Interesting: Two little pieces from The Real News Network yesterday and today
talked about how the French government is weakening labor rights and how the
German minimum wage is lower than that in the other western Democracies.
Miriam
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Subject: [blind-democracy] French rulers take on unions, join Berlin to try to
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http://themilitant.com/2017/8134/813405.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 34 September 18, 2017
(front page)
French rulers take on unions, join Berlin to try to fix EU crisis
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
As he promised both during his campaign and after his election last May, French
President Emmanuel Macron decreed Aug. 31 an overhaul of the country’s Labor
Code, targeting unions, job protections and working conditions. The move comes
at the same time as the French rulers are pushing to solidify their bloc with
German Chancellor Angela Merkel to hold together the European Union, which the
worldwide capitalist economic crisis and conflicting national interests are
tearing apart.
At the heart of Macron’s proposed changes would be gutting legal protections
workers have won in long-past labor upsurges against being fired or laid off.
Collected in the government’s 3,324-page Labor Code, the New York Times said
Aug. 4, the laws hinder the bosses’ ability to do as they wish with the
workers, “making it expensive to hire new workers and difficult — and even more
costly — to fire them.”
Because of these legal impediments, French bosses have been replacing jobs that
last a lifetime with a workforce largely comprised of temps — at lower pay,
benefits and lacking union rights. Over 16 percent of workers in France are on
temporary contracts today, including 85 percent of those hired in the
second-quarter this year. Today’s class collaborationist French union
leaderships focus on protecting workers already hired and do little to organize
or fight for temporary contract workers.
“Every such fundamental economic reform in France for at least the last
quarter-century has foundered in the streets of Paris,” the Times said,
pointing to the labor movement’s past strength. But officials of the three
major unions are divided on whether to oppose the new code. The General
Confederation of Labor (CGT) has called for a strike Sept. 12.
Two larger unions, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT) and
Force Ouvrière are not participating.
Macron and the bosses are fighting to cripple industry-wide union bargaining
and replace it with factory-by-factory bargaining further dividing the
workforce.
Small companies with fewer than 50 workers comprise 95 percent of all French
companies. They would be allowed to negotiate directly with nonunionized
workers, who previously received the same benefits won in contracts by
unionized workers in their sector.
Twenty years ago the capitalist rulers in Germany dealt similar blows to the
working class there, which also lacked a class-struggle leadership.
Most contracts applied to entire industry sectors, but today the number of
company-level contracts has risen sharply, and bosses can’t be forced into
collective bargaining.
Steps like these meant that over the last 25 years, German bosses have sped up
workers’ productivity by some 40 percent, while real wages have stagnated.
The bosses’ gains have helped Berlin maintain its supremacy in the European
Union, which functions to siphon profits to the German ruling class at the
expense of its weaker competitors in southern Europe.
At the same time, the eurozone functions as a bloc between German and French
bosses, the more so now that London is on the way to “Brexit.”
Macron’s attacks on the labor movement are aimed at strengthening French
capital in competition in the EU, as well as at convincing Germany’s rulers,
who reap the biggest profits from the 28-nation EU capitalist trade bloc, that
Paris is a partner to be listened to.
Macron, Merkel look to bloc
Macron has challenged the German rulers to agree to steps to strengthen the
European Union in the face of the competing interests of the ruling capitalist
families in each European nation-state that pull the EU apart. He has called
for appointing an EU financial minister to oversee a single eurozone budget
that would make funds available to capitalist rulers facing deeper economic
challenges, like Greece, Italy and others.
German Chancellor Merkel, who is up for election this month, said she backs
these proposals by Macron, “so that we get a higher degree of united
competitiveness.” But she says the focus should be a fund that can make “small
contributions” to reward challenged countries for carrying out structural
reforms.
While Berlin needs Paris, and vice versa, if the EU is going to advance, what’s
really posed here is whether the German capitalists are willing to sacrifice
some of the profits they make to shore up their competitors.
One country where the rulers face some real problems today is Italy, which has
the third largest economy in Europe after Berlin and Paris.
Rome’s annual growth rate has been stuck at zero since they adopted the
European currency when it was launched in 1999.
As a result Rome’s sovereign debt is over 133 percent of its gross domestic
product, the second worst in Europe, behind only Greece. Its banking system is
close to collapse. Youth unemployment is 35 percent, and more and more workers
are being driven below Italy’s official poverty line.
This crisis has led former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi — who says he will
run to take over the government in Italy’s next election — to back a measure
that would severely undermine the EU. He proposes a “parallel currency”
alongside the euro.
This new lira would do what sovereign currencies normally do when they face
capitalist trade inequities like Rome does in relation to Germany — sharply
devalue against the euro. Real wages would plummet and Italy’s boss class would
be more competitive.
But why wouldn’t every other European ruling class that suffers from its
unequal union with the stronger, more profitable German bosses — that is all of
them — do the same? What would happen to the EU?
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