BY CRAIG HONTS
PARIS - Usually at 9:00 a.m. the Austerlitz train station here is bustling. But 16 days into the national rail strike nothing is moving. Hundreds of thousands of phone and power workers, subway and bus workers, municipal workers, teachers, hospital and other government workers, as well as students, have joined the rail workers in a nationwide social protest movement against government plans to drastically reduce social security benefits.
The rail workers have taken over the Austerlitz station and are using it as their strike headquarters. Sunday morning, December 10, pickets greeted a team of worker- correspondents from France, Sweden, and the United States, and welcomed us into the general assembly, which was about to begin.
"Every day we meet at 10 a.m., discuss the strike, and vote on whether or not to continue," said Patrick Meynier, a young ticket agent. The meeting began with a report on the most recent government overture to end the strike.
"The Juppé plan and the contract plan are two equal evils we are fighting against," a ticket counter worker told us during our first visit to Austerlitz. The Juppé plan, as it is known here, aims to dismantle social security.
"The strike was prompted by two things," said Jean-Paul Danard, an engineer at the Montparnasse station. "The plan to cut social security payments and raise the minimum retirement age from 50 to 55, and the plan to privatize the railroads with the possible layoff of as many as 30,000 workers."
Train drivers can now retire at age 50 in France, a gain they won in 1910. Christine Bernard, a ticket collector at the Austerlitz station, explained, "What we have was fought for by our parents and grandparents. Workers of those generations died so that we can have what we now have. We don't have the right to give away any of these things."
Another worker said the government's claim of needing to cut social security to balance the budget has fallen on deaf ears. Only a few weeks earlier the government announced a 100 billion franc (US$1=5 francs) plan to salvage Crédit Lyonnais, the biggest bank in France.
Taking over facilities
The tactic used by rail workers and others in their
strikes is to take over the rail facilities and make sure
that no trains operate. The workers then use the yards and
stations as centers to reach out and mobilize more support.
Claudio Serenelli, a rail worker at the Gare du Nord station, described how they shut down rail traffic December 7. "Two trains were waiting - the Eurostar to London and the Number 80 train to Brussels," he said. "One hundred fifty pickets were on the platform as the CRS [French riot police] advanced toward us with the trains moving up behind them." Then the CRS charged, allowing the Eurostar train to get out of the station.
The strikers dropped onto the snow-covered track and ran for the city limit. "The CRS," explained Serenelli, "are only authorized to operate inside the city boundaries of Paris." Once beyond Paris boundaries, the strikers blocked the line with their bodies before the oncoming train.
The strikers waited 45 minutes to make sure no more trains were being run, and then returned to Paris to participate in the big demonstration being held that day.
While the government portrays rail workers as a privileged elite, their wages are actually quite modest. An Austerlitz worker with 15 years' seniority pulled out his monthly pay stub for October. It was 7,100 francs net, about $1,400. The Christain Science Monitor reported that the average life of a rail worker in France is 57, compared to the national average of 73.
Several strikers spoke with pride about the solidarity they are getting. A striker's husband brought pork chops by at Austerlitz. A butcher gives strikers 50 percent off for meat. During the demonstrations, rail workers invite people on the sidewalk to make financial contributions to their struggle, raising hundreds of francs. While some Militant reporters were at the Austerlitz station, a couple of older people dropped off a 1,000-franc contribution from a group of academics.
Support for other struggles
At the Austerlitz station, Dominique Larchet explained
how many of the pickets had left to attend a demonstration
in support of housing for the homeless and for jobs.
"In the outlying stations," said Jean-Paul Danard, from Montparnasse, "we now see people who are homeless and begging. We never used to see this before. Where are things going, what kind of society is being created? We have 3 million unemployed now, more than 10 percent of the workers. But what happens when we have to work an extra five years before retiring? It's just that many more jobs the unemployed will not get a chance to fill."
Striking bus drivers at the St. Martin subway station have transported homeless people to their station, covering their buses with big placards explaining what they were doing.
Ten thousand homeless people in Paris usually get shelter from the cold in the subway stations, which have been closed by the strike.
"What the drivers have done for the homeless is a real representation of the working class," said Jacques Villiard. Workers at various stations have opened up areas for the homeless.
"What we are fighting for is a different kind of society," Larchet said. "A job is not a privilege, a wage is not a privilege."
Another rail worker, Jean-Marc, added, "The rulers are afraid that the ideas of the French workers can reach workers abroad. In ordinary times we tend to just think about what is happening in France, but now we have to see ourselves as part of what is shaping the whole world."
"We are not rolling trains anymore," said Larchet. "What we are rolling are ideas."
Craig Honts is a member of United Transportation Union Local 1674 in Los Angeles. Also contributing to this article were Laura Anderson from Los Angeles, Pamela Holmes from London, Michel Prairie from Montreal, and Mary Martin from Washington, D.C.