Of the three main trade union federations in France, the Communist dominated CGT. the social democratic CFDT, and Force Ouvriere, the last has always been the weakest and least significant. It was formed in 1947 as a right-wing breakaway from the CGT. and the split was organisationally and financially assisted by the AFL-CIO (trade union federation in the USA). which at that time was acting in the direct interests of American imperialism and had close links with the CIA. Today FO still reflects those origins: its leadership has drifted even further to the right and hardly bothers any more to conceal its role as the bosses' agent in the workers' move.
ment. It is in this context that one must see the recent merger of the Chemical Union of the FO, Fedechimie, with its counterpart in the CFDT. The leaders of Fedechimie could see only too clearly that the only future which lay ahead for Force Ouvriere (and thus for them while they remained within FO) was one of increasing rejection by militants and increasing distance from the real centres of decision-making in the workers' movement.
Fedechimie's departure from FO was supported by a relatively radicalised base within the union (Fedechimie militants were active in the events of May 68). The union sees itself as continuing the traditions of revolutionary syndicalism and as the inheritor of the Charter of Amiens. It is anti-Stalinist but also anti-communist; however, it distinguishes between the bourgeois anti-communism of the leaders of the FO and revolutionary libertarian anti-Communism (its owE brand). Despite the confused and reformist politics of its leadership, Fedechimie's break with Force Ouvriere was made on quite a positive basis. The leader of Fedechimie, Labi, drawing a balance sheet of the union's experience with Force Ouvriere, wrote as follows: "Its daily practice ... (was characterised by) an ever increasing frequenting of the corridors of political and managerial power, the systematic refusal of all unity in st of all action". in the French trade union seen carried out, needless to og The leaders of Fedechided upon the change without instioughgoing discussion among and Sik e union membership of why bould take place. In particular, ich as federation with the CGT vere scarcely mentioned, let alone discussed.
dimply to say that the leadership ated a discussion on the polis involved in this realignment does not that such a discussion does not Long the mass of workers.
Since the split of 1947, the French'trade union movement has experienced many splits. The present regroupment is the first step on to take place for a very long ugh limited in extent, it does at least pose before the trade union movement the burning and imperative problem of unification in the struggle against the bosses' offensive. The Fedechimie and the chemical union of the CFDT raised the problem of unification in their joint statement, with the perspective that their fusion "is also a stage in the construction of a democratic unified organisation of unions which will embrace the entire working class". However, it is not enough just to pay hip service to trade union unification. What is necessary is to determine the concrete steps that must be taken to achieve it.
The division of the unions is neither a necessary nor an inevitable evil. The struggle for union unification is linked with the struggle against the bureaucrats, for workers' and union democracy, for the right of expression of currents and tendencies organized on a national scale and their participation in open discussion within the unions.
Bergeron was quick to respond to Fedechimie's split. It was necessary to show that Labi took only a small group with him and block any other attempt at departure. On 12th and 13th February with the faithful minority of the Fedechimie he organized a conference which declared itself to be a constitutive conference of a continuing FO federation. The comrades of Lutte Ouriere representing some small FO sections that they control participated in this. Did the Lutte Ouvriere comrades realise the enormity of what they were doing? By participating under such auspices in the creation of a continuing FO federation, they cut themselves off from all that was living in the workers' movement, to attach themselves to a dead branch, the most reactionary and anti-communist wing of the workers"
Lutte Ouriere in its issue 179 replied in advance to these criticisms: "Bergeron the old ... Maire the new ... Labi changes boss but not politics". For Lutte Ouriere, the CFDT and FO are one and the same. But LO added, defending in advance the hypothesis which Bergeron wished to have accepted: "It would be wrong to make a fuss about union unification. If words are to mean what they say, the operation is restricted to the adhesion of Labi to the CFDT". And here is the crux of the argument: "As for the working class, it neither loses nor gains from this manoeuvre. Its objects have no more in common with such as Labi than they have with Seguy, Maire or Bergeron".
Clearly for LO it is a question of an internal affair among bureaucrats which is of no concern at all to the workers. Bureaucratic fusion, they say. But what prevents them from struggling to transform it into a democratic fusion at the base in the plants where they control FO sections? What prevents them from fighting for democracy from top to bottom in a unified federation?
Lutte Ouvriere represents an important current of the revolutionary left. It is particularly serious to see it turning its back on the battle for union unification in the struggles of the working class and masses. It appears, alas, that the comrades of Lutte Ouvriere prefer to preserve FO minisections in the unions in order to use them as mouthpieces. The above is a condensed version of material which appeared in Rouge, paper of the Communist League (French Section of the Fourth International).
The Red Mole 30 March 1972 Pace 5
imperialism in Ireland rather than a solution to that The imposition of direct rule over Northern Ireland fro challenges for the Irish people as a whole, and the mir itself into the tasks before the vanguard of that minor