I'm consistently impressed by French solidarity to just go on a strike until they get their government (or a company in this case) to start treating them fairly. I wish that could work in the UK, but alas, we don't do that here.
it could work in the UK, the union you want is this one: https://utaw.tech/about/ UTAW United Tech & Allied Workers although others are options too (UTAW is part of the CWU Communications Workers Union).
want better rights and working conditions: join a union, get everyone that you can to join the union, strikes do work.
want better salaries: decline jobs solely and purely on the basis of the salary not meeting expectations, the signal that they cannot hire because no-one accepts the salary forces an employer to pay more. leave jobs that are not paying well, and give that single reason in the exit interview.
both require the same thing... solidarity amongst the workers.
it doesn't work in the UK because of a lack of that, everyone is very much in it for themselves, and so there is no solidarity. but better salaries and conditions are achievable everywhere that there is solidarity. the starting point can be to join a union, but needs to include everyone talking about their rights and conditions and discussing unions.
Signal is a great tool btw... DO NOT discuss unions on work owned channels, take the conversation elsewhere. where I work embraces a healthy relationship between the employer and employee, but I've been at places before where merely talking about a union would get you fired some entirely unrelated thing.
oh, and be very prepared to fight for people in a weaker position than you. the basis of a union is that when you act in solidarity to protect the weakest, you protect everyone else too. the poem First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller, this works in the context of workers rights too... protect your trans, black, women, disabled colleagues, and if they have equality and fair treatment, then you almost certainly all do.
Solidarity? You must live far from actual France and have some romantic young rosy view on events far away. Almost everybody who isn't protesting is pissed off at folks protesting, since they block you from doing basic things in life like going to work, shopping groceries, driving anywhere or flying, taking train, going to gas station, going to hospital (I kid you not, you can be unlucky and literally die to negligence when health care sector goes on strike and nobody would bat an eye too much, and french public health care sector is not in good state currently). Cca half of my colleagues commute daily to work from France, so I have some group of quite opinionated citizens that express their honest opinions loudly outside of French borders.
There are often good causes behind strikes. What they actually do though every single time, is take rest of civilian population as hostages, make their life as miserable as possible for as long as possible, to create pressure on politicians.
See a little flaw in the logic above? You consistently end up in the crowd of hostages that take various pressures from side to side, often in matters unrelated to yours (say massive subsidies to diary farmers should be even more massive, nobody got time to improve efficiency or processes so market gets distorted more and more and local farmers are brutally incompetitive on their own), and you and your family suffers.
US population would not handle such massive things nicely I believe, not with so many guns and gun/freedom culture in general population.
Yeah you shouldnt strike because you could disturb those who like how the system works!! (because it works for them)
Solidarity doesnt mean being nice to others. Its awarnes of shared interests and acepting/enduring some pains for others. This includes understanding that you might not be striking today but you might in future.
You must watch a lot of french propaganda to have some romantic young rosy view on "hostage taking". Except for those who profit from the system's abuses (such as your colleagues) most people very much support the strikes. It's only the TV stations claiming otherwise, but look at the actual polls for example against the pension reform last year...
Can you name a single person that died due to health care strikes? No, because even when on strike health care workers perform their duties. They simply wear a badge or demonstrate outside of job hours. You're just spitting outright lies. However, we can name the many people (the number keeps rising every year) dying from job "accidents", which is one of the reasons unions and strikes exist.
Solidarity is precisely supporting others in their struggles. And yes, there is a lot of that. If you actually went on a strike's picket line, you would see a lot of different people from different jobs, including unemployed or retired people. Some people bring coffee or food, others materials to build barricades or wood to burn to keep warm in winter... Not everyone is as selfish as your colleagues who only care about missing a train and not why people are actually on strike.
All power to the Ubisoft workers, and to all other workers on strike.
In France striking is a fundamental right just like marching (assuming you make the demand to the authorities and it gets accepted). However what I dislike about the situation is that everybody strikes and manifests for his own core interest separately. I think we should really get into a more coordinated effort. Most of those strikes have failed.
You're not asking for the authority to accept you to march, you simply announce that you'll march, which, as a fundamental right, can't be rejected by the authorities beforehand unless there are serious reasons to believe that major trouble will occur. Though in the recent years several protests were forbidden by the authorities, it still is completely exceptional, and the marches happened anyway (and of course, major fights with the police ensued).
This is not entirely wrong, but is misleading. Yes, striking is supposed to be a protected worker right, but there are entire regulations to follow for that ("préavis" / "droit de retrait" etc). However, it was not always the case and for most of french history striking was illegal and heavily repressed. It's important to note, because in the past decade or so there's been massive retaliation against some organized workers in certain corporations and even in public services like La Poste. Striking is only protected as long as the balance of power shifts in our direction, and it's fair to say that the bourgeoisie has been gaining momentum while we have lost significant rights since Sarkozy, and our protests have been heavily repressed including maiming and murders by cops.
As for demonstrations, what you said is incorrect. There is no obligation for the prefecture to approve your request before you go on a demo. There is indeed an obligation to declare it but unless it's explicitly forbidden you are go. It used to be, not so long ago that undeclared demos were legal and i believe it was only under nazi occupation that they weren't. Sarkozy changed that to repress young people hanging out in public spaces by making 3 people or more hanging out together illegal.
It's important to understand that outlawing demonstrations in France (along with other obvious signs of growing fascism) are a rather recent phenomenon. Except for workers/ecologist or pro-Gaza demonstrations repressed in the past decade, the last forbidden demonstrations in France date from the 60s (in support of Algerian independence).
> It WOULD work, but alas, you don't do it. This is also why the USA has all those anti-strike laws.
My mom did it reasonably often as a teacher. The state made it illegal for her to ever strike again. Maybe not being willing to go to jail for refusing to work is why she doesn't do it? It's crazy to me that the law is basically "show up to work for whatever we decide to pay you, or go to jail" (via contempt of court, usually, if they continue to strike after a judge orders teachers to go back to work and fines them for each day of missed work).
So the other option is to "strike" by quitting and starting over in a completely new career. Enough people have done that that some schools are having trouble opening[0]. Somehow even that doesn't seem to raise wages. So -- for teachers at least, striking literally doesn't work. Enough teachers quit that schools can't stay open, and yet the wages don't rise to hire enough teachers. It's insane.
I was so impressed that I left France forever and Im never coming back. Couch activists like you have no idea the misery those constant distracting productivity-killing micro-movements do to the country in aggregate.
I wish you could enjoy them in your country and we wouldnt have to. But well, as long as we can leave France when we dont like it I guess it's fine.
buro9|2 years ago
want better rights and working conditions: join a union, get everyone that you can to join the union, strikes do work.
want better salaries: decline jobs solely and purely on the basis of the salary not meeting expectations, the signal that they cannot hire because no-one accepts the salary forces an employer to pay more. leave jobs that are not paying well, and give that single reason in the exit interview.
both require the same thing... solidarity amongst the workers.
it doesn't work in the UK because of a lack of that, everyone is very much in it for themselves, and so there is no solidarity. but better salaries and conditions are achievable everywhere that there is solidarity. the starting point can be to join a union, but needs to include everyone talking about their rights and conditions and discussing unions.
Signal is a great tool btw... DO NOT discuss unions on work owned channels, take the conversation elsewhere. where I work embraces a healthy relationship between the employer and employee, but I've been at places before where merely talking about a union would get you fired some entirely unrelated thing.
oh, and be very prepared to fight for people in a weaker position than you. the basis of a union is that when you act in solidarity to protect the weakest, you protect everyone else too. the poem First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller, this works in the context of workers rights too... protect your trans, black, women, disabled colleagues, and if they have equality and fair treatment, then you almost certainly all do.
saiya-jin|2 years ago
There are often good causes behind strikes. What they actually do though every single time, is take rest of civilian population as hostages, make their life as miserable as possible for as long as possible, to create pressure on politicians.
See a little flaw in the logic above? You consistently end up in the crowd of hostages that take various pressures from side to side, often in matters unrelated to yours (say massive subsidies to diary farmers should be even more massive, nobody got time to improve efficiency or processes so market gets distorted more and more and local farmers are brutally incompetitive on their own), and you and your family suffers.
US population would not handle such massive things nicely I believe, not with so many guns and gun/freedom culture in general population.
omnimus|2 years ago
Solidarity doesnt mean being nice to others. Its awarnes of shared interests and acepting/enduring some pains for others. This includes understanding that you might not be striking today but you might in future.
southerntofu|2 years ago
Can you name a single person that died due to health care strikes? No, because even when on strike health care workers perform their duties. They simply wear a badge or demonstrate outside of job hours. You're just spitting outright lies. However, we can name the many people (the number keeps rising every year) dying from job "accidents", which is one of the reasons unions and strikes exist.
Solidarity is precisely supporting others in their struggles. And yes, there is a lot of that. If you actually went on a strike's picket line, you would see a lot of different people from different jobs, including unemployed or retired people. Some people bring coffee or food, others materials to build barricades or wood to burn to keep warm in winter... Not everyone is as selfish as your colleagues who only care about missing a train and not why people are actually on strike.
All power to the Ubisoft workers, and to all other workers on strike.
wazoox|2 years ago
[deleted]
bionsystem|2 years ago
wazoox|2 years ago
southerntofu|2 years ago
As for demonstrations, what you said is incorrect. There is no obligation for the prefecture to approve your request before you go on a demo. There is indeed an obligation to declare it but unless it's explicitly forbidden you are go. It used to be, not so long ago that undeclared demos were legal and i believe it was only under nazi occupation that they weren't. Sarkozy changed that to repress young people hanging out in public spaces by making 3 people or more hanging out together illegal.
It's important to understand that outlawing demonstrations in France (along with other obvious signs of growing fascism) are a rather recent phenomenon. Except for workers/ecologist or pro-Gaza demonstrations repressed in the past decade, the last forbidden demonstrations in France date from the 60s (in support of Algerian independence).
Still, they'll never stop our "manif sauvage" :)
kevmo|2 years ago
It WOULD work, but alas, you don't do it.
This is also why the USA has all those anti-strike laws, especially regarding railroads.
reaperman|2 years ago
My mom did it reasonably often as a teacher. The state made it illegal for her to ever strike again. Maybe not being willing to go to jail for refusing to work is why she doesn't do it? It's crazy to me that the law is basically "show up to work for whatever we decide to pay you, or go to jail" (via contempt of court, usually, if they continue to strike after a judge orders teachers to go back to work and fines them for each day of missed work).
So the other option is to "strike" by quitting and starting over in a completely new career. Enough people have done that that some schools are having trouble opening[0]. Somehow even that doesn't seem to raise wages. So -- for teachers at least, striking literally doesn't work. Enough teachers quit that schools can't stay open, and yet the wages don't rise to hire enough teachers. It's insane.
0: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/us/teacher-shortage-lowering-...
tunnuz|2 years ago
phantomathkg|2 years ago
And the people suffer?
boudin|2 years ago
xwolfi|2 years ago
I wish you could enjoy them in your country and we wouldnt have to. But well, as long as we can leave France when we dont like it I guess it's fine.
rldjbpin|2 years ago
manojlds|2 years ago
gambiting|2 years ago
mattmanser|2 years ago
Right now, the junior doctors are striking.
Not sure what you mean by general population, but we had major riots about 10 years ago where some police stations got attacked.
nxm|2 years ago