> In fact, virtually all contemporary labour struggles in the advanced
> capitalist countries - from the US to France to Japan - are
> defensive in
> nature, a result of the flight of capital to cheap new labour pools
> in East
> Europe, Asia, and elsewhere in the developing world. In essence,
> they are
> reducible to the monetary settlements to be given to workers
> "downsized"
> through layoffs and other forms of dismissal. In these
> circumstances, the
> function of unions has become to a) try to delay and stretch out the
> reduction in permanent, full time jobs - ideally through attrition
> as older
> workers leave and are not replaced, and b) obtain the most generous
> severance arrangements possible ( termination pay, education
> allowances, job
> search and retirement counselling, recall rights, etc.) when
> workers are let
> go. The state, as in the example quoted above, has increasingly
> stepped in
> to regulate the process, through bankruptcy courts or industrial
> relations
> boards and through legislation.
>
> The US, with the strongest capitalists and weakest unions, is farthest
> advanced down this road, but the process of weakening union
> bargaining power
> and union density is also well underway in the other OECD countries.
>
> The inspiring militancy of the French working class has to
> unfortunately be
> seen in this context. Young French and other West European workers are
> waging a much different kind of struggle than that waged by their
> parents in
> the 60s and their grandparents in the 30s for union rights, shorter
> hours,
> higher pay, and improved benefits in expanding domestic industries.
> But at
> least they are struggling to cushion the impact on themselves of this
> historic shift in the global labour market.
It's true that neoliberalism isn't just a policy choice -- rather, it's a mode of regulation of capitalism after the end of the post-WW2 boom, and thus it is an international phenomenon. It is also true that workers everywhere -- except Venezuela -- have been mainly fighting defensive struggles. But clearly positive gains can come out of even defensive struggles. The French 35-hour work week is an example, which owes itself to the mass strikes of 1995 and the subsequent Socialist victory. Thought it's been watered down, it has on balance affected workers positively: "Today, annual hours worked per employee in France are 8% below the EU average, and among the lowest in the OECD area (see graphs). This gap widens to 17% when comparing France with Canada, and to 20% if compared with the US, Japan, Australia or New Zealand" (at <http://www.oecdobserver.org/ news/fullstory.php/aid/1385/The_35-hour_week.html>).
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>