Thousands of public sector workers go on strike across France

By Dilip -
Thousands of train drivers, teachers, nurses, air traffic controllers and other public sector staff have gone on strike across France and begun street protests against Emmanuel Macron’s latest reform drive. France’s centrist president, who has been in power for nearly a year, has so far escaped large strikes and trade union action, managing to easily push through an overhaul of labour laws in the autumn despite limited street marches.

But Thursday’s strike marks a new joint phase in trade union action – it is the first protest against Macron that has brought together civil servants and railway staff. The strikes will see train cancellations, some schools closed, about 30% of Paris flights cancelled, airport disruption in the south and some 150 protest marches across the countries. There are two different sets of grievances behind the strike day – both of which have the potential to cause a headache for the French government.

France’s large public sector, which has 5.4 million state workers, is up in arms about Macron’s belt-tightening plans, with unions accusing him of seeking to dismantle the state sector. There has been rising anger among public sector staff that Macron has gone back on his campaign promises for better recognition and remuneration and in fact seeks to slash budgets, rely more on contract workers, introduce merit-based pay and voluntary redundancies to cut the number of public workers by 120,000 over five years.

“Discontent and worry are spreading very quickly,” said Jean-Marc Canon of UGFF-CGT, one of the largest civil servants’ unions. Meanwhile, rail workers will use Thursday as the start of prolonged strike action that could last until June. They are protesting against Macron’s plans to push through sweeping reforms to France’s vast state rail system, including cutting costs by limiting special employment rights for rail-workers. From 3 April until 28 June, rail unions have planned strikes on two days out of every five.. read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/thousands-of-public-sector-workers-go-on-strike-across-france


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