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French Lessons for U.S. Workers
The world watches as France once again erupts in protests, demonstrations, and strikes. So much is at stake. If France's corporate-dominated government is able to increase the retirement age, other governments will be empowered to follow through with their plans to do the same.
If labor, student, and community groups succeed in stopping the pension reform -- or toppling the government -- workers in other countries will likewise be inspired to fight back and organize in the French fashion.
The worldwide recession has encouraged business-focused governments to pursue the kind of anti-worker policies they've been discussing for years. There is common agreement among these governments on a global scale as to the necessity for these polices. Working people disagree.
There have already been massive demonstrations or general strikes in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere. In England, massive cuts to the public sector -- 500,000 job cuts -- have been announced that could cause a similar backlash.
In the United States, President Obama has formed his Deficit Reduction Commission, which has in its sights Social Security and Medicare. The Los Angles Times reports:
"Social Security is one of several areas being eyed by the panel [deficit reduction commission] for changes...other commission targets include Medicare, defense spending and a range of tax policies..." (September 29, 2010).
Obama's commission will report its "findings" sometime after the November elections, possibly as early as December 1st. In this way, the public will have no immediate recourse to punish the House and Senate members involved in these closed-door sessions, which will open the door to massive spending cuts in social programs.
This backroom, undemocratic scheming is happening all over Europe, with incredible implications: enormous changes are happening to nations with zero input from the population; no voting is taking place over these policies, they are simply being pushed through.
But France is changing everything. French workers stopped a conservative government in 1995 from implementing a similar reform -- they are confident that they can stop this one too.
The French working class is busting a myth broadcasted from governments everywhere, that massive spending cuts are "necessary" and worse, "inevitable," no matter how unpopular (undemocratic). In France, 71 percent of the population supports the unions' opposition to raising the retirement age. And given that the inequalities in wealth have been growing for the past several decades throughout Europe and the U.S., an obvious alternative to lowering the budget deficit would be to tax the rich.
If the French workers can force "their" President and "their" Congress to back down, resign, or change nationalities, working people all over the world will be inspired to do likewise, even in the United States.
The French government has not yet backed down as workers have shut down oil refineries, railways, and government services on a broad scale. High school and university students are shutting down their schools; massive demonstrations have been held as public support for the strikes remains high, as does hate for the government.
Instead of defusing the movement, the French government's obstinacy has only radicalized it. Workers across France are calling for an indefinite general strike -- paralyzing the country -- until the government backs down, or crumbles.
If this happens, the powerlessness that workers feel in the United States and England will melt away: seeing their potential power realized in another country inevitably inspires confidence. This is one reason why the U.S. mainstream media wants the French government to push through the unpopular measures.
Labor unions in the United States need to educate their members and the community at large about the intentions of Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission as well as the Democrats in general. The same unions that are the backbone of the French movement are also very powerful in the United States: public sector workers, teachers, bus and truck drivers, dockworkers, railway workers, etc.
A solution to the U.S. deficit problem also needs to be proposed by these unions, who, like those in France, must unite in coalitions to demand that taxes be raised on the wealthy and corporations, instead of cuts in social services, pensions, and education.
After the elections the Democrats are planning to bare their teeth; working people should be sharpening their claws in preparation.
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38 Comments so far
Show AllWussie 'R US. We'd rather watch TV from our couches.
Yes, can you imagine US students being so forward thinking that they would consider that some day they may want to retire?
Students are key players in the strikes in France, likewise, here back in the anti-Vietnam war days. Also they momentarily appeared to be waking up a couple years ago (in California, at least), when they rallied against cuts in state funding for education. What's more right now the employment picture for young people is increasingly grim. So after the President's deficit-cutting commission comes out with its anti-working class report, how can one be so sure that American students won't be proactive in terms of the common good? Let's see, a general molbilization against against cuts in Social Security, Medicare and education and also against these perpetual wars? Impossible? Only for those who have given up
US labor unions don't need to PROPOSE anything. Proposing leads to capitualtion and every time unions capitulated their members lost. Unions need to DEMAND change.
US labor unions need to demand 1)eliminating ALL of Dubya's tax cuts on 1/1/11, 2)demand that Obama dissolve his deficit reduction commission (the catfood commission),3) demand that Obama establish a new spending priorities commission that includes stakeholders other than corporate interests, 4) demand that Obama increase the cap on Social Security contributions in order to increase benefits for all recipients, 5) demand that Obama end the Ir-Af-Pak occupation, and 6)demand that Obamacare be revised to allow states to start single-payer medical insurance programs.
Dubya's tax cuts provided unprecedented, jumbo tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 per year, and very small tax cuts for minimum wage workers. How many minimum age workers have been able to take advantage of the 15% capital gains tax ?
After Dubya's tax cuts expire on 1/1/11 Obama can establish progressive tax cuts that will benefit minimum wage earners rather than perpetuate Dubya's tax cuts that in the aggregate have deprived minimum wage earners of more essential services than they save them in tax cuts.
If Obama preserves ANY of Dubya's tax cuts, he will own them and his already gigantic credibity gap will further widen.
"The same unions that are the backbone of the French movement are also very powerful in the United States: public sector workers, teachers, bus and truck drivers, dockworkers, railway workers, etc." Not hardly. In the US, unions have been diluted, and demonized, by the corporatists. Raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations is not going to happen, barring a stunning epiphany on the part of the Democrats. Working people, and the poor, are viewed as parasites in the US. There would be no empathy on the part of the news-viewing audience, even though that very audience is comprised of working people. Democrats may bare their little Chiclet teeth, but no one will be scared. We will all watch as this country is turned into a cold war-era Albania by the Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, and their outsourcing mad corporate masters.
American's are purposefully doing with less, while the government and Fed are printing money to offset their losses and prop up the corpse of capitalism at public expense. It's a war of nerves that the government cannot win.
You are all missing the most important point. Will Bristol Palin win on "Dancing With The Stars" and what will her mothers' reaction be?
My god! Didn't you just hit that one out of the park!?!?
Anybody know who Bristol is sleeping with these days?
No one is allowd to sleep with Bristol (she won't let you sleep!).
Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission is working in secret to see how much they can get away with. Bush and the Rs were not successful in turning the SS fund over to the Banksters, however the Ds might be more successful.
Cooke writes a very good article and I largely agree with his points. However the unionization rates in the US are much lower than in France. The unions are much more co-opted and docile in the USA than they are in the France. The US public in general, including union members, are subjected to a very one-sided education that denounces anything remotely resembling socialism or social justice. The US media is much more one-sided and distorted than it is in France.
I agree unions must take a lesson from France, however the obstacles are greater here. I am afraid that Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission, after the elections are safely over, will drop a bomb on us and few will raise any fuss, except for phony blah blah in the media, yet no action will come of it and we will be robbed of our SS somehow.
I hope I am wrong
I hope we're both wrong. Unfortunately, once again it will the tea baggers and their ilk sneering, and asking "How ya like us now?" next Wednesday morning.
Or rather the corporate bankrollers like the Koch bros. who lurk behind the curtain pulling the strings. The poor dumb bastards of the teaparty are also victims. They, like many, are simply incapable of identifying their political enemies.
After reading my great grandfather's diary talking about his life as a union worker, I conclude that if he were alive today, he would look at today's "unions" in the USA and not be able to recognize them. Besides, in my state, the only "unions" I see as anything close to the principled definition are the anti-abortion and pro-NRA groupies shamelessly fighting for more corporate abuse.
What state?
Missouri but that state isn't alone. Most states fall somewhere along those lines.
Hate to say it, but two alternatives come to mind:
Tax the rich.
Kill the rich.
Never mind about my comment, I find your second alternative more appealing, in a velvet revolution sort of way.
Or the rich are going to have to pony up more of their ill-gotten gains, regurgitated as a minimum level income for retired workers, by having no cap on ANY INCOME taxed for social security contribution purposes. Why is 100% of my earnings taxed and 100% of at least 90% of us taxed but not a 100% of their earnings taxed at 7.65% and 15.3%(self-employed) respectively?
Good point Ray, but one needn´t go to Sinclair to realize what´s at stake. Last week Whitney had a decent article on the French workers actions (http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10222010.html) which might help put it into a better perspective and as far as property goes getting the attention of a government whose class war against workers destroys more property than some tires or windows is at times necessary. This is different than Greece 2 years ago. But the simmering tensions below the surface can either rise to the top influenced by hatred and fear (typical Right responses) or inspiration and solidarity (the Left´s best weapons). But the US has got to stop talking about it because the Right are organizing themselves daily while the Left debate yet again someone´s talking points (this happens all the time, by the way).
Well, Maggie, it isn't what you describe. You sound like a Thatcherite throwback to 1985. People have long since figured out that the pensioners v. taxpayers equation you refer to is a crock.
They can't "go elsewhere" and take their money. This is nonsense. The workers are the source of wealth. If the wealthy people actually left, we would all become less poor, not more poor.
"We can't afford" to give the working people a fair share of the loot, means "we" are the wealthy who took it from the workers in the first place, and we don't want to give any back. It is one big fat lie that "we" can't afford this that or the other. What "we" - the working people - can't afford anymore is keeping the rich in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. We can't afford their obscene incomes, we can't afford their yachts, their mansions and their jets and their wasteful luxury living and their destruction of the environment. We can't afford any of that any longer.
Do you really expect people to believe that everyone was starving and then the beneficent wealthy showed up to take care of us all, and we have better be nice to them and give them everything they want or else they will leave us and we will all starve? That is so absurdly illogical and ridiculous that it must say something about the political climate that people would even try to float this idea.
I propose recovering the trillions of dollars of ill-gotten loot that has accumulated in a few hands and outing it back into the hands of the working class people, I propose replacing government that serve the rich with governments that serve the general pubic, I propose an end to welfare for the rich. That is what I propose, and obviously there is no problem "financing" that.
I propose that "the kind of people who have enough money" - those who would flee rather than paying their fair share - go to work and make an honest living for a change.
"A solution to the U.S. deficit problem also needs to be proposed by these unions, who, like those in France, must unite in coalitions to demand that taxes be raised on the wealthy and corporations, instead of cuts in social services, pensions, and education."
Also, CUT THE DAMNED BLOATED MILITARY BUDGET, INCLUDING THE 17 "INTELLIGENCE" AGENCIES, NASA'S MILITARY PORTION, AND THE DEPT. OF ENERGY BUDGET FOR OMNICIDAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
OUR ONE TRILLION DOLLAR MILITARIST BUDGET IS NOT ONLY KILLING PEOPLE ABROAD, IT'S WRECKING OUR OWN COUNTRY!
RIGHT ON!
Bravo for the French. But don't expect the same from the US working class. They abdicated their rights long ago, and their unions are nothing but an extension of their corporate bosses. The macho, beer-slugging, gun-toting right wing patriotic American worker can mock the French, but the French have more courage in their little fingers than US workers have in their entire fat bodies.
"macho, beer-slugging, gun-toting right wing patriotic American worker"
More than a bit of stereotyping here, no? Most union members (15.4%) are Black men between the ages of 55-64 (16.6%). White men make up 12.1%, and most unionized workers are in "education, training, and library occupations" (38.1%) with "protective service occupations" making up number 2 (35.6%).
C´mon, people. 5 minutes and I can get accurate stats about American workers. There are unions in just about every state and most would LOVE to have the energized, educated folk like those who frequently write here help them out. Idealizing the French and dissing your neighbors accomplishes nothing. If you are in a job that can organize, contact a like-minded union and organize them yourselves. United Electrical (UE) remain one of the most radical, democratically controlled and progressive unions around. IWW have a long and brilliant history too. But even other unions have radical elements and workers who are otherwise dying to be inspired and are far more willing to work together than you think. There is almost no power in further isolating yourselves behind keyboards and carrying on with debating points and high rhetoric. Get out there and organize your workplace or bring in some organizers you can work with! The French did not get this far via the Internet. They did it job by job with tons of obstacles and no more or less committed "average" workers than are over there.
Um, you are denial mode about the reality of the cornfed American electorate. What donna said is correct. How do you uncondition a conditioned electorate used to standing up for abuse and more abuse? If you don't like to learn from the discussions here, then why don't you leave yourself and leave the grownups here to discuss the issues.
We - the intellectuals in the US - are the conditioned ones. The working people here are no different than in France. What we do not have and the French do have is intellectuals taking strong and militant left wing stands. That is the difference.
The French are more comfortable than Americans, not less, and so should have more reason to be complacent.
We are the ones missing in action, the conditioned ones, the timid and cautious and complacent ones, not the everyday working people.
Read what is on this page:
http://sudafpengl.zeblog.com/443828-pensions-and-social-progress/
Then contrast that with what politically interested people, the commentators nominally on the Left here are saying. Night and day.
The "working class" will, by and large, and, as usual, sit this election out. Activists and mobilized groups of the two dominant parties will, as usual in mid-term elections, dominate. The Right are better organized having cohered through fear and a lot of money from corporate interests who desire an even more favorable environment for their theft of the people´s resources. Thus, I agree that Republicans will probably have a favorable election this time. And I do think this is bad.
Now, I also agree that there is a good deal of misunderstanding among elements of the so-called "Left" in the US around that very working class. But this is seen most around the very young, the hyper-educated, and the keyboard warriors who are not representative of that working class. There are plenty of progressive voices out there who know quite well what is important to the working classes and represent them better.
However, I think you attempt to draw out false conclusions about my comments and those of some posters here.
Yank and Brit workers do need to learn from their French comrades and brothers and sisters. But we don't need to keep up this use of England as being interchangeable with the UK. This is something unfortunately which is so prevalent in England itself which represents an arrogance on its part, being as it is dominant in the UK. But Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are no less a part of the UK. Scotland actually has been the savior of all the UK in several close general elections and in movements has been very active on the progressive side. When real or old Labor was around Scotland was a Labor stronghold. It could be again once British Labor sorts itself out properly.
AD
Just saw this elsewhere and thought it might illumine:
http://sudafpengl.zeblog.com/443828-pensions-and-social-progress/
Very good, thanks. As much as people here love to blame the everyday working people, the paragraphs below represent what is actually wrong here in the US, what - or rather who - is missing here, who is missing in action, as well as the answer to the question "what can we do?" Contrast what is being said on that page with what is being said here at CD and everywhere else liberals gather.
Excerpt:
If we'd listened to the bosses, children would still be working in the mines
Social progress has been part of human history. In opposition to the employers and governments who complained that it would bring down ruin on all our heads, it was popular struggle that won the abolition of the most violent forms of labour exploitation, such as slavery, indentured labour and child labour. Over time, this process has brought a progressive reduction in the proportion of most people's lives that has to be devoted to earning a living. In most industrialised countries the past two centuries have seen reductions first in the total daily hours worked, then in weekly labour time. Since the 1930s in France we have seen the introduction of paid holidays and pensions, with the retirement age first at 65 and then at 60. More recently still, we have won the introduction of the 35-hour week for many employees. It has also become generally accepted that people can and should spend more time in further education and training.
The record of the past shows that social progress is possible. The overall reduction in the total time spent working has also gone hand-in-hand with a huge increase in the wealth of our society, made possible by technological progress. Over the past hundred years or so the hourly productivity of the average worker has been multiplied by 30: while total output has been multiplied by a factor of 15, average labour time has been cut by around a half. Average hours worked per year went from 2,695 hours per year in 1896 to 1,441 in 2004.
This means that the wealth generated by a given number of people in employment is sufficient to support a higher number of people who are not working, even as overall living standards have improved and working time has gone down. This social progress must continue: France's official Pensions Orientation Council (COR), which brings together representatives of the state, the employers and the unions, bases its projections on a continuing increase in labour productivity of between 1.5 and 1.8% per year, which is slightly lower than the long-term trend over the past two centuries.
Such productivity growth does not necessarily have to imply an increase in production, with a concomitant exhaustion of our planet's limited resources. Instead, gains in the amount of wealth produced per hour can be used to reduce working hours, and increase the share of the socialised element in wages, ie spending on health, pensions and unemployment benefits.
"If this happens, the powerlessness that workers feel in the United States and England will melt away: seeing their potential power realized in another country inevitably inspires confidence."
Progressive and liberal writers almost always call the working class "they" and call the government and ruling class "we."
"We should get out of Iraq" for example - referring to actions by the ruling class with "we."
"They should start going on strike." Referring to actions by the working class with "they."
It should read "French lessons for us," should it not? Which side is the author on?
"It should read "French lessons for us," should it not? Which side is the author on?"
The working class in most nations get it while the working class in the USA are unable to so I think that the title is still correct.
The title is correct if the author does not think of himself as working class, yes.
It would then be the author who does not get it, not "they" who don't get it.
I don't think that the workers in Europe get it anymore than we do here, and they have less cause for resistance than we do. But what the people in Europe do have, and that we do not, is a small cadre of people in a militant Left speaking in contradiction to the ruling class narrative. Here the Left has been ruthlessly targeted and purged. That is the only ting missing here. It need not be big to have a big effect, but their does need to be a Left. We need to restore that, and we need to do it soon. The battle for the creation of a newly emergent Left - a relatively small but active group of uncompromising people free from the wimpy notions of the upper middle class and unambiguously on the side of the working class - gos on right here among the liberals and progressives. That is where the fierce opposition to the creation of a Left can be found.
Soon working class people will be taking to the streets and resisting, as a reaction to deteriorating conditions and the escalating predation of the wealthy in the form of "privatization" and "austerity measures." Most liberals will be - at best - not with us, and in many cases in outright opposition - arguing for peace and calm, arguing for working within the system, arguing for letting the liberal intellectuals handle things, arguing that shutting down the economy is not a good idea. Just watch. Hell, in Greece a nominally Socialist government is opposing the working class people. The battle is not between ideologies, it is between the haves and the have nots, and in this country intellectuals have been trained from a young age to admire, emulate and defend the haves - it is automatic, second nature.
TA, you need to visit Europe in person and see for yourself how the European working class workers think differently. It would shock you at first. As for Greece, the government is not really socialist and the people are protesting against their facade unlike in the USA where the American electorate are not only used to abuse but also fight for more of it.
Yes, I have. They speak differently, because they have access to narratives that people do not here and that leads to more clarity.
I know what the government in Greece is about.