Last week, some retired workers called out Macron about their small pensions. He found nothing better than to say “the country would be better off if people stopped complaining.” Of course, this latest provocation was not aimed at the bosses and their union, who have transformed the presidential residence into a complaining office, to constantly get new tax breaks or pro-business reforms. It was aimed at the whole working class, which has to pay so the super-rich get richer! That’s his way to warn us that we will soon have new incentives, not to complain as Macron imagines, but to fight, against the coming anti-social reforms.
Given the dive in the ratings, some hurriedly leave the government. Hulot (environment minister) and Collomb (interior minister) went to look for other jobs across the street. Which did not prevent Macron’s “start-up” political organisation to begin new attacks against workers.
Ministers come and go, attacks keep coming
Whatever their names, whether they are “heavyweights of politics” or “technocrats”, left or right wing, the ministers who are about to join the reshuffled government will find bills already written on their new desks:
– a pension reform that will lead to decreased retirement benefits;
– gradual decrease of unemployment benefits with time to force the unemployed into accepting the worst jobs, just like in England and Germany;
– plans to cut jobs in the public sector threatening 120,000 jobs;
– layoffs in the national railways company to close ticket counters;
and that’s just for starters.
The new Macron government will attack workers, just like the previous one, so the bosses can continue to rake in more profits: €100 billion expected in 2018 for publicly-traded companies. So there is no lack of money to create new jobs, there is no crisis forcing the bosses to freeze wages or cut jobs. Capitalists are carrying out a global policy that aims at making us work harder, longer, and for lower wages. No matter the rise in inequality and in insecurity for a majority of people.
On October 9th, all in the streets!
Against this corporate juggernaut, there are examples of resistance from workers: local government personnel have started to mobilise against the threat of 70,000 job cuts; Ford workers in Blanquefort are fighting against the closure of their plant; postal workers in the Hauts-de-Seine near Paris have been on strike for months; vocational high school teachers are organising against the worsening of their work conditions; hospital workers have been displaying their anger in many local demonstrations; young McDonalds workers mobilise in Marseilles; and many others… And they are right, because only through a collective fight will we be able to reverse the current trend and make Macron eat his arrogant words.
Union confederations are calling for a strike against the government policy, on October 9th. Yet another interprofessional day of action will not be enough to make the government back down, of course. But for everyone who seize this opportunity it could be a first step toward organising, and show that we are here. We will have to fight together to reap the benefits of our anger.
