Labour rights in France. The CNT-Rennes Juridical Commission
Dec 30 2007 09:10
This is an account on what we, the juridical commission of the CNT-Rennes are trying to do plus what we have observed happening on the legal basis. It refects my only point of view shareed I believe by many in the commission. In recent years, the CNT-France ( the one expelled) has been more involved in defence of individual workers in Labour courts than it used to be. We tried so hard to be a union that people starting showing up with their own cases at their workplaces. In Rennes we already had a comrade working in an electronical factory who sued his bosses and defended himself. So more or less from scratch we decided to defend workers who demanded it. So far we had few cases and today we've got 4 workers to defend. We have never loose and this is not because we are fantastic, it is simply because the bosses feel that more and more they can violate the Labour Code. Sometimes they are simply too daft to read it.
The main legal tentency today is to completely reform the legal system: from a new Constitution giving birth to the 6th Republic ( with Sarkozy as the main thinker, imagine, that!) to the dismantelment of the Codes and the very first one will be, of course, the Labour Code. This was planned before the elections. But fortunately, the resistance against the CPE and the CNE created a situation where it would have been a bad idea to reform the Labour Code ( ne might argue that the CNE is a breach to the Labour Cose and frankly, it is). But it would contain, so far: the creation of one unique work contract, work hour will not be considered as work conditions but as a cost of work, right to strike will turn into a collective agreement between bosses and workers and this can ban strikes from certain workplace. On that point we can see that they will need to change the Constitution. Indeed the right to strike is guaranteed by the Constitution and with the hierarchy of the norms ( European Law - Constitution - Labour Code - Collective Conventions), the Labour Code cannot go against the Constitution. Maybe this is why the Sarkozy media used expressions during the last strike " being taken hostage". Another change will be the use of other Labour Codes in France. For example, if a british worker come to France to work with a british company in France, the bosses will be able to use the british labour code. This is, of course up to the bosses to choose which code is more " interesting". This case has already happened around Lorient with british construction workers. And we can imagine this scenario happening with bosses from places where is is close to nothing as labour laws. And an even more isolated situation for foreign workers, making illegal to defend them.
At no stage we thought that our action was revolutionary. We simply think that as a union it is also our responsability to defend individual workers when they ask for help. The way we function is not too bureaucratic ( no, really we don't need to ask the local and each individual CNT unions) nor autaritarian ( it is made of different individuals in various CNT unions of Rennes local): ask the worker to bring all paperworks related to his workplace, they we have a long discussion to fully understand what happened and how. We briefly say what we can do legally and also offer other means of defense. it is up to the worker to decide. Then we go through the proceedings, the worker building his file and learning how to do it, having access to the little material we have. It takes us an insane number hours of work. It is a fascinating thing, really. It is a fantastic feeling to get money out of the bosses pockets. We do understand that this will not last. The next Repubic will be the one where this action might even not be possible anymore. We still don't know what will happened to the CNT with the representativity thing. Maybe we will be ban as a union ( a probability) officially, no as a " political" organisation, whatever this might mean to us.
So this will then clearly state that the revolution will not come from people dress in black dresses with white rabbit fur on them.
Dec 31 2007 10:59
#2
Cases against the CNE made jurisprudence. We just got our very first CNE to defend last month. The good thing is that the judges ( there are always two persons: one representing the bosses the other one representing the workers, usually presented by a mainstrean union, often the CGT, those judges rotate because for each case there is only one judge, it is a bit the lottery but that doesn't mean that the one who is not the judge presiding the hearing has no power), so, yes the judges are now scared when it comes to the CNE because of it own nature, the CNE is anti constitutional thereby it clashes in court. This is another reason why Sarkozy wants another Constitution.
This is good stuff HK, always nice to see some victories.
The last I heard the CNE had been ruled illegal by all the courts except for the final appeal court in Paris, not sure if they've taken it there for that case to avoid setting a precedent.