http://www.transnational-strike.info/2016/09/12/construire-une-greve-sociale-transnationale-de-la-mobilisation-du-15-septembre-au-meeting-de-21-22-23-octobre-a-paris/
https://www.facebook.com/TSSPlatform/posts/554267321443186
Building the transnational social strike. From the 15.09 demonstration
to the 21-23.10 meeting in Paris
The approval of the loi travail and the government’s autoritarianism do
not stop the French movement. This movement aims high: it does not only
fight a single law, but also its entire «world», that is a world of
precarization of life and work, a world of powerlessness imposed on
precarious, migrants, workers and students. Now the challenge is to
continue struggling against this world. We need not to lose the uprising
potential which has filled the streets, the workplaces, the schools and
the theaters. We need to give continuity to the power that turned the
strikes in the workplaces into mass social strikes, with the
demonstrations, the occupations, the widespread refusal of precarity in
each place in which it is produced. We need to continue struggling
together, by overcoming the divisions that separate us inside the
workplaces and inside society, by creating connections between different
conditions of precarity.
We believe that all this needs to be done also by crossing the French
borders and by building transnational connections. With the measures
imposed by the loi travail, we become more and more equal, as far as the
material conditions of precarity are concerned, to the Polish and
Spanish industrial workers, to the migrants who cross the Balkanroute,
to the German, English and Italian precarious workers. It’s time to turn
this equality between different conditions of exploitation into a
collective power able to be poured down over those who precarize us. We
need to fight against the logic of precarization based on division and
competition. It’s time that this equality becomes a power able to attack
those who precarize us. It is not enough to struggle on the national
level to keep those rights that the law destroyed. The loi travail in
France, Hartz IV in Germany, the jobs act in Italy, the loi Peeters in
Belgium : the attack on workers’ rights are clear all over Europe. We
have to turn upside down the mechanism according to which a conquest in
one place becomes a loss in another place.
What is happening in France is unprecedented. The collective refusal of
subordination to wage and employers has been the center of gravity
around which different struggles have revolved: the struggle for a
material democracy, against the police repression attacking
demonstrators and unionists; against the repressive state of emergency.
Unprecedented connections have been possible because it has been clear
that a fight for real democracy needs to tackle the fake alternative
between precarity and unemployment. Through the strike as a mass refusal
of work and of an exploitation, convergences between migrants,
precarious workers, students and unemployed have been experimented in
order to overcome the existing divisions. The struggles in the
factories, in the streets and in the schools have been able to disrupt
the production of value and the circulation of profits and to block
whole cities in their daily modes of operation. In order to defeat the
«world» of the loi travail, the strike needs to be at the same time
social, logistical and metropolitan.
The challenge we are confronted with now is to relaunch the political
power of the strike and of the convergence of the struggles on a
transnational level. The Transnational Social Strike Platform, a
transnational network of workers, activists and unionists that organize
themselves to build an opposition to the neoliberal European
constitution, is the place in which the convergence of the struggles
that took place in the last months in France can be amplified and
expanded. The TSS Platform must become a space of organization where the
different conditions of precarity can build common demands and a shared
discourse able to be also a reference point for those millions of women
and men who struggle everyday against precarity. The Transnational
Social Strike Platform is the opportunity for us to share our experience
of struggle of the last months with all Europe and beyond. It is the
chance to aim at a transnational mobilization inside and outside the
workplaces, to move together towards the transnational uprising of
living labor. This is the only possibility for us to turn the chant of
rebellion reaching over from France to the precarious, migrants and
workers throughout Europe into a real collective power. The French
social strike can and must become a transnational social strike.
For these reasons, we invite you to take part in the demonstration of
September 15th in Paris to cry out loud once again that the government’s
arrogance does not silence the French movement. Besides, for all these
reasons we think that the meeting organized by the Transnational Social
Strike Platform, taking place in Paris from the 21st to the 23rd of
October, will be the occasion to discuss about how to continue on a
bigger scale the struggle against the loi travail and its world.
TSS Assembly France
http://www.transnational-strike.info/2016/09/12/construire-une-greve-sociale-transnationale-de-la-mobilisation-du-15-septembre-au-meeting-de-21-22-23-octobre-a-paris/
https://www.facebook.com/TSSPlatform/posts/554267321443186
Building the transnational social strike. From the 15.09 demonstration
to the 21-23.10 meeting in Paris
The approval of the loi travail and the government’s autoritarianism do
not stop the French movement. This movement aims high: it does not only
fight a single law, but also its entire «world», that is a world of
precarization of life and work, a world of powerlessness imposed on
precarious, migrants, workers and students. Now the challenge is to
continue struggling against this world. We need not to lose the uprising
potential which has filled the streets, the workplaces, the schools and
the theaters. We need to give continuity to the power that turned the
strikes in the workplaces into mass social strikes, with the
demonstrations, the occupations, the widespread refusal of precarity in
each place in which it is produced. We need to continue struggling
together, by overcoming the divisions that separate us inside the
workplaces and inside society, by creating connections between different
conditions of precarity.
We believe that all this needs to be done also by crossing the French
borders and by building transnational connections. With the measures
imposed by the loi travail, we become more and more equal, as far as the
material conditions of precarity are concerned, to the Polish and
Spanish industrial workers, to the migrants who cross the Balkanroute,
to the German, English and Italian precarious workers. It’s time to turn
this equality between different conditions of exploitation into a
collective power able to be poured down over those who precarize us. We
need to fight against the logic of precarization based on division and
competition. It’s time that this equality becomes a power able to attack
those who precarize us. It is not enough to struggle on the national
level to keep those rights that the law destroyed. The loi travail in
France, Hartz IV in Germany, the jobs act in Italy, the loi Peeters in
Belgium : the attack on workers’ rights are clear all over Europe. We
have to turn upside down the mechanism according to which a conquest in
one place becomes a loss in another place.
What is happening in France is unprecedented. The collective refusal of
subordination to wage and employers has been the center of gravity
around which different struggles have revolved: the struggle for a
material democracy, against the police repression attacking
demonstrators and unionists; against the repressive state of emergency.
Unprecedented connections have been possible because it has been clear
that a fight for real democracy needs to tackle the fake alternative
between precarity and unemployment. Through the strike as a mass refusal
of work and of an exploitation, convergences between migrants,
precarious workers, students and unemployed have been experimented in
order to overcome the existing divisions. The struggles in the
factories, in the streets and in the schools have been able to disrupt
the production of value and the circulation of profits and to block
whole cities in their daily modes of operation. In order to defeat the
«world» of the loi travail, the strike needs to be at the same time
social, logistical and metropolitan.
The challenge we are confronted with now is to relaunch the political
power of the strike and of the convergence of the struggles on a
transnational level. The Transnational Social Strike Platform, a
transnational network of workers, activists and unionists that organize
themselves to build an opposition to the neoliberal European
constitution, is the place in which the convergence of the struggles
that took place in the last months in France can be amplified and
expanded. The TSS Platform must become a space of organization where the
different conditions of precarity can build common demands and a shared
discourse able to be also a reference point for those millions of women
and men who struggle everyday against precarity. The Transnational
Social Strike Platform is the opportunity for us to share our experience
of struggle of the last months with all Europe and beyond. It is the
chance to aim at a transnational mobilization inside and outside the
workplaces, to move together towards the transnational uprising of
living labor. This is the only possibility for us to turn the chant of
rebellion reaching over from France to the precarious, migrants and
workers throughout Europe into a real collective power. The French
social strike can and must become a transnational social strike.
For these reasons, we invite you to take part in the demonstration of
September 15th in Paris to cry out loud once again that the government’s
arrogance does not silence the French movement. Besides, for all these
reasons we think that the meeting organized by the Transnational Social
Strike Platform, taking place in Paris from the 21st to the 23rd of
October, will be the occasion to discuss about how to continue on a
bigger scale the struggle against the loi travail and its world.
TSS Assembly France