Setbacks for French Left

Scan page 4

French steelworkers opposing closures in 1979 IN FRANCE'S local elections on Sunday 14th, the Socialist Party and Communist Party did badly. The Socialist Party and its Left Radical allies got 32% of the vote (as against 372% last June), and the Communist Party did no better than its 16% last June.

These results confirm the pattern of recent by-elections. Behind them, it seems, lies a political polarisation.

Last April 26, in the first round of the presidential elections, the Socialist Party candidate Francois Mitterrand got 26% of the votes. Relative to that result, the SP has not lost but gained.

But in the second round ot the presidential elections, on May lU, Mitterrand scooped many votes from the right and centre to total 52%. The disarray of the Right, and Mitterrand's claim that only he could forestall an upsurge of workby lan Swindale THE national steel strike in Belgium, now in its third week, was supported by workers in Liege last week when they staged a 24-hour strike on Tuesday 9 March.

Railways and motorways were blocked and pickets stopped people entering banks, insurance companies and the university. The stoppage was called by the Socialist union - the FTGB - and strongly supported by members of the Social Christian CSC union.

The steel strike is described by militant workers as a "fight to the finish" with the EEC over plans to restructure the Belgian steel industry with a loss of at least 10,000 jobs.

Confrontation Iwo days later Brussels was. for the second time in five weeks, the scene of a violent confrontation between workers and riot police.

5.000 workers employed by Sabena (the national airline) were attacked by special units of the Gendarmerie Nationale when they marched on the "neutral zone" - a group of government buildings near the National Assembly - after the Communications Minisiter - Herman De Croo - ing class militancy, defeated Giscard. In the wake of that victory, the Socialist Party was able to score its 372%.

Now the honeymoon is over. Over the last two months, strikes and occupations have swept through many factories - not, as yet, directed against the government, but rather to make good the loopholes in the government's decree making the legal work week 39 hours in place of 40.

No conditions The decree laid down no conditions for maintaining wage levels, and prime minister Pierre . Mauroy declared: "Work-sharing must mean wage-sharing" . In Britain, When the engineering unions won a 39 hour week, they meekly agreed that it would have to be 'funded' by increased productivity. French unions refused to meet them.

The airline workers were demonstrating against proposals by Mr De Croo to cut wages by between 15% and 24% in an attempt to reduce the airline's heavy losses.

Spending cuts

Meanwhile the Belgian Prime Minister, Wilfried Martens, has been telling union leaders of the government's proposals for reducing the public spending budget deficit. Central to these proposals are huge cuts in social security.

Although the plans have not yet been made public it is likely that unemployed young people and working women will bear the brunt of the cuts.

Union leaders have been postponing the question of industrial action against the government's austerity measures until the full budget is announced. But with three sets of austerity measures now enacted under the special powers granted by the National Assembly to the Martens government, and the south of the country at a virtual standstil, thè calling of united action by the major trade union federations to defeat the government's attacks on the working class must not be delayed any longer. have been less servile, pointing out that if the 39 hour week is paid for by wage cuts and speed-up, then it does nothing but save overhead expenses for the bosses.

It must be a straight cut in hours to create more jobs, the French workers have demanded. And mostly they have won.

As the strikes developed, Mitterrand announced "Workers need not fear for their purchasing power being affected by the implementation of the 39 hours"

As the workers have mobilised, so has the Right. Agriculture Minister Edith Cresson has faced angry demonstrations of farmers. On March 1, workers occupying a dairy were evicted by club-wielding peasants, members of the cooperative which owns the dairy.

The management had insisted on cutting pay when the work week was reduced to 39 hours, and on varying the actual work week round the 39 hour standard between 32 and 48 hours, depending on the tempo of business. (The law permits this).

But the peasants were not sympathetic. They invaded the dairy and moved out the cheese stocked there.

The head of the cooperative is a former rightwing minister, and the workers. .. union denounced the raid as a political operation.

Elsewhere too, the Right is reasserting itself. On February 16, some hundred scabs stormed a factory in Mitterrand Clichy occupied by trade unionists, and one of the workers in occupation was killed in the struggle.

The previous week, 160 scabs were led by 40 exparatroopers in storming a workers' occupation and seizing 700,000 camembert cheeses held in a factory in Isigny.

More recently there have been several cases of police evicting workers in occupation.

The government has annoyed and alarmed the Right. But it has got nowhere towards resolving France's crisis. Unemployment has topped tWo million, industrial production is stagnant, and inflation is running at 14%. And the government has shown itself willing to back down whenever the Right applies strong pressure.

Vetoed

At the end of January, the government's nationalisation proposals were vetoed by the Constitutional Council. Nine old men, all nominated by previous rightwing presidents, said that the government's compensation proposals - already once revised in an effort to placate the Right - were not generous enough. The government buckled under and promised to pay another The whole record of the government shows similar weakness. The legai minimum wage was raised by 10% last June, and the death penalty abolished last September.

But has decided to go anead wiln a new nuclear submarine. has kept military service at one vear. desote oromises co reduce it to six months. The Socialists' attempts to win anti-nuclear votes have been followed by a go-ahead for Six new nuclear power Extra deductions from wages have been imposed make good the deficit of the social security budget.

In January the me succier hour week dool open for wage cuts and for many manipulations by ine employers.

Struggles exploded, and are still bubbling, especially in the post ollict The general shape the outis indicated by the agreement reached on Feb.

22/23 for two and a half million workers in the Contrar to what the bosses at first, there will be no loss of pay for th reduction from 40 hours to 39. Bụt each . further hour's reduction in the stanaara week, to minuies pay will be lost. tion processes, five shits vil be introduced instead four, that the standard work week is cut from 42 hours to 33½ - this with a 4% cut in pay.

The unions also managed to holiday entitlements in addition the fifth week's affect them!

In many factories, disputes were provoked by the bosses' attempts to impose speed-up in return for the reduction in hours.

Some disputes have been about how the cut in work time should be organised -some railworkers, for example, have demanded an extra day off every two months instead of a reduction of 12 minutes every day. Elsewhere, in the post office for example, workers have gone on the offensive, demanding an hour's reduction even where they were already doing 39 or less.

• Pay has of course been a big issue.

And the other main issue has been attempts by bosses to lop off existing extra holidays 'in exchange' for the legal 5th week.

The CGT has taken a militant stand, in line with the CP's general policy since last May of a 'split personality'. The four CP ministers are loyal members of the government. But the CP allows itself a measure of criticism - thus maintaining its credibility with militant workers and at the same time trying. to keep militancy within limits that do not challenge the government politically.

So in the wage negotiations for four million government employees, CP 'comrade minister' Anicet Le Pors seriously trimming the cost-of-living rises; while the CGT (and also the Socialist-oriented CFDT) has condemned offer and ment finally reach agree refused to sign the agree March 10 CFDT has gone more than the CGT with the government's demagogy about unemployment appeals to employed workers to forgo their supDo scu "privileges' for sake of the unemployed.

CFDT leaders approved wage cuts in exchange for the 39 hour week, and were caught out when the workers' struggles forced Mitterrand to condemn the wage cuts. By speakin thus", CFDT leader Edmond Walt complained "the president of the Republic is giving priority to the purchasing power of the higher paid, over the creation of jobs Along with the general political polarisation has gone a sharpening of competition between the CGT and the CFDT. The CGT condemns the CFDT for its line on the 39 hours; the CFDT condemns the CGT for its support for martial law in Poland: and both refuse united action.

For now the CFDT is winning the competition. In recent trade union elections it has made gains - most spectacularly, a 12% swing at Renault Billancourt factory (where a militant line by the local CFDT in a strike last October was an important factor).

But most rank and file workers do not see why they should choose between support for wage cuts and support for Jaruzelski. The demands for united action will grow, and can lay the basis for a clear challenge to the government from the Left as well as the Right.