The cross : What can this new mobilization day change?
Lawrence Berger: Let’s take a look at what is happening now. There is a massive rejection of an unfair measure: raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. The mobilizations were exceptional. It is the world of work, in its diversity and depth, which expresses itself.
When I go up the Parisian procession of the CFDT, I see the people in cleanliness, catering, links, support, social work: it’s the France of work, not that of laziness, like some qualify. The government would be wrong to look at the deep resentment that is expressed there with the wrong glasses.
Will the mobilization be confirmed on Tuesday and Saturday?
L. B. : Tuesday, February 7 will confirm that workers can mobilize during the week. As for Saturday 11, we want to make it a Labor Day, with peaceful and festive processions. It will be a popular mobilization, going well beyond our usual framework.
Polls show rejection and also anger in public opinion: faced with a stiffening of the executive, will you be able to maintain this festive character?
L. B. : You have to ask the government. At the peak of their mobilization, the yellow vests brought together 284,000 people, unfortunately with too much violence from some, and responses were provided. On January 31, 1.27 million people peacefully opposed reform in the streets.
What would be the prospect if they did not receive a response? Do we need excess, violence and aggressiveness to be heard? It’s not a threat – I will fight to stay within a respectful framework – but this social tension can only be answered through the democratic exercise of power. This also involves listening to society.
Do the concessions announced on Sunday by Elisabeth Borne on long careers seem insufficient to you?
L. B. : We found them in The Sunday newspaper without details. It must be clearly understood that the initial injustice of the reform lies in postponing the age. Measures can reduce injustice, but it remains. We must remove the age gap at 64 and take up the case in the right direction by first talking about work.
What do you say to the deputies you meet?
L. B. : Many are asking questions. You can’t be an MP and not watch how many people are protesting in your constituency! Even in small towns, there were thousands of people. That does mean something! I invite them to listen to the massive rejection of this reform by the world of work.
The government wants to introduce social justice measures in another bill in the spring. What do you think ?
L. B. : During the Covid, we put a lot of emphasis on workers, and especially women workers, on the second line. They were promised recognition that never came. And, all of a sudden, they are told: “You will work two more years” ! This can’t work! We can not say “We are over 64, but trust us: on gender equality, on hardship, we will manage in another text”.
Faced with a profound upheaval in the world of work, this reform was carried out with the eyes of the 2000s. The relationship to work is changing: people suffer from a lack of recognition but want to work, while protecting themselves and maintaining their autonomy and free choice. Work is not a value but it has value. It’s not something negative but a form of emancipation, self-realization, participation in a collective project. It must be revalued, given meaning and recognition.
The government therefore took things upside down by reforming public finances. We had to start with working conditions, the balance between personal time and professional time, hardship, salaries… and look at what resulted from this on pensions.
What do you expect from parliamentary debates?
L. B. :There should be no obstruction. Opposed or not to the reform, workers and citizens want the national representation to decide on article 7, which concerns the 64 years. We met with the parliamentary groups – except the National Rally – and presented them with amendments on senior citizens or the minimum contribution.
In your refusal of 64 years, are you not constrained by your last congress, which rejected any age measurement?
L. B. : The proposed resolution clearly stated our opposition to the postponement of the legal age and that increasing the contribution period was the only fair measure in the event of an increase in life expectancy. As there is no gain in life expectancy, and given current events, our unions did not want us to ask the question of the contribution period, already at work with the Touraine reform that we have supported. The CFDT has not hardened and I do not feel at all a minority in the processions of Paris.
The debates can last until March 26. How can you ensure that your mobilization does not run out of steam?
L. B. : Through close inter-union work. We are united on a single watchword: against the 64 years old. We do not try to agree on everything and assume what separates us, including in terms of action. And we decide together: there is no “enlightened avant-garde” or an organization that decides before the others. This does not mean that there will be no strikes – it is a constitutional right – but our logic today is not to move towards blockages.
Imagine that the government withdraws section 7, there would still be an imbalance in the plan. How to fix it?
L. B. : The CFDT has never been against thinking about this question of balance. Since 1998, she has been against the postponement of the legal age but has accompanied reforms which seem fair to her. In 2019, we committed to systemic reform, we challenged the pivot age – which was removed – and I proposed a fundraising conference that we had started working on. Then there was the Covid. But why did the President of the Republic not propose to go again towards a form of universal system?
This time, the imbalance is disproportionate compared to 2003, 2010 and 2014. It does not threaten the pay-as-you-go system in the long term. So why deal with pensions now? We haven’t changed. We will therefore raise the question of a universal system with finer steering, less anxiety-provoking than with major reforms every five or ten years.
However, at Agirc-Arrco, co-managed by the unions, a penalty also encourages the retirement age to be postponed by one year…
L. B. : We are precisely proposing to better manage the pension system with this kind of choice of discount and premium, much less brutal, unfair and divisive than measures affecting everyone uniformly. This time it’s really old-school reform with a showdown to see who wins in the end. If the text passes – apart from the social consequences – everyone will lose in the years to come in terms of the atmosphere in the country, and no doubt at the democratic level. Even those who passed the text.