Flowering started almost two months ago. From piggy banks drizzled during a protest to online jackpots displaying multi-digit sums, strike funds have reappeared as opposition to pension reform grew in strength over national days of protest. action – the eighth taking place on Wednesday, March 15. They provide essential support to those who protest by stopping work and who see, at the same time, their salary cut, in a period when every euro counts with runaway inflation.
How many solidarity systems of this nature are there? The many initiatives have not been exhaustively identified to date, but a interactive mapping makes it possible to locate some of them, as indicated by the sociologist Gabriel Rosenman, a former railway worker employed at SUD-Rail, who is preparing a thesis on the subject. At the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, during the mobilization against the plan for a universal pension system, “up to 380 strike funds online” had been counted, he recalls.
Two main practices stand out. One has a sectoral or local dimension. These are in particular initiatives driven by trade union sections or federations, such as CGT-railway workers or CGT-energy. The resources come mainly from donations which are channeled into common pots on the web. The goal is to help women and men involved in “long strikes”says Mr. Rosenman.
The other modus operandi consists of setting up funds supplemented by fractions of union dues. Reserved for members, the funds are released to allow those concerned – for example precarious workers – to participate in the demonstrations of force which take place piecemeal, deciphers Mr. Rosenman.
Legal support
In almost all cases, the amounts awarded cover only part of the loss of earnings. Many of these mechanisms disappear when the struggle breaks down. The Caisse nationale d’action syndicale (CNAS), founded fifty years ago by the CFDT, stands out from the pack. A device « unique » of its kind, emphasizes Jean-Michel Denis, professor of sociology at the University of Paris-I-Panthéon Sorbonne and author of a study on the subject: the central cededist is, he says, the only organization in France “to have established, at the confederal level, a permanent financial support body for its striking members”.
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