French General Strike reminds the neo-liberal attack on worker’s rights is international
The Tory Government’s latest anti-strike laws in Britain have rightly met with a wave of protest. They are aimed at (though won’t stop) workers taking action to defend terms and conditions in the light of 10%+ inflation.
Tory Minister Grant Schapps has declared that the proposed law to mandate minimum service levels during strikes in a range of areas of the economy is already the case in much of the rest of Europe.
There is a General Strike today in France and nearly all trains and most schools are shut. Clearly whatever minimum service level law exists doesn’t work.
The strike is over French Government plans to increase the State pension age from 62 to 64 (its 66 in Britain and rising). The measure is being introduced not by a Government of the right but the centrist administration of Macron. Macron, a former Socialist MP, is probably in political terms quite similar to Keir Starmer.
A reminder that the neo-liberal imperative to attack workers rights to maintain profits is not something uniquely British but an international one.
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