(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #252 (n° spécial) -
Congress SUD Education: 1996-2015 ... and after? (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation]
The federation SUD Education was formed in 1998, the first union SUD Education having them
born in early 1996 in the wake of the social movement of November-December 1995. With so
almost twenty years at the counter, where does the construction This union alternative in
education? ---- From 18 to 22 May 2015, the Federation of trade unions SUD Education held
its Seventh Congress near Brest. The previous was held in May 2012. In three years, that's
saying that the situation in education has had some ups and downs. Anti-egalitarian reform
of school rhythms than the college through the damage of the LRU 2 teams SUD union
education from kindergarten to university, have been busy.
A congress for action?
Yet one can not but note that these issues have not really been the subject of the last
Congress. Indeed, the unions had decided to give two "themes" debate: working conditions
and "other school". A general orientation text was added. Placed at the end of the
Congress, it has not been voted in Brest due to a large number of texts and amendments
(the logic being that of the stack without real organization of an agenda). But the
approach asks: Should Congress be a kind of "super training" on general questions or is
there a time to discuss the practices and union struggles?
An example of these issues might have deserved to be treated more and better: in 2012, the
previous federal congress had validated the relevance of unit union officials to initiate
action; end of 2014, the battle for another reform school timetables in primary education
has seen a limited draw Inter CGT-FO-SUD who was able to influence the main union of first
degree SNUipp-FSU. At the time it was not enough to secure victory, and yet it was a
necessity to build a strike which did not want the majority unions. Would it not have been
appropriate - from this example and / or others - to conduct a thorough analysis on the
unitary dynamic in the sector? Also the analysis of trade developments (with the thrust FO
and SNALC in national education) is currently remained off camera.
Crucial outstanding issues
Finally, it seems that the question of meaning and usefulness of a federation of trade
unions is one of the true blind spots SOUTH education. Where are we nearly twenty years
after the founding of the first unions SUD education? For almost ten years, the number of
memberships between 4 500 and 5 000. Knowing that the business sector has 1.5 million wage
earners, there would be food for thought nevertheless. The reality of trade unions is very
diverse: there are few departmental unions to exceed one hundred members (but it remains
academic unions that organize course several hundred members), implying reduced militant
teams. Other questions: where are we in the union of extra-teaching staff? In
administrative, health workers, etc. SUD is very little represented.
While precisely SOUTH lost its representation in the national education last professional
elections, there was, again, no place at this conference to return in detail on this new
situation and its consequences. Conversely, during the congress, a motion on the top
(where for once SOUTH recently won its representativeness) asked a key question: how to
organize to develop unionization. Is it not precisely a question he would decline at all
levels of the federation? Not to win "market share" but to expand trade union base gained
the self-organization of struggles and social transformation of unionism.
Articulate strategy and trade union development
This refers to initial education project SUD. In 1998, the founding conference asserted
that: "The purpose of" another unionism "is to not freeze in formal combat, but to be a
tool of social struggles that lead to a transformation of social relations. " This lie
was, somehow, in the continuity of revolutionary syndicalism that developed trade union
action, not as the sum of individual interests, but as the realization of class unity. Is
it to build SOUTH education in a particular department in a particular university, without
imagining joint campaigns without exchanging on practices, without giving development
opportunities to the whole wide field that unionization is intended to cover the union?
"The autonomy of unions" probably not being inconsistent with that.
Similarly, revolutionary syndicalism was promoting the horizontal structuring of union
members in the inter-local unions. Again, many questions are fallow: how to integrate
interprofessional our unions, and every day? The construction of the Union syndicale
Solidaires not done "alongside" SUD education: it is the same project. Yet the challenges
are emerging today: the autonomy of the social movement, on how to confront the state and
the employers ... Defending unionism against power-is not it all at once do live in
professional field but also from all operated es?
Hopefully the next three years is needed to make these substantive discussions to resume
that trade union alternative colors in education as elsewhere.
Libertarian communists SOUTH Education
RENEWAL OF SIDE
Twenty years already ... and a new generation of activists in SUD Education meeting among
the 200 delegates of the unions. With 8% of delegates from the Sgen (they and they had
joined the CFDT time of self-management), and there are many many activists to take their
first steps in unionism in South (though 5% come from SUD student).
Half were women ... which is not yet sufficiently representative of a professional
environment feminized over 70%!
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