Work on May 1st, right to strike debated: tough times for unions

Taking advantage of its parliamentary niche, the right wing is attacking this single public holiday enshrined in the Labor Code to allow "local food businesses" (bakeries, pastry shops, greengrocers, butchers, but also florists, cinemas and theaters) to open with volunteer employees.

Already passed in the Senate, "this proposal is purely demagogic," Marylise Léon, general secretary of the CFDT, told AFP.

"This is a very real cost for at least 1,3 million workers who, if this law passes, could have to work on May 1st," worries Sophie Binet, head of the CGT.

"Besides being the national holiday for workers, it's also time for yourself. You don't need to go to the shops on May 1st, you don't have to buy anything every day," she continues.

It is also a blow to social history: May 1st "commemorates the struggles for workers' rights, from the deadly demonstrations" in France and the United States in the 19th century, recall the eight trade union federations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires and FSU) in a joint statement.

Sophie Binet participated on Thursday morning, near the Assembly, to denounce "the shameful parliamentary niche of the LRN" during a rally that brought together around 200 activists from the CGT, Solidaires and FSU, as well as members of parliament, including the ecologist Sophie Taillé-Polian.

"Democracy in the workplace"

In addition to this public holiday, the right wing is also targeting the right to strike and wants to limit it in transport during certain periods of the year.

She takes up in her niche a proposal from centrist senators which provides for giving the government a quota of 30 days per year, during which "public transport service personnel" and railway workers (air transport is excluded) essential to their operation will be deprived of their right to strike, with limits of six hours per day, and seven consecutive days.

For the CGT-Transports, this is "another unacceptable parliamentary attack!" and a "challenge to a right guaranteed by the Constitution and by international conventions".

This proposal, adopted in the Senate and in committee last week, is unlikely to be adopted in the plenary session on Thursday, due to lack of time.

"Employees are waiting for a strengthening of social dialogue in companies, not for further cuts to their rights," criticizes Marylise Léon.

Social dialogue is already malfunctioning in France today, according to a highly critical book published Wednesday, "Saving Social Democracy" (Calmann Levy), signed by three experts.

"The actors are weak and divided; their legitimacy is uncertain, both on the side of employers' organizations and their trade union counterparts," write the president of the Pensions Advisory Council, Gilbert Cette, the sociologist Guy Groux and the editor-in-chief of the journal Telos, Richard Robert.

"In major European countries, there are two or three trade union centers: in our country, there are eight, while the rate of unionization is much lower!", denounce the authors, who suggest in particular reducing the number of unions.

However, according to an Ifop study for Syndex published on Thursday, managers view social dialogue in their structure "positively" (77%), although employees and staff representatives are more divided (28% and 14% respectively view it as "good").

"While social dialogue in France remains imperfect and largely unbalanced, it still provides a space where a form of democracy is exercised within companies," said Nicolas Weinstein, a director at the consulting firm Syndex, at a press conference. "And in these dark and uncertain times, continuing to foster this dialogue and, above all, striving to improve it, is more essential than ever."