Faced with a brand new proletariat, union tradition put to the take a look at | EUROtoday

In a lodge, a battle is pitting workers towards their administration. At stake: the reclassification of the employment contract as a everlasting contract for fifteen of them, beforehand on a fixed-term contract. A CGT delegate has contacted a lawyer. Industrial tribunal proceedings have to be initiated. The activist seeks the assistance of a union consultant. The latter advises him to not act on this method and presents to help him in organizing a walkout. The prospect frightens the delegate: “Oh, the strike, me, you know…” He is not going to comply with up.

Such a state of affairs is way from representing an remoted case. The indifferent relationship to the strike is a actuality within the ranks of the CGT in lots of firms. The strategies of motion are thus evolving, even throughout the union itself. This is exactly the topic of research by Baptiste Giraud, lecturer in political science on the University of Aix-Marseille, in his new guide, Relearning to strike (PUF).

The creator has been working for 2 years on a “ethnographic observation work” throughout the Paris Trade Union of Commerce and Services of the CGT. He delivers the conclusions in his essay, revealing the method to unionism {that a} “new proletariat”notably current within the supply, cleansing and logistics sectors.

Rich in classes, immersion reveals the springs of militant dedication. Above all, it’s about “protecting oneself from bosses' authoritarianism”. “The union is primarily invested as a space for access to the protection and legal knowledge necessary to assert employees' rights”the creator continues.

A troublesome accompaniment

These service sector activists usually haven’t any “union culture” and discover themselves helpless within the face of the prospect of battle with their boss. “convergence of struggles” looks like a really distant idea. And fairly often, the strike is simply as distant. “An old thing”, “of fighters”, “Of civil servants”some unionists imagine.

Faced with this remark, the union's everlasting workers are finishing up long-term work of organizing and studying to strike. They insist on the significance of creating a collective steadiness of energy within the firm, with a class-based imaginative and prescient as a degree of help, and the necessity to acquire the belief of workers so as to mobilize and lead an efficient battle. A fragile train in sectors that accumulate handicaps so as to sustainably set up a union tradition (fragmentation of constructions, precariousness and volatility of the workforce, range of employment statuses, personalization of energy relations, sturdy anti-unionism of employers, and many others.).

You have 23.94% of this text left to learn. The relaxation is reserved for subscribers.