Text by French anarcho-syndicalists CNT-AIT arguing for a continuation of the struggle against pension reforms despite the law being passed by the Senate.
The current popularity of the movement exceeds strict pension reform: everyone knows that it is one more attack more against our lives and, all combined with glaring inequality (the rich, bankers and bosses never so well protected by the State), it is the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The pension problem is a small part of the whole and we must reject the politics of austerity completely because those in power may well drop a few crumbs on pensions but replicate these politics elsewhere.
In this context, it is obvious that only a struggle with sufficient strength can allow us to win. But the demonstrations are linked since the beginning and are always broadening their scope in terms of participants, but we are more inclined to say that this is not enough to bend the government.
The union bureaucracies and their increase of mobilizations days apart in time and limited to city centers may contribute to the weakening of the movement. Moreover, recently their own base has grown impatient and takes the initiative in some companies.
Since we are all affected by these attacks, and since demonstrations by themselves will not lead to victory, it is important to promote a form of struggle suitable for a gathering across generations and categories, bringing together workers in the private and the public sectors, the unemployed, students, retirees, etc.. Everywhere, general meetings must be held to allow everyone to meet, discuss and be involved in the fight already underway. Assessing this can help us choose actions and targets The struggle must be thought of first and foremost as a set of techniques, including the demonstration that should be the illustration of a struggle appropriate to our means, increasing the participation and support of the population, and bonds between people, while weakening those in power.
There are numerous types of action and some even offer opportunities for
involvement for those who may not strike at this stage of the struggle: walkout (stopping activity for a short time), going slow (some staff stops work, then resumes, while another part stops and so on), « leaking » (production being the least productive as possible), work-to-rule strike, flying pickets, occupations, blocking, food reappropriations, collections, concerts or support festivals, etc.. (this is developed in Methods of Struggle : Anarcho-Syndicalist Tactics).
Despite the speeches of barking politicians, despite police violence that we are
already experiencing and despite the procrastination of the union bureaucrats, whose role has always been to maintain social peace, we must break with the feeling of powerlessness. The actions of these days are perhaps the beginnings of a deep and massive movement against capitalist society, fundamentally unfair and unequal.
The emancipation of workers will be the duty of the workers themselves.
Let’s build the general strike.
October 2010
CNT-AIT
What we are not being told about French pensions
Text from CNT-AIT France debunking common myths about the government’s proposed reforms to pensions.
October 21, 2010
Life expectancy has increased, boosting the percentage of pensioners from 20% in 1960 to 50% in 2050. But the number of people paying into the pension system has grown steadily right up to the year 2010. Median productivity grew by a whooping 500% from 1960 to 2010. If that productivity is harnessed one worker in 2010 can pay the pension of one retiree just as easily as s/he could pay 20% of someone’s pension in 1960. One problem is that, even according to official figures, 23% of the young people have no jobs and can contribute nothing to anyone’s pension.
The worst case scenario of the Orientation Council on Pensions foresees a deficit of 120 billion Euros in 2010; that would be 3% of French GDP. There is a fact that the well paid alarmists want you to overlook; France is a very rich country. GDP doubled during the last twenty years and is expected to double once more by 2050. During the past thirty years 10% of GDP has been transferred away from wage earners and given to profit takers. That comes to eight times the current deficit of the national pension system. When pension deficits are caused by the transfer of wealth to the already rich, there is no outcry in the commercial media. By definition, those who own controlling interests in media companies are already much too rich to care about pensions. See.
The so-called reforms of 1993, 2003 and 2007 have already pushed pensions down by between 15% and 20%. This has forced one more million senior citizens below the poverty line. Half of the newly pensioned workers receive less than 1000 Euros per month. The group hardest hit is that of women who made sacrifices for the pension system by raising children at the price of interrupting their careers.
The biggest risk is that the contribution based system will be replaced by a capital based one. In 2008 we saw where that leads. Soon enough, there will be another mysterious, unforeseeable crisis and politicians will hand that retirement money over to the billionaires and their mega corporations leaving millions too old to work, too young to die.
Given political will, there are many alternatives. Deficits would disappear if tax breaks and subsidies for the wealthy were eliminated. Consider this number; dividends account for 10% of French GDP.
As so often, there are no « objective forces » making pension cuts an « unfortunate necessity »; there is only the greed of the rich and their lies.
Unconditional surrender or resistance; the choice is ours’ in France and everywhere.
www.cnt-ait.info