[The following article appeared in the November 22 issue of Rouge, the French Trotskyist weekly. The translation is by Intercontinental Press. The subtitles were in the original.]
In dozens of cities the demonstrations that took place during the November 19 strike were the biggest since 1968. The massive and militant marches were dominated by two sets of slogans: those indicating solidarity with the postal workers; and those attacking members of the government.
In the aftermath of those demonstrations, it is important to establish our bearings and to begin to draw a balance sheet on the way the November 19 strike was organized.
Three Central Questions
To evaluate the present relationship of forces, it is necessary to know how the trade-union leaderships responded to three questions that are decisive to the development of the current struggles: What demands should be put forward, how can the struggles be generalized, and what is their political direction?
1. What demands should be advanced today?
The post office workers began their struggle around clear demands: for a minimum wage of 1,700 franes a month [1 franc equals about US$0.22); a 200 francs across-theboard increase; hiring of more personnel; and the upgrading of auxiliary workers. These demands are in the interests of not only the postal workers but everyone in the civil service. It was possible to take that platform, forged in the struggle, and to fill it out, broadening it so that it could mobilize the whole of the working class, especially the workers in the private sector whose jobs are directly threatened. Such demands would include:
• A sliding scale of wages, revised each month on the basis of an index tabulated by the labor organizations and controlled by the workers. This 1644
GISCARD: Sent cops in against postal and railway strikers.
would answer [Premier] Chirac's cy nical comment about the inevitable erosion of wages by inflation.
• A thirty-five-hour week with no decrease in wages, counterposed to increasing unemployment and a halt to immigration.
• Nationalization without purchase or compensation of all companies that, under cover of rationalizing their operations, throw thousands of workers on the scrap heap, laying them off at a flick of the wrist. And what's more, these are often companies receiving subsidies from the government.
On the basis of this simple, clear program, it is possible to link together the struggles of the whole working class.
This is not the direction chosen by the trade-union leaders. They are now holding to only two of the union demands: the 200 francs increase, and more personnel. And even there, they have declared their readiness to compromise. The civil service strikes have followed one after another, sector by sector, on the basis of different platforms (the railway workers, for example, are demanding a 1,500 franes minimum wage).
As for the call for actions on November 19, it was issued on the most vague basis possible.
There is a big difference between fighting for a small number of clear demands until they are met, and demanding the reopening of negotiations.
2. How to generalize the struggles?
From the beginning of the postal workers' strike, the problem has been posed of extending it to the whole public sector. Instead of basing themselves on the most militant sectors like the railway workers, so that they would enter the struggle around the same demands and with the same forms of action as the postal workers and draw in behind them the rest of the civil service, the union leaders have chosen to mobilize in disorder, blowing hot and cold - mobilizing in the railways, only to stop short several days later; and launching four days of strikes, divided according to regions before and after November 19. In short, a conscious attempt at demobilization, and completely ineffective as a form of struggle. In the rest of the civil service the strikes of November 13 were "renew able,"1 but in some places the union officials fought against their renewal. Only the Employment Agency, the Department of Supply, and the garbage collectors began an extended strike.
This is not the way to coordinate struggles and link them together into an overall movement of the civil service. The strikes are simply juxtaposed, without any links among them.
3. What political direction?
Confronted with the old scarecrow of "political strikes" brandished by Giscard and his cronies, a clear response would have been the following: If struggling against the state-as-employer is a political act, then yes, we are engaging in politics! If demanding wage increases that go beyond the restrictions of existing contracts is to restrictions of existino contracte is to challenge the government's policy, then yes, the workers are challenging it. And this is nothing new; five months ago, the overwhelming majority of the working class declared its opposition to that policy, by refusing to vote for Giscard d'Estaing.
If the leaders of the workers organizations really wanted to defend the interests of the workers who have placed confidence in them, they would say: Yes, we are fighting for their demands; but if this government does not yield, then it should resign; the workers certainly are capable of providing themselves with a government that can meet their needs.
But they have chosen to say exactly the contrary: "It is not a question of giving in but of negotiating"; "we must know how to make concessions if we (sic) want to get out of this situation," Séguy 2 wrote in [the Communist party daily] l'Humanité, on the eve of the national strike! It is remarkable how the more the workers understand that their struggle is counterposed to the government and its policy, the more the parties who five months ago presented themselves as candidates for government put their perspectives in mothballs.
"Giscard au rancart [Giscard, resign"; "Ponia, facho, le peuple aura ta peau [Poniatow ski, 3 fascist, the people will nail your ass]'; "Valéry au tri, Anne-Aymone au téléphone [Giscard should be a mail sorter, and his wife a telephone operator]"; "Giscard aux poubelles [Giscard to theashcans]"-all this antigovernment enthusiasm expressed in the November 15 and November 19 demonstrations was ignored by l'Humanité, which mentioned only the traditional "Giscard, ca suffit, assieds-toi et né- gotie [Giscard, that's enough, sit down and negotiate]." Even the workers of Néogravure who chanted "Une seule solution, le Programme commun [The only solution, the Common Pro-
French Postal Unions End Strike
Delegates of unions representing
France's postal workers voted November 28 and 29 to end the fortyfive-day-old mail strike and called for a resumption of work on November 30.
The unions involved -the General Confederation of Labor (CGT)
and the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT) — said the return to work was only a "suspension of the strike" and that they were maintaining their demands.
Termination of the strike, however, was widely regarded as a victory for the Giscard regime in regram4]" were discreetly censored.
Never has the reformists' distinction between struggles and their political implications been so clear. When the workers mobilize, the union leaderships talk the language of compromise and the reformist parties shut up. And if the struggle falters, they recover their voices to proclaim that only the Common Program will satisfy the workers' demands, and therefore they have only to wait until the next elections!
Increasing Pledges of Goodwill
Up to now the government and the bosses have taken a very hard line in the conflict. Chirac set the tone in his television interview when he called the post office strikers a "minority of agitators" and the unions "wreckers of the economy." Why this firm stance?
If they were to give in to the postal workers, that would mean jeopardizing their contract policy; it would mean giving in on wages at a time when the government's whole policy is aimed at restricting buying power, and above all, after five months in office, undergoing a political defeat in its first test of strength with the workers movement. Hence its obstinacy: letting things drag on for a sisting the strikers' demands, particularly the key demand of a 1,700 francs minimum monthly wage (about US$363). Had Giscard granted the concession, pressure would have mounted to extend it throughout the civil service, which includes about three million workers.
In addition, the government refused to pay wages for the period of the strike-contrary to normal practice in France.
The CGT and CFDT have called a one-day general strike for December 12 to protest rising unemployment and inflation.
while, then sending the cops against the pickets, trying to divide the workers and separate out the "responsible" union organizations, unleashing a poisonous slander campaign, and so on.
Confronted with the government's intransigence, the union leaders are caught in a dangerous contradiction: without really wanting to give themselves everything they needed in order to win, they have put themselves in a position where it is impossible for them to lose. They advanced hesitantly toward the November 19 actions, increasing their pledges of goodwill. And, once the morning of November 20 had arrived, Séguy adopted the same old tone: "The prime minister may think that by slandering us, he will make us lose our composure and our sense of responsibility; but we will not fall into that trap. We will continue to speak the language of reason and to follow the only road that is consistent with the general interest, by proposing the opening of the necessary negotiations."
That is what explains the contradictory nature of the demonstrations on November 19: on the one hand, they had an extraordinary breadth, not seen since 1968, which stimulates militancy and restores confidence to the workers. But, at the same timeand while a test of political strength is taking place in which the government has doubled the stakes- they suffered from the lack of any unifying platform, and from the refusal of the unions, the Communist party, and the Socialist party to take up the political challenge.
A Small Escape Hatch
Faced with the harshness of the government's statements, however, some voices have been raised even within the bourgeoisie asking Chirac not to play with fire: in such a tense situation, the slightest rough edge, the least provocation, can result in a mass reaction from the working class. The demonstrations after the cops* intervention 5 and on November 19 showed that. Moreover, to try to inflict a complete defeat on the strikers would not only risk losing time, given the combativity of the postal workers. But it would also risk giving future struggles a very dangerous dynamic by singling out the government as the obstacle in the path of any demand of the workers, the bolt that must be sprung. Hence the insistent advice of France-Soir, which urges Chirac not to superimpose a social crisis on a political crisis; or the appeals for leniency by Ferniot, Barillon, and others. "Open the door just a crack to let the union leaders save face," they say, "they are not asking for anything more!"
And already Le Monde is mentioning rumors that the government could make a certain number of proposals when it presents the post office budget. (These are said to include upgrading of a certain number of auxiliary workers, and an expected salary increase of 3 percent in the civil service.)
To Strengthen the Relationship of Forces
After November 19, the situation is characterized essentially by three elements:
1. A continuing high level of militancy at the post office, where the strikers clearly have thick skins. (One of the slogans on November 19 was "Nous tiendrons jusqu'au réveillon et
Lelong sera le dindon [We'll hold out 'til the sheep come home, and Lelong will be the sheepish one]."
2. A tense political and social situation, where a false step by the government could set the match to tinder.
3. But also a very uneven degree of militancy in the working class: a public sector at fever pitch, while the private sector has hardly mobilized, even on November 19; and within the civil service, a whole potential for combativity wasted by walkouts with no perspective, especially on the railways.
It is still possible, however, to force the government to give in, provided the workers find the means to do so. That means fighting now on three fronts:
• To strengthen and consolidate the movement in the post office by setting new objectives:
A march on Paris of all the postal workers in France could be a demonstration of the strength of the movement and a rebuff to all Chirac's grotesque statements about a minority of agitators. It could end with a national assembly of delegates from all regions to evaluate their experiences and discuss what comes next for the movement.
• To revive the perspective of a general strike of the civil service workers around a unifying platform of demands, and until those demands have been met:
This perspective remains an urgent and necessary one. It is possible if the most militant sectors orient along that road. Those sectors include the hospitals, where a wave of prolonged struggles is developing; the Department of Supply, where for the second week the workers will strike for three days, from Tuesday to Friday; the Electricity and Gas Board, where many walkouts are scheduled; the National Employment Agency; and the garbage collectors, who are on a renew able strike.
By welding these sectors to thepostal workers' struggle around common demands and common initiatives, it will be possible to begin an overall movement in the civil service that is something more than a mere sum of sectoral strikes.
• To show all workers that the postal workers' struggle has become a political focus for the whole working class and that in each factory and neighborhood an all-out effort must be made to assure its victory.
That means an enormous effort to raise a solidarity fund. The argument that there are too many postal workers for a collection to be useful does not hold water. Massive collections are useful, in the first place, to help those strikers who are in the worst straits, but especially to lay the basis for the huge task of getting out the facts about the struggle in order to counter the lies of the bourgeoisie.
It is possible to weave around the postal workers the same network of solidarity as was done around the miners in 1963.
But we must go further: we must put the government on its notice, not only that it must give in, but that if it takes one more step it will have the whole working class on strike against it.
Beginning now, it is necessary, in all the factories where possible, to introduce a notice of immediate strike if the government goes beyond its still limited initiatives and makes massive use of the army in the postal sorting stations, or if it goes so far as to try to recruit scabs.
That is the only way to improve the relationship of forces, instead of letting it crumble away. It is the only way to tell Giscard and his clique that the government must give in, or give way.
U.S. Advisers Select Targets for Cambodian Bombing Raids
In a dispatch from Bangkok, Thailand, November 21, Washington Post correspondent John Burgess reported that, according to a "well-placed U.S. military source" U.S. military personnel are serving as advisers to the Cambodian air force. About three reconnaisance flights a day, he reported, are carried out by U.S. Phantom jets belonging to the 432d Tactical Fighter Wing stationed at Undorn air base in northeastern Thailand.
Aerial photos from the flights are then analyzed at Udorn to identify targets and make recommendations for bombing strikes. The reports are sent to the U.S. Support Activities Group at the U.S. Air Force headquarters at the Nakhon Phanom air base in Thailand. From there they are passed on to the Cambodian air force.
The use of U.S. advisers violates a congressional ban on direct U.S. military activity in Cambodia, which went into effect August 15, 1973.
Notes
1. The French word "reconductible, " literally "renewable," refers to a form of labor struggle in which the workers on strike hold daily assemblies to determine whether to continue the strike. Such strikes are normally characterized by a high degree of mobilization and participation. - IP
2. Georges Seguy, general secretary of the General Confederation of Labor (Confederation Generale du Travail- CGT), the Stalinist-led union. - IP
3. Michel Poniatowski, minister of state and minister of the interior, is a close confidant of Giscard. - IP December 9, 1974
4. The reference is to the Common Program of the Union of the Left, the electoral coalition of the Communist party, the Socialist party, and the Left Radicals, a small bourgeois grouping. - IP
5. On November 14, the police burst into the sorting-centers in Lille and Montpellier, as well as the post office in the railway station at Toulouse, evicting strikers. Demonstrations were held November 15 to protest this action in several cities, including Paris. — IP 1646
6. Pierre Lelong is minister of the post office and telecommunications. - IP