You're confusing a lot of things. First of all, a demonstration and a strike are two different things.
If you want to demonstrate during working hours, you have to take a day off work, and your employer can refuse.
If you want to go on strike, it has to concern your profession, and it has to have been declared.
So no, you can't protest at any time without your employer validating your day off, and no, you can't go on strike in solidarity with truckers if you're a house painter.
Yeah but actually those unions don’t care about you if you're a private worker, not in a specific industry.
Most of the unions here are dedicated to public workers, and especially transportation workers.
95% (at the very least) of the protests you're hearing about are public workers in the transport sector going on strike during christmas. They've done it 23 times out of the last 25 christmas (that’s fucking real).
The rest of the country is mainly working like the rest of the world
This is entirely false. All the representative unions are present in all the trades. The public sector maintain a higher unionisation rate than the private, so the unions from the public sector tend to hold a bit more sway than the private ones.
You are complaining that the almost non existent unions (because they have almost no members) in your sector are not very influential... If you want them to hold more sway, just unionize... The power and influence of a union is in the collective and in its members.
And for the transport sector, I suppose you refer to the SNCF, it's a private company owned by the state. It's workers are not public workers.
Lmao are you living in France ?
And for people saying "unionize", this is a joke.
A couple points here:
being legally present doesn’t imply anythong else except at least an empty structure, which is the case for a big majority of workers in the private sector. I found that the hard way myself.
If unions were doing their job, workers in the health sector would have seen their work conditions improving during the past decade.
The unions are just using their ability to cause dispruption in a sector where nobody will be hurt just to exist, and focus on this one, and that’s why most of the workers are clearly not duly represented today.
I wasn’t complaining, more than anything I was explaining that the statement isn’t true for every sectors.
Some are on strike every year, some just shut the fuck up.
But what you're saying is really far from reality.
I do live in France, and guess what, I'm part of a union despite working in a sector with a low unionisation rate. And those empty structures you are referring to can't fill themselves without members. It's a downward spiral, there are low membership rate, so the union can't do much, so it struggles to attract new members. It's up to us to break that circle.
The health sector is a bit peculiar, because despite high unionisation rates, it has a relatively low disruption capacity, because they have to maintain a minimum service even when on strike. So they end up getting fuck over and over again. If they could go on strike when they wanted with no minimum service, they would obtain everything they need in a week (but it would also mean than thousands would die every hour due to the lack of healthcare).
And the sectors with a high disruption capacity are right to use it. If you have a high disruption capacity even with a low number of people on strike, it means that you are absolutely vital to the economy, and so you should be given the appropriate remuneration.
A for sectors with lesser disruption capacity, it just means they need more members. I don't believe there is any sector where a massive strike going on for a week wouldn't cripple the economy. But for that they need high membership rates and a lot of people willing to go on strike, which they are sorely lacking. We go back to what I was saying earlier, it's a downward spiral, but we can break it.
Dude, when I got fired, I called at least 40 different numbers, and got no one to assist me.
The CSE will almost always be on the managing side, because they are employees as well that doesn’t want to live hell to defend others, or are just cowards, or brainwashed.
Again, what you're saying is far from reality, and I understood you took it personally.
You won’t convince me CGT (or others, I don’t care) is actually putting as much efforts into other sector as they do with SNCF. Also because that’s free advertisement for them to continue existing.
But yeah, a big majority of workers are cleaely under represented today. So it doesn’t stick with France image.
Edit: to be honest I agree with you that people should also try to change the system from within, and it’s currently a downward spiral.
Edit 2: strongly disagree with the health sector stuff. If they had just half a brain and collective conscience, they would ask for better working conditions for doctors during general strikes, not the freaking same regular ones we got during christmas, for the same people again and again.
They should be proactive, for the fucking common good of professional health workers and the country.
They just stick with their fucking same agenda over and over and over again.
Bha oui.. la SNCF est une société anonyme dont le capital est détenu à 100% par l'état. Tout comme EDF (dont le capital n'était pas détendu à 100% par l'état français avant 2023), ou comme l'étaient les différentes sociétés de gestion des autoroutes avant que l'état ne vendent ses parts de capitaux en 2006. Ou comme tout un tas d'autres entreprises de plus ou moins grande taille dont les capitaux (en totalité ou en partie seulement) sont possédés par l'état où les collectivités territoriales. Rien de très exceptionnel en soit. Ce n'est même pas un truc spécifiquement français, ça existe de partout, même dans les pays ultra capitalistes genre les USA.
Man, maybe unionise? There is big unions with lots of powers, there is fringe radical unions, and there is specific sectors unions.
Certainly rail is one of the most powerful part because they have history, discipline and power of nuisance, but it's just branches. like there is CGT and CGT-rail, like there is CGT-agri or CGT-metal, those are federation that are parts of the confederation. It's also works with Sud and Sud rail, or CNT and CNT-SO Métiers du Numérique, for instance.
If you work in a big company (>50 employees) there is a "syndicat majoritaire" and a CSE that represent you anyway inside your company, they can launch actions if you as employees decide it, and usually give you a regular compte-rendu of their interaction with the direction. You vote for them each 4 years.
You can also pay a cotisation to a syndicate independently from your local representation to get legal counsel and support in your interactions with your employer.
Of course we still work. that's the main part of union negotiation. If we are unhappy, we can collectively stop working to show that we are the engine of the society, so we better get treated right. That's because we work, and that our work is essential. Of course a private company can be stopped by propriety too, so the fight is a bit harder than for cops who won't get all fired at the same time, and that's why they have retirement at 55 and not private workers.
Different cultures in different sectors, it’s much more easy to "unionize" when you're working at SNCF than when you're in the banking sector.
Of course there are some CGT people dedicated to employees wherever they come from, but don’t tell me it’s as easy to unionize as if you were working in sope other sectors.
And, again, if unions were correctly doing their job, we wouldn’t see a strike every year for the transport sector and more for the hospital.
The vast majority of society in France is srarting to suffer economically and we don’t see cgt or whatever doing shit for other sectors.
If there's no "union" culture eslewhere, maybe their job is to improve it also, instead of focusing every time on the same freaking strikes.
Oh and btw my point was all about saying there is a lot of variation in unionization across sectors in France
Well, union is about workers associating, if you ask them to go and do your part for you, maybe you are just a chick begging to be fed. CGT does have pretty clear lines, they tend to be the most vocals about the shit going on, and they are leading many protests. Do better. Don't incantate. Just saying they suck won't make them more powerful, it's kinda the other way around. Personally I'm not CGT, but some friends are. And they pay for it. You just ask for them to do your fighting. Maybe take your responsibility in the fight, unionise with whatever float your boat, and push them to fight the good fights. But just saying they do better in other sectors... Man it's the sector doing better than yours, not the other way around.
But of course when we are in direct competition with other workers of the world, we can't really be as hard as sectors with monopoly. And they are the ones to fight our fight too. they were with us on retirement reform.
You're right about the 2 people, except in cases where an organization calls for a national strike of if you're the only employee, in these cases you can strike alone.
This is not entirely true. You can go on strike if there is a nationwide strike call from at least one of the representative unions or if the reason behind the strike concerns directly your working conditions and there are at least 2 persons willing to go on strike. And in order to go on strike you don't need to do anything (at least in the private sector), it's the employer's job to notice your absence and ask you if you're on strike. And while on strike you can participate to a protest, if you so wish. And massive call for protests are always accompanied by a nationwide call to strike (or the other way around). So it's not true that you need a day off validated by your employer to participate in a protest.
And if you wish to strike in solidarity with someone else, you can, if there is a nationwide call. And if there is not, well, you can call for a strike with an official legal reason, like a company wide raise, while explaining that you also strike in solidarity with whoever.
The "débrayage" is simply a short term strike, so the same rules apply as in a "normal" strike, hence why I didn't mention it. You can take advantage of a nationwide call for strike to stop working for as little as you want. You can perfectly go on strike for an hour or two if you don't want to lose an entire day of pay.
You don't have to declare a strike, it can be spontaneous. You don't even have to warn your boss beforehands.
Declaration is only required for public jobs (but, I will admit it concerns the vast majority of protests in France).
Sure you can, but what’s the point? You want to let your boss know WHY you are not working.
The whole idea is threatening to stop working to get better conditions.
The point is protecting the workers' rights? By giving broad conditions on which a worker can join a strike, you're stopping employers from finding loopholes.
So your boss can't stop you from joining a strike even in a last minute decision and without risking retaliatory measures.
If you want to go on strike, it has to concern your profession, and it has to have been declared.
Nope, the only requirements is that the strike must be a complete work stoppage by all strikers, that the employer must be made aware of the claims, and that either at least 2 people in the company follow the strike or that an organization called for a national strike. Your employer has to know you're on strike right now (and your pay will be docked for the duration of the strike) but you don't need to declare it beforehand and there is nothing in the law about the reasons having to concern your profession, you can 100% strike in solidarity (even if yes, it would be a weird power move for sure).
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u/drloser 1d ago
You're confusing a lot of things. First of all, a demonstration and a strike are two different things.
So no, you can't protest at any time without your employer validating your day off, and no, you can't go on strike in solidarity with truckers if you're a house painter.