workers have
been hearing during the last decade of restructuring. Rampant overtime and
speed-up fed a wildly successful increase in productivity, accompanied by an
"unexpected" jobless boom. Christian Noyer elaborated further, "What really
worries me is the difficulty that we in France have in understanding the way the
world works and how to win in the world." The "way of the world" indeed. It is a world
of an unfettered sweatshop global economy spearheaded by the near slavery labor
practices of ruthless emerging superpower developers like China. It invaded the
world economy with its relentless drive to lower labor costs primarily through
low wages with missionary zeal unrivaled even by the American president’s
mission to "spread democracy." PITTING WORKER AGAINST WORKER Hundreds of millions of workers, not only Chinese
workers but workers all over the globe from India to Thailand, from Germany to
the U.S., must adapt to the "way of the world" if they are to survive
the competition. France is getting ready to do what in Germany is already
well on its way--massive restructuring of their economy, emulating the attacks
launched against labor already practiced in the U. S. First there was welfare
reform and now Social Security "reform." There are new overtime rules
and health care cost-shifting. The latest
attack from Gov. Schwarzenegger of California, having successfully increased
patient workload for each nurse, is to increase the number of hours worked
before a worker is entitled to a lunch break. In my own shop, healthcare workers
routinely work 10-hour to 12-hour workdays, sometimes 16. All this is in the
name of "freedom," which the Bush regime equates with "free
trade." The American and the French governments are shoulder to
shoulder when it comes to the need to attack workers’ gains. Here lies the
truly irreconcilable conflict--the one between labor and capital. Prime Minister Raffarin insisted that big protest
marches throughout France would not divert his drive to undo the compulsory
maximum 35-hour week, the measure that was the prime legacy of the previous
socialist government. This echoed eerily President Bush’s attitude towards
global outrage against his invasion of Iraq, which hundreds of millions
protested worldwide. FREEDOM TO EXPLOIT The new legislation in France allows people to work up
to 48 hours a week if they and their employers agree--precisely the rationale
being employed by the Bush true believers like Gov. Schwarzenegger with his own
new workday and workweek rules. The weapon of mass deception is the mantra, "the
freedom to earn more," employed this time to attack the gains of labor’s
past struggles--the normal workweek in France. In reality, with the new work
rules, the French employers will be able to force longer hours for the same pay. What kind of "democracy" do we have when we
are all "free to choose," but all options offered to us workers
represent our own demise? Choose as we may, individually as workers, in the
present scheme of things, we really have no choice, in the irresistible
self-expansion of capital, and its relentless drive to dominate all aspects of
our lives. One thing is certain--until society transcends
capitalism and its alienated mode of production, what Marx said in CAPITAL will
remain true--the fight over the normal working day will continue to be a
"protracted battle" between those who own the means of production and
those who own really nothing more than their own labor power. |
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