Posted Oct 27, 2022, 6:30 AM
And three. After September 29 and October 18, the CGT calls for a new day of action on wages this Thursday. She has even already scheduled a fourth meeting on the eve of the November 11 bridge. The announcement of these two days was made at the end of a previous mobilization which had however not kept its promises.
On October 18, 107,000 people marched in France according to the police, 300,000 according to the CGT. In addition to the FSU and Solidaires, FO took part. And if the tensions caused by the requisitions of employees of the refineries at the stop had come to be added to the wages as reason for mobilization, the parades had been fewer and less provided than on September 29, which however lacked Force Ouvrière.
The CGT alone
This Thursday, the CGT will go alone at the national level. Neither Force Ouvrière, nor even the FSU or Solidaires are associated with it. The day, in the middle of school holidays, promises to be even less followed than October 18 when the emblematic conflicts have ended or are about to be, whether in particular nuclear or oil workers. The CGT has listed less than a hundred initiatives on its website where during major movements, it has nearly 250.
Many of its leaders deplore the strategy for which the plant has opted. “It’s only to respond internally”, regrets one of them, who fears that the CGT will “make a fool of itself”. It is clear that these calls, decided after consultation with the federations and departmental unions, are part of the context of the succession congress of March 2023 in Clermont-Ferrand, which promises to be complicated.
Ultras pressure response
Even if it is never enough for them, these calls for mobilization respond to pressure from the ultras of the power plant, in the forefront of which the Federation of Chemistry and the Departmental Union of Bouches-du-Rhône. “Set stages can allow us to install the movement over time to go to win”, declared the Marseillais Olivier Mateu at the end of his own congress last week in the Marseille city. Philippe Martinez cannot be blamed for a lack of fighting spirit.
“We are at a complicated crossroads because activists are asking us to take up the salary issue and these days offer them a window of mobilization”, justifies a number one organization. “But salaries are dealt with in companies and administrations”, explains another, who fears that the failure of the two initiatives “demotivates CGT members in the field when it is necessary to keep strength for them. pensions”.
If the weak mobilization of the Montreuil plant is confirmed, this can only serve the government. He can indeed rightly argue that the social climate is much calmer than expected.
Unitary approach
Needless to say that the CGT alone does not delight the other confederations. They let pass the fact of having been presented with a fait accompli for September 29, but the mobilizations of October 27 and November 10 revive resentment in the face of a fairly systematic practice by Philippe Martinez’s central office of preempting dates. But without, for the time being, this threatening the unitary approach taken against the pension reform.
The inter-union meeting on Monday evening took place in a “non-confrontational” climate, according to a trade unionist. “Everyone is aware that we are going to need a broad unity against the reform,” he adds.