Open World Conference of Workers

In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights

Document No. 1: Report from Denis Langlet, French metalworker unionist, on the new French "35-hour workweek (with an introduction by the British Support Committee of the Berlin Conference)

Document No. 2: "Fighting for the Independence of the Trade Unions in Europe Today": Interview with ILC Coordinator Daniel Gluckstein

Document No. 1: Report from Denis Langlet, French metalworker unionist, on the new French "35-hour workweek

Introductory Note:

Articles have appeared here and there in the British press singing the praises of a law recently introduced in France by the Jospin government, with the support of all its component parts (the French "pluralist left" government is made up of ministers drawn from the Socialist Party, the Communists and the Greens).

Reading the press would also lead us to believe that never before has a new law resulted in so many strikes.

So the law, which reduces the working week to 35 hours, is presented as being a progressive step, but at the same time is supposed to have provoked several strikes, in the private sector as well as in the public sector.

A strange state of affairs.

In order to find out exactly what the new law is about, we asked a French trade union representative in the metal industry a number of questions.

That trade unionist sent us a written contribution which he has prepared for the International Conference Against Deregulation and For Labour Rights for All, which will be held in Berlin at the end of February 2002.

Denis Langlet is Secretary of the Works Committee at GEMS, Secretary of his trade union branch, and a regional representative of a metalworkers' trade union. He is also a member of the Workers Party, which is affiliated to the International Liaison Committee, which in turn is supporting the Berlin Conference.

The comrade is prepared to answer any question that British trade unionists might have about the law in question, which the ETUC [European Trade Union Confederation] refers to in glowing terms, even putting it forward as a model fit for implementation throughout Europe.

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Report from Denis Langlet:

On 19 January 2001, the French parliament passed a law titled "Reduction and new organisation of working time". Not surprisingly, the Labour Minister, Mrs. Aubry, and the rest of the French government have stated that this law is positive for the workers, for employment and for labour rights.

What exactly is its content?

Why did so many workers and their unions go on strike in so many workplaces when this law came into effect?

Even now, in January 2002, public sector workers in several towns are striking against the threat to their benefits contained in this law.

The simple fact is that this law is not about reducing working time.

This law introduces flexibility in working time and permits unpaid overtime.

a) This law creates a new definition of working time (Article 2). The law defines actual working time as the time during which the employee is at the disposal of the employer and must conform to company directives, not spending time on personal business.

Under this legal definition, the following times are excluded from actual working time: travelling time between home and workplace, breaks which are not defined by law or collective agreement as actual working time; for instance dressing and undressing times and business trips.

With this new definition, the employer can reduce working time without a reduction in time spent in the workplace.

In this way, they can increase productivity.

b) Before, working time was measured by the week, and the working time standard was a week made up of five workdays and two consecutive rest days.
It was one of the most important gains of the 1936 general strike in France. This new 35-hour work week law has removed all these standards. Work hours can be calculated on an annualised basis. In this case, the employee will have to work 1,600 hours a year (Article 8). Working time can vary each week from zero hours per week to 48 hours per week, or up to 44 hours per week for a period of 12 weeks.

The average weekly working time during the period or the year must be 35 hours (Article 6).

The rest period can't be less than 11 hours per day and 24 hours per week.

But since 1936, the working time upper limits have been 10 hours per day with two rest days per week. So, with the new definitions, an employee can work 13 hours per day (24 minus 11), and 6 days per week (Article 7).

These new standards comply with a European Directive issued in 1993.

So the first paid overtime is the first hour above the average working time counted for the period or for the year. For example, a worker could work 44 hours a week without overtime if his or her working time is 26 hours the next week, or 32 hours for the three next weeks.

The opportunity to vary weekly working time is very attractive for the employers. It allows them to increase working time in response to orders, to reduce stocks and by using this law the employers can reduce costs significantly without paying weekly overtime.

This law defines three categories of management, and two of them are excluded from the 35-hour working week.

More seriously, working time is no longer counted for the majority of employees under these categories -- they can work up to 13 hours per day and they have to work 217 days per year.

This is an important issue, because in France all engineers are classified as management, and the employers could ask them to work 2,821 hours each year (217 x 13), i.e. even more than before this new law was introduced.

With this opportunity, MNCs (multinational companies) can recruit French staff for their plant engineering department, commercial department and all the management functions, and relocate all the manufacturing and administration to low labour cost countries like India, China and Mexico.

Be sure that they are already starting to do it.

Wage freezes and reductions

Workers are requesting that their monthly wages be kept at the same level under the new law. But there is nothing in this law that covers this demand.
So, employers can impose a monthly wages reduction if they keep the same hourly wage. With unpaid overtime, it is a new source of cost reduction.

c) This law permits working time to be organised differently plant by plant , workplace by workplace and even worker by worker.

It introduces the individualisation of contracts against collective-bargaining standards.

This French law permits company-level agreements with downgraded agreements made at the sectoral or national level.

This law has to be put into effect through company-level and plant-level agreements, and these plant-level agreements can exist side-by-side with downgraded agreements made at the national level.

Clearly, the plant-level agreement can be more flexible than the national
collective agreement. So, with this scope for exemptions, plant-level agreements can depart from collective agreement standards.

Therefore this law is a serious threat to every single collective agreement.

]This is not the first attack on collective agreements.

Since the general strike in 1936, the national level was the main location of labour rights in France. Before 1980, company-level bargaining complemented agreements at higher levels. So despite low union density, bargaining coverage in France is high.

Each sector is covered by national collective bargaining. By contrast, top management want to decentralise collective bargaining as they decentralise business operations by outsourcing and subcontracting.

Now, they are trying to weaken trade unions and to obtain more flexible agreements.

The right of " derogation," which has been written into this new law, enables employers to make company-level agreements more flexible.

d) This law has been brought in to implement European Directives, and in particular the 1993 Directive on work organisation.

Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, every country in the EU, like France, has had to comply with the European Directives issued by the European Commission.

This Commission is really the European centre of deregulation.

The Commission has already reintroduced night work for women and the possibility of paid employment for a child under the age of 16, and even as young as 13.

The Commission issued the Directive permitting the calculation of working
hours on an annualised basis.

In fact, the European Union is trying to integrate trade unions into the corporate management plans to increase productivity and reduce cost. [See interview below with Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary of the French Workers Party.]

For all these reasons, this law is a new attack on the independence and freedom of labour unions.

In the framework of European Commission policy, this law pulls together
all the policies promoted on a world scale by the WTO, IMF and World Bank.

These policies have a common point: the reduction in labour costs, and to reach this goal these policies are trying to destroy the independence of labour organisations and to deny trade unions the right to free bargaining.

Denis Langlet Paris (France) January 2002


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Document No. 2: "Fighting for the Independence of the Trade Unions in Europe Today": Interview with ILC Coordinator Daniel Gluckstein

[Note: The following interview with Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary of the Workers Party of France and coordinator of the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International (ILC), was conducted by Alan Benjamin, a member of the Continuations Committee of the Open World Conference in Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights.]

Alan Benjamin: The European Union is often presented as a "progressive" model of economic integration in that it has incorporated a so-called "Social Dimension" with the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty. Proponents of including labor and environmental standards within the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), for example, often point to Europe to show that such an "alternative" is realistic and desirable. Is there any validity to these claims? What is the reality of this "Social Europe?"

Daniel Gluckstein: The main purpose of the Amsterdam Treaty - which followed on the heels of the Maastricht Treaty - was to impose the integration of the European trade unions into the framework of the European Union (EU), which is a "free trade" framework much like your NAFTA. It is aimed at dismantling the European "welfare states" and imposing the privatization/deregulation agenda of the multinationals and the governments in their service.

The purpose of the Vienna Summit, held in 1998, was to constitute a new European structure - the Committee on Social Dialogue, comprising eight representatives each from the corporations, the governments, and the trade unions.

The committee's avowed aim is "to associate all social partners into the ratification and implementation of all the guiding directives of the EU." The trade unions are to be "consulted" about policy decisions that have already been taken behind closed doors by the EU and the bosses. The unions will have no say in shaping or deciding anything other than how to implement the EU's anti-worker directives.

Under this "corporatist" scheme, every time a trade union seeks to enter into a collective-bargaining agreement with an employer it will be told that all decisions about its contract - about wages and working conditions - have been made elsewhere by the EU and this committee. It would mark the end of collective bargaining as such; the unions would become simple relay mechanisms for the bosses, mere tools for implementing the bosses' dictates.

This drive to incorporate the unions into the EU framework has been spearheaded, among others, by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). It is important for working people the world over to understand that the ETUC is not a union federation. It is part and parcel of the EU itself, totally subordinate to the EU framework.

AB: What is the relationship between the ETUC and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), of which the AFL-CIO is a member?

DG: The ETUC broke relations with the ICFTU about 30 years ago. It is a structure financed by the employers, who see it as a perfect vehicle through which to co-opt the unions and make them pliable instruments at the service of the corporate agenda.

AB: What stance has the Workers Party in France taken in relation to this "Social Pact"?

DG: Our goal has been to organize worker resistance to this so-called "partnership" scheme. While pressure has been mounting from all fronts to integrate the unions, the will to resist has also increased at all levels of the unions - top officials, intermediate leaders, and the rank and file.

The dangers of the EU's Committee on Social Dialogue have not yet been assimilated fully by the trade union movement throughout Europe. But more and more unionists are realizing that there will be no more room for independent unions and collective bargaining if the trade unions become prisoners of this Social Pact.

We see our role as promoting the exchange of information and experiences - particularly about the nefarious role of the ETUC - so workers are better armed to fight back.

We have been coordinating initiatives as well as the exchange of information through a liaison committee, with correspondents in every European country.

AB: On another note. The French government's proposed 35-hour workweek law has been touted by many unionists in the United States and around the world as an example to follow. Why are you so highly critical?

DG: The Aubry Law on the 35-hour workweek is a swindle - a trap. For American workers to understand this fully, a bit of background information is needed about labor legislation in France - which is very different from U.S. labor laws.

In your country, only about 13 percent of the workforce are unionized. This means only 13 percent of U.S. workers are covered by collective-bargaining agreements. But in France, while only about 10 percent of the workforce are unionized, 94 percent of workers are covered by collective-bargaining agreements. This is the result of the massive workers' strikes and mobilizations in the 1930s and '40s.

We have industrywide master contracts that cover all workers in a specific industry or sector - whether they are in a union or not. This holds true for workers in both the private and public sectors.

The French labor code is far-reaching; its articles have been fixed in stone. Everything from wages, overtime pay, working conditions, and comp time to pensions and healthcare is codified in laws that govern the near totality of the workforce. Every new contract signed in a workplace must have wages and working conditions that surpass the national norm. And everyone is covered, whether unionized or not.

The French bosses have always complained that this system is too rigid and must be changed so they can be more "competitive" on the world market. In recent years, they have trumpeted the U.S. model of deregulation and flexibility of the workforce. They can't wait to have a situation where only 13 percent of workers are covered under collective-bargaining agreements and where flex time is the order of the day.

Over the years, every attempt by the bosses to break the national system of universal healthcare, the national master contracts, and the national labor code itself has met with bitter resistance from the workers. You will recall that in November-December 1995 millions of workers took to the streets in nationwide strikes to demand the withdrawal of the Juppé Plan, which would have begun to dismantle the national systems of healthcare and Social Security.

So, the bosses decided to take a different tack. In the name of "fighting unemployment" and "creating more jobs," they have set a trap for French workers with this new Aubry Law on the 35-hour workweek. And they have succeeded thus far in getting the unions on board through a series of "roundtable agreements."

AB: In what way is it a trap?

DG: The first thing to say about this law is that it does not create a 35-hour workweek with no cut in pay.

The French labor code stipulates an average workweek of 39 hours. For every hour above that worked in a given week, the boss must pay 25-50 percent overtime pay. Even if there are only 30 hours of work to do in a given week, the boss must still pay for 39 hours.

Under the new law, weekly tabulation of wages is gone; hours are "annualized." Minimum-wage workers will not get a direct cut in pay as their workweek drops 11 percent to 35 hours. But those who earn more than minimum wage, or work more than 39 hours per week, will see a significant loss in income over the course of a year. And the great majority of French workers do work overtime.

Overtime pay disappears as the 39-hour base pay disappears and the flexible workweek is introduced. A boss can make you work 42 hours one week with no overtime pay, and then only 30 the following week - paid at 30 hours, not 39 as before.

There are other, equally insidious aspects to the law that attack many of the significant rights and gains won by French workers over years of bitter struggle. In fact, the national labor code as such is overturned:

Breaks are no longer counted as part of the paid workday. In the past, numerous 15-minute breaks - all paid -have been part of the workday, but now up to four hours of paid breaks are eliminated. So the worker, still on the job the same amount of time as before, now receives several hours' less pay per week.

Workday hours - ironclad under the old labor code - are another major change introduced by the Aubry Law. Workdays that began at 8:30 a.m. and ended at 5:15 p.m are now flexible; the bosses can introduce swing shifts, night shifts, and weekend shifts - all previously banned.

The bosses who hire new workers will receive a considerable sum of money from the state - that is, from taxpayers. The hitch is that the boss, who needs only to hire a worker for two years, will continue to receive a state handout for a period of five years for that same worker. But that's not all. The law has been written so that the boss doesn't even need to hire a worker for two years. If he can rearrange his payroll to demonstrate that he needs to lay off up to 6 percent of the workforce, he can do so while still receiving the government subsidy.

Every national collective-bargaining agreement is on the chopping block. Unlike in the United States, where contracts are negotiated every few years, contracts in France cannot be reopened unless both parties agree to rescind the contract. Before, the bosses could not unilaterally impose a giveback contract, and any amendment or change to the contract had to be agreed to by both parties. But under the Aubry Law, the bosses can reopen a contract at will. And worse still, they can modify wages and working conditions plant by plant. New contracts can be signed with wages below the national industrywide norms. The master contract is gone, as are the national collective-bargaining agreements that guaranteed decent jobs and conditions for 94 percent of French workers.

The government can now fire public workers - which they could not do in the past. Today, for example, there are 180,000 workers in the Social Security system.

And if there is no union in a given workplace, the boss can nominate any worker in the plant to sign the new contract on behalf of all the workers in the plant - what they call "mandatement." With the boss authorized to create scab delegates and company unions, it means the end of independent unions - which is a giant attack against the unions themselves.

So, as you can see, this attack is unprecedented. Obviously, to make the workers swallow this bitter pill, they need the full cooperation of the unions. They need to coopt the unions - and that is the meaning of the Social Pacts and "roundtable agreements" - which I believe in your country go by the name of "labor-management cooperation" schemes.

The Aubry Law is being held up as the example for all of Europe. The architects of the Vienna Summit's Committee on Social Dialogue want to extend the Aubry Law on deregulation and flexibility to Italy and the rest of the continent. And they understand that forging a "social partnership" with the unions is pivotal to their effort.

This is where we come in. More and more workers are beginning to understand the swindle - and they are looking for the means to fight back. That is the challenge before us: to help expose the swindles and fake "partnerships" - and to build a united workers' fightback.

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