A fortnight ago, after more than nine months of struggle, the workers of the Lip watch factory in Besancon in eastern France finally agreed to accept a compromise solution.
The vote for acceptance was overwhelming 609 to 3, with 10 abstentions. But despite this apparent unanimity, the vote had hardly been counted before the arguments broke out. To the fore in this outburst were the national and Jocal representatives of the French Communist Party (PCF) and the trade union federation which it dominates, the CGT. Accusing the local Jeaders of the Socialist-inclined CFDT federation of 'ultra-leftism which has now turned into opportunism, they claimed that the new plan Right from the beginning, the Lip workers attempted to forge links with other struggles — at the ORTF, Cerisay, Pasteur, etc. - but these efforts were constantly sabotaged by the bureaucrats was substantially inferior to the carlier 'Garaud plan' in October, which they had supported but which had been overwhelmingly rejected by the workers' general assembly on the initiative of the CFDT leaders.
Whether the new plan is in fact inferior to the Giraud plan is debatuble, to say the least. It is certainly an unsatisfactory compromise. But to understand why the Lip workers were foroed to accept it, one has to look no further than the attitude of the CO and the Communist Party?
EXTENDING THE STRUGGLE Right from the beginning of their struggie, ORTH PASTEUR :
MỆNE COMBAT able discontent among the workers to such ar the Lip workers were well aware that they could not expect to win on their own. Indeed, all their It unty guarantees just over 300 johs, for tacties were aimed precisely at extending and popularising their struggle, It was the poster campaigns, the factory gate meetings, the local demonstrations and the establishment of support conmittees which provided the solid basis of support in the area for the occapalion and defense of the factory in June.
By restarting production in defiance of the luw levels and to maintain the factory as one plant -in order to finance the continuation and expansion of their strugale, they pioncored a tactie which found an immediate response among lens and hundreds of thousands of workers. And the sale of the watches thus produced provided them with the opportunity of taking the lessons of their strugale to every corner of France as well as beyond It was not long before the importance of such methods of struggle was to he overwhelmingly demonstrated. On Tuesday 14 August, at 6.00 am, three thousand riot police moved! in and expelled the workers from the factory. Within hours the whole region was at a standstill. In other parts of France wildcat strikes erupted by the dowen. Whole sections of workers-like the train drivers voted for limited strike action at once as a beginning. All the workers' movement awaited was a coordinated plan of action from their leaders to throw the Government back. But such a plan never came.
BUREAUCRATS RETREAT
Instead, there followed simply a series of invitations" to take all such initiatives as will permit the development of action at places of work and in the localities", ie a series of protest actions with no perspective offered for organsing to make them effective. Behind this attitude Say a real fear of the reformist bureaucrats that things were getting out of control-after-all, the including the Six bours with Lip meelngs in ill the major cities-aimed at strengthening the impact of the lessons of their struggle. They also attempted to forge meaningful links for united action with workers in otber redundancy strugales, such as that at the Lamnusse publishing house, But the effect of these initiatives was largely lost as a result of the boycotting and sabotaging activities of the bureaucrats-in parlicular, the CGT. It is these Seaders"- now pointing the finger with such indignation at the workers- who carry the over riding responsibility for the present situation.
NEW COMPROMISE It & true that in some respects the new compromise is inferior to the Giraud plan.
instance, with the re-employment of the rest of the work-force dependent on good results for the firm. As our French sister paper Rouge has pointed out, this is virtually equivalent to d. 'no-strike clause, since any industrial action will be said to harm the prospects of expanding the work-fonce. But on the other hand, the new From there, the workers went a stage further. deal does "guarantee' to retain the previous wige What is written down on paper is not neces sarily what will be carried nut, though. The experience of Briant's is still fresh in the memory of many British warkers, for instance The immediate struggle may be over-but the workers are stil left with the question of how They will enforce the terms of the agreement and even light to improve it by attempting to change the balance of forces in their favour WORKERS' CONTROL This means maintaining the present mechanSwas of workers control and ensuring that ail decisions continue to be subject to mass meet ings of all the workers involved. Obvioasly this is weakened if only some workers are re-employed, with the re-employment of the rest depending on the good behaviour of the former. And as the test are going to be puid to undergo retraining courses in the meantime anyway, it has been suggested that they should demand the immediate re-employment of the whole work-force, with the work being shared out at no loss of pay—in other words, a sliding scale of hours.
there are many ways in which the workers' position can still be strengthened. Most important is the need to maintain collective solidarity
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However it seems untikely that the workers leaders are prepared to lunch any kind of strugele around this demand, But even so,