French Protest Pension Reform, US Workers Do Nothing
September 7th, 2010
France has a population of about 63 million. The USA has a population of about 310 million. France is about half the size of California and has double the population. Proportionally when a million people rally in France, that would be the same as half a million here in California or if 5 million rallied in the USA as a whole. The largest protest in US history may have been the Woman's Rights March in April 2005 or one of the Antiwar marches against Vietnam war. The largest protest in the world was the Anti War Demonstration Feb. 15th 2003. But France has a good record of protests. When the French citizenry get riled up they come out in large numbers. I personally think that is one of the reasons why the French citizens have much better benefits that Americans. They have a shorter work week, national medical care, 6 week paid vacations plus numerous holidays throughout the year and a retirement age of 60. What kind of protests have we seen in America when Congress proposed to raise the retirement age to 67? Now they are talking about raising it to 70. Americans have been bombarded by right wing propaganda for so long they take it as a matter of course that they will have to suffer to keep the American economy running. It is as if American workers have internalized their own oppression. They think it is their duty to make sure the rich get richer and the poor have only themselves to blame. American workers have to wake up and smell the coffee. They are being taken advantage of. The system here has been gamed to make it harder and harder for American workers to have decent benefits, wages and job security. We need to start doing some French style massive protests to keep our jobs and benefits. Don't blame it on illegal immigrants, blame it on the corporate elites and their pliant politicians in Washington who bend to the will of the moneyed elites. Don't think that the slap on the wrist given with the so called financial reform will do anything. We need structural reform on the scale of the New Deal. Not half measures and cosmetic changes like we see being proposed now in Washington.
We need a national laws that gives 6 week vacations, 12 month pregnancy paid leave, 35 hour work week with no reduction in pay, $10 hour minimum wage and welfare benefits that kick in for anyone making less than $25,000 a year and a retirement age of 62. Also we need to pass Employee Free Choice Act to allow easy access to joining unions, an end to the Taft Hartley Act which outlaws sympathy strikes among other things. We also need national legislation to put workers on corporate boards as in Germany and a law restricting the ability of companies to pack up and move to locations where labor is cheaper by forcing them to pay for retraining and dislocation benefits for workers who become unemployed due to any such move. We also need to nationalize the banking industry and set up neighborhood coop banks with the sole purpose of generating loans for housing and small business investments. Large scale investing should be done on a national level by a national bank or state banks. Wall Street should be restricted to be an IPO investment pool and little else or abolished altogether. Investment capital should come through the National Bank. Social Security should be better funded and the rates paid doubled. There should be a real national health care plan and a national industrial planning office that is responsible to keep full employment as a priority.
Hell we need workers control of the workplace, but at least those measures will take us down the right path.
This is from the BBC.
7 September 2010 Last updated at 12:58 ET
Pension rallies hit French cities
The BBC's Christian Fraser describes the disruption caused by the strikes
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of France to register their anger over the government's austerity measures.
The rallies came as a 24-hour national strike disrupted flight and rail services, and closed schools.
Officials said 1.1 million people had joined protests, but unions claimed the figure was 2.5 million.
The activists are angry at government plans to overhaul pensions and raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.
Labour Minister Eric Woerth introduced the pensions bill to the National Assembly, warning of dire consequences if it did not pass.
"If we don't modify our pension plan, then tomorrow there will be no money left to pay the French pensions," he told parliamentarians.
Commuter woe
Under current rules, both men and women in France can retire at 60, providing they have paid social security contributions for 40.5 years - although they are not entitled to a full pension until they are 65.
The government says it will save 70bn euros (£58bn) by raising the retirement age to 62 by 2018, the qualification to 41.5 years, and the pension age to 67.
President Nicolas Sarkozy says reforms are needed to cope with an ageing population and the country's budget deficit.
Continue reading the main story
EUROPE'S RETIREMENT AGES
* France - 60
* UK, Italy - 65 for men, 60 for women
* Germany, Netherlands, Spain - 65
* Greece - 65 for men, 62 for women
The government is also looking to find 100bn euros of savings in three years, and is planning cuts in the civil sector.
Some secondary school teachers went on strike on Monday, protesting against plans to cut 7,000 jobs in education.
State railway operator SNCF said fewer than half of its TGV high-speed services were running, and there was a greatly reduced service on many other lines.
Eurostar said its trains between France and London would operate normally.
Some air-traffic controllers walked out, forcing the cancellation or delay of about a quarter of flights from Paris airports.
Air France said it was operating all of its long-haul flights as planned, but short and medium-haul flights had been affected.
Migrant laws
Amid the disruption caused by strikes, the Interior Ministry said 1.1 million people had joined Tuesday's protests - making it a bigger protest than a previous one in June, where more than 800,000 people took part.
Huge crowds braved stormy weather across southern parts of France, while demonstrators in Paris and the north enjoyed autumn sunshine.
In Paris, protesters shouted through loud-hailers: "Slave-driving? No, no, no. Working more? No, no, no. Fair reforms? Yes, yes, yes."
Protester Michel Prouvier told AFP news agency: "We're going to have old people living in the street."
Activists were also keen to maker a wider point, angry at the recent deportation of about 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) and a host of proposed laws which they say unfairly target immigrants and minorities.
"Pensions are a pretext for protesting against the Sarkozy system," said Adji Ahoudian, a Socialist Party activist.
Among those concerns is a proposal banning the full face veil worn by Muslim women, which was passed by the lower house in July but is now up for debate in the Senate.
Senators are also expected to debate a controversial new security law which would see recent immigrants stripped of French citizenship if they committed serious crimes such as killing a police officer.
The law would also allow electronic tagging for foreign criminals facing deportation.
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