After a successful May 1st, the “always united” unions are calling this Tuesday for a fourteenth day of action on June 6th to “be heard” by the deputies who will examine two days later a bill that seeks to repeal the pension reform recently enacted.
“We call on our organizations as a unit to meet with parliamentarians everywhere to call them to vote on this bill. In this context, the inter-union calls for more initiatives, including a new day of joint action, strikes and June 6″, write the unions the day after May 1, which gathered about 800,000 demonstrators according to the police (2.3 million according to the CGT).
MEPs have “the way out of the conflict in their hands”
This bill presented by the small and heterogeneous centrist group Liot “will for the first time allow the national representation to decide the pension reform by voting” on June 8, they underline in a press release. A favorable vote would only be the beginning of a parliamentary path, but it would constitute a slap in the face for the executive. “That is why the mobilization must be maintained until this date,” Sophie Binet insisted on Monday. For the general secretary of the CGT, who recalls that the motion of no confidence failed “with only nine votes” after the 49-3 vote, the deputies even have “the end of the conflict in their hands.”
In the shorter term, the unions are awaiting the decision of the Constitutional Council, which will rule on Wednesday on a second request for a shared initiative referendum (RIP). But, cooled by the first decision of the Elders on April 14 that had rejected this first request, they are cautious. Laurent Berger believes in it “more or less”, while, for Sophie Binet, “the RIP was written not to work”.
“Common Proposals”
In its press release, the inter-union union notes that “the government has announced the opening of a cycle of consultations without having precisely set the object or the framework.” Elisabeth Borne should send invitations to the unions “in the next few days” according to Olivier Dussopt, without specifying the format of these meetings, bilateral or multilateral.
In order to overcome the principle of differences between the “reformists” (CFDT, CFE-CGC, CFTC) who have already said they would go to Matignon, and the others (CGT, FO and Solidaires), who have not yet pronounced themselves, the inter-union does not take position, implying that he will participate. The unions “will remember their rejection of the pension reform” whose first execution decrees have already been sent for consultation to the social agents so that the reform can be operational in September. They will work on “common proposals that involve employers (…) in terms of wages, working conditions, social democracy, gender equality and the environment.”
Uncertainty about “after June 8”
If the CFDT goes to Matignon, “everything will cost more”, Laurent Berger stressed on Sunday that he wants to talk about minimum wages and conditionality of aid to companies, work organization, restoration of the CHSCT abolished by the 2017 work orders… For the CGT, “the government’s agenda, with the reform of the RSA and Pôle emploi in France work, the reform of the professional school, does not suit us,” warned Sophie Binet.
Therefore, it seems that the intersindical will remain together at least until June 8. But, if the Liot bill is not approved, “I am not going to tell a story, I am not going to say that we are going to have a mobilization day 15, 16, 17 that will make the government and the President of the Republic”, Laurent Berger acknowledged.
Source: BFM TV
