[The following article appeared in the June 10 issue of Rouge, the weekly newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), French section of the Fourth International.]
If Mitterrand and his parliamentary majority sacrifice the interests of the workers, it is for one basic reason. By choosing to "respect profits," they cannot help but apply the consequences of that law. And the reign of the bosses* law remains intact.
No, the austerity measures are not "justified" by the economic crisis or by the "fight against inflation." And the best proof is that it would have been possible after May 10, 1981, to carry out a series of measures that would have protected the workers from the blows of the bosses, to acquire the means to get out of the capitalist crisis.
1. Prevent the bosses from causing inflation and guarantee purchasing power.
Who decides to raise prices? According to the law of profit, the bosses do. This right must be taken from them by establishing strict public control from the stage of production through the stage of consumption by significantly increasing the rights of the workers on all levels.
For wage earners, controlled prices are the most beneficial, with, as a supplementary guarantee, indexed wages protecting purchasing power. That is what is called the "sliding scale," which in no way encourages inflation if the prices are not rising any more!
If we must "fight against inflation" for a policy serving the workers, this is it!
2. Take the right to lay off out of the hands of the bosses; impose a reduction in the workweek and additional hiring.
Who decides on layoffs? In the name of free enterprise, the bosses do. Following May 10, their right to throw out of work whomever they choose should have been taken from them. This could have been done by passing a law imposing the right to veto layoffs, as had been demanded in the programs of the Socialist Party and Communist Party and in the platforms of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the French Democratic Confedera-
MITTERRAND
tion of Labor (CFDT).
In addition, in order to give "priority to jobs," which was the main theme of the 1981 election campaign, that was the moment to impose the 35-hour workweek, with proportional hiring controlled by the workers. We would not now have more than 2 million unemployed, getting fewer benefits on the pretext that there are too many of them and it is too expensive!
In fact, the ordinances and the "contractual path" have yielded such ridiculous results that one of its apostles, Jean Kaspar — the CFDT's number two man hand-picked by Edmond Maire — was led to say that the government should adopt a law on the 35-hour week (Syndicalisme hebdo, June 2).
3. Give priority to defending social protection.
When the workers pay for social security, the bosses of the pharmaceutical trusts, the owners of private clinics, the pharmacists, etc., fill their pockets. We must break with this. Social security must not be a milk cow for all these profiteers.
The previous government led by the right placed the bosses in the administration coundropped from 60 percent to 40 percent. The rest is "put aside" or used to speculate in the currency markets.
By making the truly rich pay what they owe. by effectively prosecuting the privileged who cheat on their taxes, it is possible to uncover sufficient financial resources to carry out a plan to build housing, daycare centers, health facilities, transportation. These priorities, moreover, are not in fact subject to "foreign constraint": the means of production needed to carry them out already exist, in France itself, and are underutilized.
7. Drive the agents of the right and of the bosses from the state apparatus and the management of the nationalized sector.
With the current situation in the police, we can see where submissiveness toward the reactionary groups installed in the state apparatus during Giscard's time leads us. Who can believe that their role is less harmful in the companies of the public sector? Who can believe that they have broken all their ties with the layers of the employers linked to Chirac and Giscard?
These measures, in contrast to those taken by the government, aim to reject surrender to the law of the bosses. Precisely because of the failure of the plans of the SP-CP majority, these discussions will increasingly take center stage in the present situation, together with the mass struggles.