Sud

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

The strike has caused the cancellation of 17 performances and 8 have gone ahead in a reduced form. The strike is strongest amongst workers from the Sud union, and to a lesser extent FSU. These workers are in the majority amongst lighting and stage hands and as such have a strong position. The FO, CGT and CFDT unions have already agreed to negotiations with management.

After a month of weekly one-day strikes the cleaners, employed by contractor TSI, at the Gare d'Austerlitz have returned to work.

Counter staff, sorting workers and delivery workers at the Le Louvre post office all took part in a one-day strike on April 11.

The counter staff are demanding the withdrawal of a new plan which threatens to slash the 100-strong workforce by 30%. In addition they are demanding that there be no changes to work schedules.

In addition to the dispute over payment for extra work during the election period, french posties are also threatened by the Facteurs d'avenir (Postmen of the future) plan.

Many of the 853 workers facing the sack protested outside the company offices before moving to Roissy airport where they protested at the Lufthansa check-in desks, Lufthansa is the former owner of LSG.

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.

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.

The unionist of Sud-PTT, Cyril Ferez, seriously injured during a protest against the CPE, 18th March Place de la Nation in Pars, has come out of his coma it was announced on Thursday by the spokesperson of the paris Hopital.

"Mr. Ferez's mental neurological condition is contintuing to impove, has has come out of his coma" said the spokesperson.

-The police force have opened the Gustave Eiffel High School, in Gagny, by force

-A hundred anti-CPE demonstrators, including the Revolutionary Communist League figurehead and postal worker Olivier Besancenot, blocked the postal sorting office in Nanterre earlier today

The Justice Pour Cyril website now carries a google English translation, and a large collection of video clips and freeze frame photos that appear to show postal worker and Sud-PTT member Ferez being attacked by police (see picture, above).

Cyril is a member of the SUD-PTT union.

The latest medical bulletin states that “there is a progressive improvement in his neurological conditions” but that “he is showing secondary signs of lung infections”.

More on the case of Cyril Ferez here.

This was wrong, in fact the unions had who met on Monday had only called for strike action to take place on the 28th of March. In the days since, individual unions (specific to their sector) have since been announcing their intentions with regard strike action on the 28th. This is a list of those union sector/ branches who will strike next Tuesday:

They can be viewed here.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses have spoken of seeing a man believed to be postal worker Ferez being beaten by CRS shortly before he was discovered. Here is a rough translation for libcom.org of an article from France2.

Rough translation for libcom.org of an article from Le Figaro:

Hospitalized in Créteil, the trade unionist suffers from a severe cranial traumatism. According to the Sud-PTT trade union, he "would have been trampled by a load of CRS", at the end of the demonstration of Saturday, at the Place de la Nation.

During the demonstrations of March 18 calling for the withdrawal of the CPE, in Paris, Cyrile Ferez,a member of the Sud-PTT, the postal and telecommunications authorities trade union, was violently trampled by a group of police at the Place de la Nation.

The worker was wounded on Saturday at the end of the anti-CPE demonstration at the Places de la Nation in Paris.