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France: Students mobilise against destruction of working conditions for youth
Organisations representing French university and high school students (lycéens) have called for a week of mass meetings and mobilisations all over France, starting January 30, in preparation for a national demonstration February 7 against the proposed First Job Contract (CPE—Contrat première embauche). Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin’s project, supposedly a response to the youth disturbances that rocked the country for three weeks last October and November, will give employers the right to sack young workers without justification during the first two years after being taken on.
The bill setting up the CPE has been brought forward a fortnight ahead of its scheduled parliamentary date to pre-empt the feared mass movement of opposition to it by university and high school students and workers. The bill will come before the National Assembly on January 31. The student body will be broken up nationally February 4 to March 6 as staggered two-week holiday breaks occur on different dates in different regions, by the end of which time the government would hope to have dispatched the legislation.
The FIDL (Independent and Democratic Federation of High School Students), one of the two major high school unions, commented: “The lycée students are well aware that the government was counting on the school holidays to avoid this opposition movement. That’s why the high school students will be mobilising before February 4.”
The CPE, which would apply to job seekers under 26 years old in businesses employing over 20 people, begins with a two-year “consolidation period” during which the contract can be broken without justification and, therefore, without appeal or redress. The contract is open-ended—that is, it has no expiry date—but employers will, of course, tend to avoid having to keep workers in their employ under the limited protection of the existing labour legislation.
The government has been encouraged in its present attacks on work rights by the lack of organised opposition from the trade unions to the Contract for New Hires (CNE—Contrat nouvelles embauches) bill, passed in parliament last August with similar provisions to those of the CPE for newly hired workers in businesses with payrolls of fewer than 20. Bernard Thibault of the CGT (General Confederation of Labour, France’s largest trade union) has admitted: “We did not manage to prevent the CNE because we could not build a follow-on of the unified day of action on October 4” (Le Monde, January 17). Many saw the CNE as an open door to a complete revision of labour legislation that checks the unfettered exploitation of workers by their bosses and that enables the trade unions to maintain a certain peace in industrial relations.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/fran-j31.shtml
The FIDL (Independent and Democratic Federation of High School Students), one of the two major high school unions, commented: “The lycée students are well aware that the government was counting on the school holidays to avoid this opposition movement. That’s why the high school students will be mobilising before February 4.”
The CPE, which would apply to job seekers under 26 years old in businesses employing over 20 people, begins with a two-year “consolidation period” during which the contract can be broken without justification and, therefore, without appeal or redress. The contract is open-ended—that is, it has no expiry date—but employers will, of course, tend to avoid having to keep workers in their employ under the limited protection of the existing labour legislation.
The government has been encouraged in its present attacks on work rights by the lack of organised opposition from the trade unions to the Contract for New Hires (CNE—Contrat nouvelles embauches) bill, passed in parliament last August with similar provisions to those of the CPE for newly hired workers in businesses with payrolls of fewer than 20. Bernard Thibault of the CGT (General Confederation of Labour, France’s largest trade union) has admitted: “We did not manage to prevent the CNE because we could not build a follow-on of the unified day of action on October 4” (Le Monde, January 17). Many saw the CNE as an open door to a complete revision of labour legislation that checks the unfettered exploitation of workers by their bosses and that enables the trade unions to maintain a certain peace in industrial relations.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/fran-j31.shtml
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