Training, encouraging, helping, the private sector workers to engage in struggle and strike action is the priority of the day if we want to make the government move back! Blocking transport will not be enough. The proxy strike, which puts most of the weight of the struggle on the railway workers and RATP [Paris region Transport] workers alone, can only lead to a deadlock and exhaustion of the strikers. The window, the opportunity, the occasion,to train and extend the strike to the proletarians of the private sector is still there. At least by next Tuesday the 17th and the demonstrations of that day. After that, it is quite possible that the strike, reduced to railway workers and RATP workers for the most part, will be reduced to a ’arm-wrestling’ struggle with no other aim than to last as long as possible. At this game, the bourgeoisie and the entire state apparatus will be the strongest. They will control the situation, if only through the unions, and will wait for the struggle to end on its own. As for the railway workers in 2018.

It is already extraordinary to see them return to combat once again and be at the heart of the mobilization a year and a half after the bitter defeat they suffered as a result of the union tactics of the action days and dispersed one day strikes. But if they are left alone with the proletarians of the RATP (and some other sectors), and even if they are joined on ’action days’ - such as next Tuesday, December 17 - by workers of the public service, education in particular, or by students and young, the government will not back down. To be convinced, just read Prime Minister E. Philippe’s speech today (Wednesday, December 11). After a week of strikes and demonstrations blocking transport, he didn’t give up anything!

The attack is major. Nothing new, everyone already knew it. But even worse, he already announces the world that capitalism imposes on us and wants to impose even more: precariousness and generalized misery! That is how he justifies his pension plan.

"We can rightly want to change all that: return to full employment, limit precariousness... But this is the world we live in and it is wise to see the world as it is. We must build the social protection of the 21st century by taking better into account the new faces of precariousness".

In short, after decades of relentless decline in our living and working conditions, of sacrifices of all kinds, the government and the entire state apparatus - and this is true in all countries - will redouble their attacks once their ’reform’ is over. For French capitalism, for the bourgeoisie, the stakes are such that they are ready to ’endure’ a long transport strike as long as they keep control of it, especially thanks to the unions. Let us remember their dismay at the yellow vests that were ’uncontrolled’. Uncontrolled by the State through its trade union and political forces, including those of the left. This is also why the struggle must be extended, why private sector workers (and all those who are not yet on strike) must start striking if we want to impose a balance of power beyond their control that will scare the bourgeoisie to a minimum and force the government to back down.

Striking in the private sector, and often also in the public sector (La Poste for example), has become particularly difficult and the first to launch a strike are at great risk, threats, sanctions, withdrawal of bonuses and promotions, and dismissal, due to the totalitarian and repressive methods of modern management. We must therefore help private sector workers, and all those who are not yet on strike, to join the fight. No illusions, the unions will not organise this extension and even they will slow it down or even oppose it. The strikers and all those who support them must therefore organise and take charge of it in the cities, districts and regions.

Extension of the strike to the private sector!

All on strike!