Hot reaction. Tuesday, at the end of the demonstration against the pension reform and on the eve of the end of his mandate – he will hand over to Marylise Léon on June 21 – the general secretary of the CFDT Laurent Berger, responded to Was-Matin. For him, if the social movement against the pension reform has run out of steam, the confidence of the French in trade unionism must make it possible to obtain structural changes.
This day marks the end of the mobilization?
It is an evolution, we will continue to say that we are against 64 years and that it is an unfair and brutal reform. Our appreciation has not been denied since the beginning and we have reacted accordingly with the strongest social movement we have known since the beginning of the 1980s. But the role of a union official is not to lie to employees. There is a final episode which is played out with the Liot group’s bill, a little watered down, with what happened in the Social Affairs Committee. But the law is promulgated and the decrees are published and nothing has tipped the government.
Is it a denial of democracy?
While we have the possibility that Parliament expresses itself on a measure that will change the lives of employees, there will potentially be no vote. It is a problem. This law has a problem of legitimacy.
Has the government’s breathlessness strategy paid off?
Today, there are two ways of reading the mobilization: there is a form of fatigue and lucidity on one side, but on the other, we are on the 14th day of mobilization, the government would be wrong to believe that the resentment and anger that accompanies this reform are subsiding. This reform passed in the legal sense of the term but the pill does not pass for the employees. The ultra-fast application on September 1 is going to be complicated. But we have nothing to regret, we did our job and today’s mobilization was a bit pivotal in showing that the balance of power expressed since January is still there, on the construction sites of the situation of workers , salaries, power to live… And it is not Monday’s announcements on housing that will reassure us.
What points crystallize anger?
The question of the ability to live decently, housing, inflation, working conditions and organization. This movement was also extended in number of demonstrators, diversity of professions but also territories, because it highlighted employees who spoke little until then. Where the President of the Republic said, since 2017, that the intermediate bodies were weakened, he was shown the opposite. I think that many things can no longer be done without more consideration for the world of work. We are there today, there is a bilateral with the government, we do not know what it will give.
So has trade unionism regained its place?
The centrality of trade unionism in the world of work, the confidence of employees in trade unionism is extremely strong. The CFDT has had 43,000 members since January 1, which is unprecedented in less than six months.
Is it still possible to work with the government?
When you are a staff representative, even if your boss is not someone with whom you agree, as he holds part of the improvement in the situation of workers, you will see it. I have the same logic with the government. The idea is not to be buddy-buddy with him but to find ways to get improvements, so you have to go for it, without qualms.
And with the Medef?
The employers still have to agree to step out of the comfort zone in which they find themselves. Yes, there is a way, but the employers must assume their share of the responsibility, which is not won. This is where the game of three can be interesting. It is also up to the public authorities to act. Do you distribute the wealth? What are the conditions of employment when you receive aid? Wouldn’t the reductions in contributions on low wages be traps for low wages, which prevent the evolution of a wage scale? If we do not put social control through the staff representative on the conditions of employment of public aid, it will not necessarily work and the State must put a blow of pressure to force companies to discuss the use of these aids. We went to see the Prime Minister with a fairly extensive list of demands, but we want structural changes. We want pensions for all employees, including non-executives, we want to go back to some of the 2017 ordinances… There are a lot of subjects on which either the government is betting to move the lines and send back to the negotiation, or he will have to face the anger which will only grow.
What about the union?
The inter-union, from next week, has an appointment with itself. Will she be able to be mature and tell herself what we agree on? How do we act together and how do we accept each other different in terms of practices and objectives, or do we go back to something more classic, each at home and struggling? I think the most useful for workers is the first option. Which is also not to pretend that there is no divergence. We have an intersyndicale on June 13 to see how we work together.
Personally, politics is definitely no?
From June 21 in the evening I will enter a phase of silence because I do not want to disturb Marylise Léon and the CFDT. I believe that there is a lot to be done on the battles that have always been mine, the fight against inequalities, the environmental issue. I have a lot of possible areas of commitment in terms of volunteering. And, third reason, I don’t want to. It’s not my world, I don’t want to caricature the remarks of the one opposite to score points… We are having a political debate today that is sometimes a little sad.
It’s a mediocre world?
It’s a fairly shared position I think. I did an essay on work where I show how much the political world has neglected and mistreated, in both senses of the term, the question of work because it has become disconnected from reality. The political world must re-anchor itself in reality. For me a politician is someone who builds solutions. I did not say that I was going to enter a monastery, I will continue to be committed, to produce ideas, alone or with others, to make proposals after my phase of silence but for something other than a suffrage-seeking commitment. I have always been in politics. When I joined a popular education organization at 14, it was politics.