Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

French air traffic controllers’ strike strengthens on second day
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/fran-f25.shtml

French air traffic controllers’ strike strengthens on second day
By Antoine Lerougetel and Alex Lantier
25 February 2010
The strike of air traffic controllers in France spread yesterday, amid widespread opposition of workers throughout the European air transport system to rationalise the industry at their expense.
The controllers had struck for two days in January and they have followed up with the current four-day strike launched on Tuesday, at the height of the winter holiday season. It followed on from a two-day strike in January. On its first day, Tuesday, it hit the Paris airports, grounding 50 percent of planes at Orly and 25 percent at Charles de Gaulle airport. In the provinces, Pau, Grenoble, and La Rochelle airports were shut. At Lyon-Saint Exupéry, 43 of 345 flights were cancelled.
The strike also disrupted flights due to pass through French air space from other hubs, including Amsterdam, Brussels and Geneva. Lufthansa also reported delays on flights due to overfly France.
On Wednesday morning the figures were similar in Paris, while no planes took off from Rennes, Lille, La Rochelle and Biarritz airports and there were 44 cancellations in Lyon, 25 in Marseille and 34 in Nice. Air traffic controllers in Greece also struck on that day, as part of the general strike against the harsh austerity measures being forced on the Greek social democratic government by the European Union, in order to reduce Greece’s debt and avoid sovereign default.

Pissed Off French Dockers Furious About Union Busting Privatization Drive "Masked Mob Ransacks Marseilles Port Office"
http://www.joc.com/node/412123

Masked Mob Ransacks Marseilles Port Office
Bruce Barnard | Jun 29, 2009 4:09PM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online - News Story

Hooded attackers raid port chief’s office with axes, iron bars
Up to 40 hooded people swinging axes and iron bars attacked the offices of the Port of Marseilles Authority June 29 in what appeared to be a major escalation of a long running dispute over container handling.
The attackers ransacked the offices of the port director Jean-Claude Terrier, the port authority said in a statement.
The authority said the attackers, who were wearing port clothing, invaded its offices an hour after it had delivered a letter to union officials detailing plans to transfer dock workers from its payroll to a private stevedore.
Dock workers have been staging strikes at the container terminal at Marseilles’ eastern docks to protest plans to transfer them onto the books of private stevedore Intramar to comply with the French government’s port reform program.
Intramar is a joint venture between CMA-CGM, the Marseilles-based ocean carrier, and Dubai’s DP World, a global ports company.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/mars-m27.shtml
France: Port of Marseille hit by economic crisis
By Anthony Torres
27 May 2009

Since the beginning of 2009, activity in French ports has undergone a substantial slowdown linked to the world economic crisis. The World Trade Organization forecasts a 9 percent decline in international trade for 2009.
The Great Maritime Port of Marseille (GPMM) is the new (semi-public) business entity that replaced the Autonomous Port of Marseille (PAM) in a government decree enacted in October 2008. An autonomous port is one run by public authorities, local and regional governments. Some activities are contracted out to private companies, which generally have far less favourable working conditions than those of the autonomous port.
PAM was the leading French port in terms of volume, unloading approximately 100 megatons of goods a year. The GPMM encompasses the terminals at Fos, St. Louis port and the Marseille terminals.
The Fos and St. Louis terminals (located 50 kms from Marseille) handle container traffic, cereals, bulk solids and liquids, fruit and vegetables. The Marseille terminal handles smaller container carriers, cereals, fruit and vegetables, and also passenger traffic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4384543/France-hit-by-national-strike-on-Black-Thursday.html
France hit by national strike on 'Black Thursday'
France woke up to a day of nationwide strikes in both the public and private sector on what has been billed as 'Black Thursday'
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Last Updated: 3:01PM GMT 29 Jan 2009

(If you go to the websites of the articles, the photos belie the reporting.)

However, disruption to transport networks appeared to less than expected.

Hundreds of thousands of workers are expected at more than 200 rallies to call on President Nicolas Sarkozy to do more to protect jobs and wages.

Three-quarters of people and all the main trade unions support the day of industrial action.

The protesters are demonstrating against the worsening economic climate and rising unemployment in France and at what they believe to be the government's poor handling of the crisis.

The main bulk of protesters will come from across the public sector, from postal workers to court officials and a huge contingent of teachers marching against Mr Sarkozy's plan not to replace 13,500 jobs in education this year when staff retire or quit the profession.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7413967.stm

Page last updated at 23:28 GMT, Wednesday, 21 May 2008 00:28 UK

France braces for day of strikes

President Sarkozy shows no sign of bending to stiff opposition
French workers at the national rail company, SNCF, have begun strike action against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to reform public-sector pensions.
Workers from other sectors are expected to join them early on Thursday in a one-day protest to pressure Mr Sarkozy to reverse his economic reforms.
Bus drivers nationwide were expected to strike, air service may be disrupted and about 50% of trains are to be cut.
The strikes follow protests by fishermen that blocked French ports.
High-speed international trains between Paris, London and Brussels were not expected to be affected by the SNCF workers' action.
The transport workers are due to be joined by postal, utility and other public sector workers across France.
Job cuts
The walkouts are not expected to cause the widespread travel chaos of last November when transport workers staged a nine-day strike against Mr Sarkozy' plan to scrap their special pension rights.
The government and the unions negotiated an end to the strikes but now workers are upset over plans to make them stay on the job one year longer - for 41 years - before receiving a full state pension.

Original posting

April 23: Workers at France's seven biggest ports went on strike today to protest a government plan to sell dock-equipment management to private companies and take staff off public payrolls.

Sixty-seven vessels including thirty-nine tankers stranded at the harbor's entrance. Government officials, port managers and union representatives are yet to tally the costs of the strike. A 17-day walkout last year in Marseille alone cost Manutention Generale Mediterraneenne, the port's biggest cargo- handler, ?1.5 million ($2.4 million).

The ports plan is set to threaten jobs and unions say there will be "serious economic consequences" if the government doesn't back down on its port reforms for which they say there is "no real economic and financial necessity".

Port workers pledged to intensify disruptions after today's one-day walkout. The CGT called for strikes three nights a week and an end to overtime work. Ports will be blocked during the nights of April 24 and 25, it said. Le Havre will be closed for 24 hours starting mid-day on May 26.

By Antoine Lerougetel - World Socialist Web Site, 11 August 2007

On August 2, the French National Assembly passed a new law requiring public transport workers to maintain a minimum level of service. The new measure represents a historic restriction of the right to strike and is directed in particular against rail, bus and urban transport workers. At the same time, the new law gives trade unions the responsibility of organising and policing, in collaboration with the employers, minimum service levels in the event of a strike.

The minimum service law stipulates that transport staff must, individually and on pain of sanctions, give 48 hours notice of their intention to strike and that—after a week on strike—management may organise a secret ballot of workers on the continuation of the industrial action. This measure essentially hands over responsibility for any further industrial action to the company management.

The vote on the law took place on the last day of an extraordinary session of parliament starting on July 3, called by the newly elected right-wing Gaullist president Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP (Union for a Popular Movement). The session passed a series of reactionary “emergency” legislative measures designed to transfer wealth from working people to the rich through regressive tax reforms, the lowering of the age of responsibility for delinquent youth, and the reorganisation of university education, opening it up to market pressures and capitalist enterprise.

By Alex Lantier - World Socialist Web Site, 7 July 2007

The newly elected government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to introduce a law to establish a guaranteed “minimum service” in the public transportation sector. The measure, which ruling circles have clearly been planning for some time, is now being shown to employers’ organizations and the trade unions for consultation. Approved by the government’s council of ministers on July 4, it will proceed to the Senate for debate on July 12.

During these discussions, the provisions of the bill are being kept secret by the relevant government ministries, industry groups and trade union leaders. However, some accounts have appeared in the French corporate media. It is already clear that the bill is a major attack on the right to strike, aiming to suppress the rail and transport workers, who have historically been one of the most militant sections of the French working class—launching important strike actions in the late 1980s and 1995 and participating in the multimillion-strong anti-pension reform strikes of 2003 and the “First Job Contract” demonstrations of 2006.