For a united movement against casualisation - Appeal of the National Coordination, Lille, Sunday, April 2, 2006

We publish the appeal adopted by the Coordination of high school and university students which met in Lille on April 1 and 2. Also available in French.

We publish the appeal adopted by the Coordination of high school and university students which met in Lille on April 1 and 2. We are not in complete agreement with everything said in the appeal. However, the appeal to orientate the student movement towards the workers’ movement is perfectly correct, as we published in an article published on Saturday. The concrete proposals in this sense are equally just. What is needed is to put them into practice.

We, delegates of university and school students from 114 institutions of higher education and numerous high schools on struggle, in a National Coordination meeting in Lille on April 1 and 2, reaffirm our determination to build a united movement against casualisation and to continue the strike and blockades until the withdrawal of the Law on Equality of Opportunities (LEC), of which the CPE [Contract of First Employment] is an amendment of the CNE [Contract of New Employment].

The aim of the CPE, the CNE, and previous contracts, is to spread and legalise the casualisation of labour by putting into question the contract of labour. Chirac pretends to have listened to our expectations. This is a lie. The maintenance of a trial period of one year remains unacceptable, since it is a step too far in that direction. As for getting sacked, it is not more justified than in the case of someone under the CNE: we will only have the right of knowing the “reason”, valid or not, for finishing the contract. Thank you very much, boss!

Modified or not, the core of the LEC remains: work for peanuts and shut up! Neither amendments nor negotiations! Withdrawal of the LEC, withdrawal of the CNE!

The fact that Chirac has promulgated this law has not broken our determination, on the contrary. Chirac’s proposals for modifications only show one thing: he is afraid of our movement spreading further. We will reply with an even stronger, wider movement!

This new provocation, like all the others, will only have the effect of convincing even more workers, casual workers, unemployed, school and university students to join us in the struggle. Minister of Education de Robien knows it well, he gave the order to the police to lift the blockades of the high schools: this united the teachers and pupils who have maintained their strike pickets, and our response has been to blockade even more schools, and even the country as a whole. The high schools have already joined the universities. In many faculties and schools, teachers and administrative staff participate actively in the strike.

The actions of March 7, March 18, and the historical success of March 28, show that millions of workers are ready to struggle, regaining confidence in their own strength, in the possibility of winning.

The fact that the Chirac government ignores our demands, the wide scope of the repression which it is using against the movement, and its willingness to link its fate, once again, to the CPE (using article 49.3 to promulgate the law) will force them to leave at the same time as they withdraw their attacks.

The days of action are only useful if their clear and stated aim is to build up for a general strike, which is the only way to force the government to back off. For this reason we appeal for a renewable general strike [i.e., a general strike in which each day the general assemblies decide whether to continue on strike or not] from April 4.

We are conscious of the difficulties in building this up. The students’ movement did not start all at once: it started with the students of Rennes who bet on their strike spreading like an oil spill and who blockaded their university on their own for a week. It will happen in the same way amongst the workers.

Therefore we will contribute, along with the most mobilised sections of the workers, to make April 4, proposed by the national coordination at Aix, and then taken by the trade unions as a new day of strikes and demonstrations, the beginning of a movement of renewable strikes.

We commit ourselves to support the movement of the workers. We are ready to participate in all sorts of joint actions that can help build up the strike. We support the setting up of General Assemblies everywhere, which will allow us to democratically decide the action to be taken as well as our demands. Because casualisation is not only the result of the CPE or the CNE, we commit ourselves to support all the demands which will be defined by the workers on struggle, such as the increase of wages and the transfer of all casual contracts to CDI [permanent contracts], for instance.

We support the appeals of local unions for renewable strikes starting from April 4, and we ask all organisations to issue warnings for all out strikes, at a local and national level, and to really commit themselves to the building up of the general strike until the withdrawal of the so-called Law of Equality of Opportunities, the CPE and the CNE. We make an appeal for the demonstration in Paris to make its way to the National Assembly. We appeal to school and university students to meet with the trade union teams in the localities or at regional levels to propose common action, common General Assemblies, and to consider all possibilities of continuing the strike after April 4.
On Wednesday, April 5 we appeal to all school and university students for a day of action aimed at the workplaces, linking up with the workers and their local union organisations: mass leafleting, blockades, factory and office occupations. The aim is to support the strikers and to promote General Assemblies in order to spread the movement.

On Thursday, April 6 we appeal for demonstrations and for blockades on the main railway routes.

On Friday, April 7 we appeal for a national day of mobilisation against repression, particularly with a rally in front of the courts.

After the Easter holidays, like after the February holidays, we will maintain the strike and the active blockades in the universities and schools. On Saturday, April 8 we appeal to the trade union organisations to co-organise demonstrations of workers, unemployed, casual workers, school and university students.

On Tuesday, April 11 we propose to all workers on strike, school and university students and the population as a whole to demonstrate simultaneously in all the towns and cities of France.

All together, for a renewable general strike, we will win!

Translated by La Riposte 

See also:

Join us

If you want more information about joining the RCI, fill in this form. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Read More