Trade union bureaucracy strangles French oil strike

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Trade union bureaucracy strangles French oil strike
By Alex Lantier
30 October 2010

Port workers at France’s main oil terminals and workers at the last striking
refineries voted to return to work yesterday, halting an oil strike against
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension cuts and his plans for cuts and partial
privatisations in the oil sector.

The oil strike was the workers’ most powerful weapon in a series of protests,
including strikes and high school blockades, which have staggered the Sarkozy
government over the last two weeks. Despite mass opposition to the pension
cuts—65 percent supported further strikes against them in the latest polls, and
another one-day protest is called for November 6—Sarkozy’s pension cuts were
passed by the parliament on Wednesday.

The unions are pressing workers to return to work after refusing to defend them
against police strikebreaking. From the outset, they pursued a treacherous
policy of appealing to Sarkozy to modify the cuts, allowing financial hardship
and the absence of resolute leadership and a political perspective to defeat
Sarkozy to wear down the strikers and force them back to work with nothing to
show for their struggle.

Five striking refineries (Gonfreville, Dunkerque, Grandpuits, Feyzin and Donges)
voted to return to work starting Friday morning. Speaking prior to the vote,
General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union official Charles Foulard said, “We
have a feeling that we are going towards a return to work. That’s a fact”.

The strike led to a massive oil shortage, and it will take roughly one week for
production to return to normal. As of last night, 22 percent of France’s gas
stations were still out of fuel, according to the website zagaz.com.

Pascal Galéoté, a leading CGT official at the Marseille ports, said, “We are
getting into a configuration to rapidly get back to work”. He noted that there
was still a strike call by port and dock unions for this weekend. However, he
added, “We will see how we will put that into effect”.

The CGT statement gave no details on negotiations or whether employers had made
any concessions on workplace issues. Strikers were protesting not only Sarkozy’s
pension cuts, but plans for a 40 percent privatisation of petroleum terminals at
the port. This would cause 220 agents to lose their public-sector status.

General Marseille Maritime Port (GPMM) management had no doubt that the unions
would organize a rapid return to work. Yesterday, 80 ships were off the
Marseille port waiting to be unloaded, including several dozen loaded with crude
oil or refined products. A GPMM communiqué stated that ships “will be able to
dock progressively starting at 8 p.m. today [Friday]. Loading or unloading of
their cargo will follow”.

At the Industrial Maritime Company of Le Havre, which supplies four refineries
in northern France, CGT delegate Fabrice Modeste announced the vote to return to
work. He added, “The guys are ready to go back for new strike action if the
movement picks up again”.

Jean-Louis Schilansky, president of the French Union of Petroleum Industries
(UFIP), said the strikes would cost the French petroleum industry “hundreds of
millions of euros”. He claimed that this would represent a “gigantic” burden for
the industry.

If Schilansky’s figures are correct, however, this would represent relatively
minor damage to French energy firms. The oil corporation Total alone made €2.47
billion in profits in the previous quarter, on quarterly revenues of €40.18 billion.

It appears that the strike will be seized upon to justify a major attack on oil
workers. Two refineries, Dunkerque and Reichstett, are already threatened with
closure.

Oil workers interviewed by the press at the Feyzin refinery were angry at the
government and at the unions. Thierry told Le Monde, “I did not support
returning to work. I would have continued the strike one more week, until the
day of action on November 6”.

Paul, a 54-year-old technician, said the Feyzin workers “hoped until the end”.
He added, “Retirement is deliverance for us. I have been breathing dangerous
chemicals since I was 18. Besides which, climbing columns that are 60 meters
high, it’s too much at my age. We are governed by people who have never had to
do the work we do”.

Feyzin’s CGT delegate, Michel Lavastrou, said “it was not easy” when he
advocated returning to work. Paraphrasing Communist Party Chairman Maurice
Thorez’s infamous call for an end to the 1936 French general strike (“One must
know how to end a strike once satisfaction has been received”), he declared,
“One must know how to end a strike, but it’s easier when satisfaction has been
received. The return to work, under these conditions, will not be glorious”.

David Faure, the French Democratic Labour Confederation (CFDT) union
representative on the refinery’s joint union-management committee, warned of
rising anger among the workers: “People are only waiting for a signal from the
unions to go into the streets. The next step will be the general strike. And at
that point, the workers’ response will be violent”.

Aware of continuing mass anger at the cuts, the government and the unions are
working to defuse popular opposition. Sarkozy issued a brief statement yesterday
saying, “Many concerns, often legitimate ones, have been expressed”. He said he
would “reflect” on how to respond. Of course, the pension cuts are to stay in
place, decreasing social spending by an estimated €18 billion per year.

The CGT’s Foulard claimed the unions had “won the battle of ideas”, explaining,
“The unions’ arguments about the possibility of having another reform…have been
heard”. He added, “We were not so far away from our goal. We just needed a few
more job sectors to enter into the struggle”.

This statement exemplifies the cynicism of the CGT leadership. The oil workers
were defeated not by “other job sectors” of the working class, who
overwhelmingly supported strikes and opposed Sarkozy’s measures, but by the
union bureaucracy. It refused to wage a political struggle to bring down the
Sarkozy government, even after Sarkozy sent riot police to attack striking oil
workers.

The defeat of the oil strike is a warning to the working class and a
confirmation of the analysis of the World Socialist Web Site, which argued that
workers had to organize a political strike to bring down Sarkozy and fight for a
workers’ government. The WSWS consistently warned of the treachery of the unions
and advocated the formation of rank-and-file committees of action to take the
struggle out of the hands of the union bureaucrats.

Even under the most favourable political conditions, where workers have mass
support and control a strategic sector of the economy, they cannot win a victory
through the existing organizations.

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/fran-o30.shtml

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