CGT

Workers, with the support of the SUD and CGT unions have given notice of an unlimited strike to begin Monday.

The diminishing purchase power of workers due to stagnant wages and inflation is a cause for nationwide concern, with workers demanding pay increases and bonuses to make back the losses from sub-inflation offers in previous years.

The one-month occupation of the restaurant and parking lot of the Buffalo Grill in Viry-Chatillon outside Paris has resulted in an important victory for 20 undocumented migrant workers fired at the fast food chain.

In France there are 300-400 suicides a year directly attributable to working conditions according to Christian Larose, vice-president of the social and economic council of the CGT. Roughly one worker is killing him/herself a day because of the job that they have.

The migrants, mostly of African origin, many with years of employment at the chain, face expulsion from the France of Nicolas Sarkozy to their country of origin.

The Dreyfus of the poor

After wildcat stoppage last month at factories in Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, the unions (FO, CGC, CFTC and CFDT) could not agree to the latest offer before having taken it directly to the workers.

The workers were originally fired towards the end of January, after a government inspection of the factory showed that 19 of the factory's 64 workers. The worker's contracts were cancelled after the inspector declared that they were using false papers.

At least five people, including the head of the CGT local, were arrested last week. The arrests followed the decision of secondary teachers to join the strike. Ironically the unions had succeeded in persuading teachers to stop crippling blockades just days before the arrests.

The action appears to be a response to the sacking, ten days ago, of five workers for faute grave (gross misconduct). It is unclear how many of the 3000 workers were involved in the action, management has not specified exactly what form the sabotage took. The condemnation of the action by the CFDT union also fails to describe the action.

A march last Thursday was attended by over 80000 people. The 1600 workers are being represented by the UGT (general workers union) and the workers' commission. They have complained that as the owners are in America negotiations are difficult.

Members of the CFDT and CGT unions were involved.

At Orly airport 50% of flights were cancelled with many more suffering significant delays, at Charles De Gaulle airport where the two unions are in the minority some 20% of flights were cancelled with others delayed.

The upcoming elections will require large amounts of extra deliveries, postal workers are demanding that they be paid a standard rate for deliveries as their estimate of the number of extra hours required differs heavily from management's. Management are claiming that the average worker will have to deliver an extra 580 envelopes and will be paid on average 7.5 hours overtime per week.

Only one post office remained open in the town and only 2 out of 14 in the surrounding areas. According to the management only 24% of workers participated, if this is true the workers managed to create an effect greater than their numbers might have suggested. The strike was called by three unions: FO, SUD and CGT.

The workers from Sita, the second largest private refuse collection company in France, are calling for a 3% rise backdated to January the first and a further 1% from the first of July. 180 comunes in the region will be affected as well as three of the 20 departments in Paris.*

The 18-day strike was brought to and end with the CGT union claiming victory after the Port Authority agreed to hire five new full-time workers for the new terminal.

Valérie Boukobza, the headmistress of a school in the north of Paris, was arrested on the 20th of March after intervening to try to prevent the arrrest of a chinese illegal immigrant who was collecting his two grand-daughters from her school.

In the pletzl (Marais) and in Montmartre in Paris (pictured, above), Jewish anarchists had a real influence. In 1907, police reports indicated the presence of about 450 anarcho-communists, an enormous figure if one realises that the immigrant Jewish population living in Paris at the time was about 20,000.

A brief account and information about a CGT union strike at the McDonald’s Place d’Italie branch in Paris in 2004.

Security clearance was removed due to suspected links with Islamic extremist and other fundamentalist groups, and seven of the workers were in court on Wednesday, having demanded to see the evidence against them from the French Government, which has refused to detail any of the evidence against the workers stripped of clearance since it might compromise security sources.