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DESCRIPTION:6/14 SF Solidarity Action With French Workers-Stop Union Busting, 
 Privatization, Deregulation and Slave Labor\nYour Fight Is Our Fight-From 
 France To San Francisco\nBring Your Placards, Banners and Songs\nTuesday 
 June 14, 2016 5:00 PM\nSan Francisco French Consulate\n66 Kearny St. San 
 Francisco Near The  Montgomery BART 
 station\nhttps://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.7923509,-122.4039229/66+Kearny+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94108/@37.7885525,-122.4384268,13z/data=!4m8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x808580884e6635b5:0xd24ceeb04cda0dc9!2m2!1d-122.4034057!2d37.7885732\n\n\nThe 
 French working class and their unions  have  called for a general strike on 
 June 14, 2016  against the union busting attack on their labor and human  
 rights by the Socialist Party President Francois Hollande government. They 
 want to destroy their work rules so bosses can fire workers without any 
 labor rights and also allow companies to hire young workers without the 
 protection that other workers have. This is why hundreds of thousands of 
 young people and students have joined this fight. This is their 
 future.\nThe deregulation, privatization and union busting is also being 
 pushed by the Obama government, the Republicrats and US multi-nationals 
 through the IMF/WB with their so called "free" trade agreements. They want 
 slave labor in France and in every country in the world and the French 
 workers and youth are fighting back!  Now is the time to join in solidarity 
 with French workers. Their fight is our fight and a victory against this 
 union busting anti-labor government will be a victory for all workers in 
 Europe, the US and around the world.\nInitiated by\nUnited Public Workers 
 For Action\nwww.upwa.info\n(415)282-1908\n\nGeneral Strike In France 
 Getting Closer-Truckers At Refineries Join 
 Strike\nhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/24/france-set-to-grind-to-a-halt-as-strikes-spark-fuel-shortages-an/\nFrance 
 set to grind to a halt as strikes spark fuel shortages and air and rail 
 blockages\n\n<98993795_FRance-labourereform-world-large_trans++gsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdGLvJF5WfpqnBZShRL_tOZw.jpg>\nA 
 member of the CGT (General Confederation of Work) as trade unionists erect 
 a burning barricade to block the entrance of a refinery as they set up a 
 fire to protest against the French labour reform law, in Douchy les Mines, 
 northern France CREDIT:THIBAULT VANDERMERSCH/EPA\n	•  Henry Samuel, paris 
 \n\n24 MAY 2016 • 5:49PM\nFrance was facing transport meltdown on Tuesday 
 as a tense standoff between unions and the government over labour reform 
 saw oil refineries blocked and a fifth of its fuel pumps run dry.\n\nJust 
 three weeks before the Euro 2016 football tournament and days before the 
 British half-term holidays, when thousands of motorists cross into France, 
 at least seven out of eight of the country's refineries were cut off, fuel 
 shortages looked set to worsen and a string of rail and air strikes are 
 looming.\n\nHostilities commenced before dawn on Tuesday when police 
 launched a raid to “liberate” an oil refinery near the southern port of 
 Marseille held by strike picketers. Officers fired tear gas and water 
 cannon to oust protesters blocking the Exxon Mobil refinery and terminal at 
 the Fos-Sur-Mer site.\n\nThey met stiff resistance as picketers hit back by 
 lobbing paving slabs and setting crates and tyres on fire, lightly injuring 
 seven officers.\n\nHowever, unionists said they had successfully managed to 
 block the country's other refineries, along with several fuel 
 depots.\n\nOne in every five of the country's 12,500 petrol stations were 
 either completely dry or out of one type of fuel, a week after oil workers 
 first went on strike, according to Alain Vidalies, the transport 
 minister.\n\nEmergency stocks are sufficient to keep the country's fuel 
 stations in operation for up to two months, according to some experts, if 
 the government chose to tap into those supplies.  But François Hollande, 
 the French president, and his prime minister warned they wouldn’t let a 
 “minority” of unions take the country “hostage”.\n\n\nDespite 
 government assurances everything was under control, news of fuel shortages 
 sparked panic buying, prompting long lines and fuel rationing in parts of 
 France. Some motorists even crossed into Belgium to fill up.\n\nObservers 
 said the standoff was a key test of strength for the hardline CGT union, 
 whose historic ability to mount mass demonstrations that grind the country 
 to the halt and result in government U-turns appears to be on the 
 wane.\n\nIt has called for strikes “everywhere, all round France” 
 against the government’s labour reform, which has prompted frequent 
 street protests over the past two months. \n\nThe CGT, along with others, 
 has called a rolling strike at SNCF, the national railway, from May 31, and 
 an open-ended one on the Paris underground and suburban commuter train 
 networks from June 2 - a week before the Euro 2016 opens amid warnings that 
 “workers” come before football.\n\nEuro 2016: the new tournament format 
 explainedPlay!01:20\nMeanwhile, civil aviation unionists on Tuesday called 
 a strike from June 3 to 5.\n\nThe CGT said the labour reform will unpick 
 France's protective and labyrinthine labour regulations, allowing firms to 
 lay off staff more easily for economic reasons and by providing further 
 exemptions from national rules on pay and working conditions.\n\nPhilippe 
 Martinez, the union’s boss, warned that the government was playing with 
 fire by breaking up picket lines.\n\n“"We'll see this through to the 
 finish, to withdrawal of the labour law," he warned. “This is a 
 government which has turned its back on its promises and we are now seeing 
 the consequences."\n\nThe Socialist government has already pushed the law 
 through parliament without a vote due to a Leftist backbench revolt, and is 
 adamant it will be enacted as its last major reform before next year’s 
 presidential elections. \n\nCritics argue the watered-down law does not go 
 far enough.\n\nWhile France is showing modest signs of recovery, with 
 growth expected to hit 1.5 per cent this year, the International Monetary 
 Fund on Tuesday warned that its economy will not recover sufficiently to 
 cut 10 per cent unemployment and debt without further reforms, notably by 
 tightening rules for receiving generous unemployment benefits – a move 
 likely to draw more howls of disapproval from 
 unions.\n\n<98993930_FRance-labour-world-large_trans++gsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdGLvJF5WfpqnBZShRL_tOZw.jpg>\nAnalysts 
 warn the unrest risks deterring foreign investment CREDIT: THIBAULT 
 VANDERMERSCH/EPA\nIf labour unrest grows it risks deterring faltering 
 foreign investment, analysts warned.\n\nEven home-grown oil and gas giant 
 Total threatened on Tuesday to "seriously reconsider" its investment plans 
 in France due to the strikes, with its chief executive Patrick Pouyanné 
 reportedly saying they constituted a “breakdown in the pact between 
 workers and the company”.\n\nWhile the government has insisted it will 
 stand firm, Christian Jacob of the opposition centre-Right party, The 
 Republicans, remained sceptical.  “That’s what they say until they cave 
 in."\n\n“We know all about that,” added the former ally of ex-president 
 Jacques Chirac, famous for making several U-turns in the face of mass 
 protests.   \n\nFrench government seeks to crush strikes against labor 
 law\nhttp://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/25/fran-m25.html\nBy Alex 
 Lantier\n25 May 2016\nIn the face of expanding strikes by refinery workers 
 and truckers against the new French labor law, the Socialist Party (PS) 
 government sent security forces yesterday to crush oil installation 
 occupations and break the growing oppositional movement.\nSince the 
 beginning of the week, all of France's refineries have gone on strike or 
 shut down operations, and truckers have joined to blockade refineries and 
 halt fuel deliveries to gas stations. Broader layers of workers are also 
 moving into struggle. Some port, rail and autoworkers are already on 
 strike, and the trade unions have issued strike calls and requested legal 
 authorization for strikes from June 3 to June 5 at civil aviation 
 facilities and for an unlimited strike against the Paris mass transit 
 system starting June 2.\nEarly yesterday morning, security forces attacked 
 some 200 members of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) union who were 
 blockading oil installations at Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille. “The 
 paramilitary police arrived around 4:30 am and used water cannon and tear 
 gas,” said Olivier Mateu, the regional secretary of the 
 Stalinist-controlled CGT.\nConfrontation with police over labor law [Photo: 
 Flickr user laetitiablabla]\nPolice assaults wounded a number of strikers, 
 according to CGT sources, who denounced “virtual war scenes, with volleys 
 of rubber bullets being fired to clear the blockade.”\n“The police 
 charges were incredibly violent,” said CGT-Petroleum National Secretary 
 Emmanuel Lépine. Police authorities criticized “significant 
 resistance” by the strikers to the repression, which left seven of their 
 men slightly wounded.\nAfter the clash between strikers and security forces 
 ended, around 6 am, tanker trucks entered the site under police escort. The 
 Fos-sur-Mer site, near France's main oil port in Marseille, plays a 
 critical role not only in France, but in all of Europe, supplying pipelines 
 carrying petroleum to refineries in Cressier in Switzerland and Karlsruhe 
 in Germany.\nDespite the brutal repression of the protests, the expanding 
 mobilization of workers has staggered and destabilized the PS government. 
 Yesterday, Transport Minister Alain Vidalies said 20 percent of France's 
 12,000 gas stations either had “totally run dry or faced shortages of one 
 or two products.”\nTrampling on the right to strike, which is inscribed 
 in the French Constitution, the PS is provocatively threatening to crush 
 strikes and blockades across France. On Monday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls 
 said, “We are totally in control of the situation. I think that a certain 
 number of refineries and fuel depots that have been blockaded are being 
 cleared or will be cleared in the coming hours and days.”\nYesterday, on 
 an official visit to Jerusalem, Valls tried to posture as a defender of 
 auto drivers threatened by fuel shortages, declaring, “We will not allow 
 the French people to face shortages or blockades.” He insisted the PS 
 would impose the labor law even though the population overwhelmingly 
 rejects it. “There will be no retraction of the law,” he said. 
 “Otherwise, we will no longer be able to reform the country.”\nIt is 
 not the working class but the PS that is threatening basic democratic and 
 social rights, which it is tearing up in authoritarian fashion to conform 
 to the dictates of the banks. Three-quarters of the French people oppose 
 the law, which increases work hours, undermines overtime pay and job 
 security, and allows the unions to negotiate contracts that violate the 
 Labor Code. Due to its unpopularity, the PS imposed the law without a 
 formal vote in the National Assembly, using the reactionary provisions of 
 Article 49-3 of the Constitution.\nThe PS is signaling that it will seek to 
 break opposition in the working class by force, aiming to isolate and smash 
 successive protests by different sections of workers and youth against the 
 law. In doing so, the PS is carrying out the agenda of austerity and police 
 repression advanced by the ruling class across the European Union (EU). The 
 PS labor law is largely the application in France of the Hartz laws imposed 
 in the face of protests by German workers by the Social Democratic Party a 
 decade ago.\nNow, opposition to austerity and the dictatorship of the banks 
 is rising across the EU, including the struggles of Greek workers against 
 the austerity measures of the Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) 
 government.\nThe blockades of ports, refineries and transport systems is 
 already creating crisis conditions across the French economy. Strikes in Le 
 Havre, France's second port after Marseille, which is strategically 
 important due to its role in supplying northern France and the Paris area, 
 are forcing logistics and shipping companies, as well as the Renault plant 
 in Sandouville, to shut operations.\nThe corporations and the political 
 elite are terrified of a broader struggle of workers against the PS. 
 Olivier Jean Baptiste, a manager at XPLog, a logistics company in Le Havre, 
 told L'Express: “We worked 24 hours a day over the weekend to try to 
 catch up on the backlog. When the blockades were lifted on Friday, we began 
 work again. Since then we are doing the best we can… If things are cut 
 off again, it will be a catastrophe.”\n“Basically, everyone is in a 
 panic,” said an anonymous manager in Le Havre's industrial 
 zone.\nRight-wing politicians are even suggesting that the PS might be 
 forced to abandon the labor reform, at least temporarily, in the face of 
 rising opposition from workers. Philippe Vigier, the parliamentary group 
 leader of the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) in the National 
 Assembly, said, “The government has deepened its own isolation. They will 
 have no other option besides retracting the bill.”\nChristian Jacob of 
 the right-wing The Republicans (LR) dismissed PS assurances that there 
 would be no retreat on the labor law, declaring, “That is what one says 
 until the day one drops something.”\n“We know something about that,” 
 Jacob added, referring to right-wing President Jacques Chirac's decision to 
 suspend the promulgation of the First Job Contract (CPE) in 2006 in the 
 face of mass protests by workers and youth.\nAn effective struggle against 
 the labor law and EU austerity can be waged only as a conscious 
 international struggle of the European working class, organized 
 independently of the trade union bureaucracies and their political allies, 
 including the Left Front and the New Anti-capitalist Party. The current 
 so-called radical turn of the CGT, layers of which are now publicly calling 
 for strike action against the PS, will prove to be a political trap and 
 dead end for workers seeking to fight the Socialist Party’s 
 policies.\nCGT leader Philippe Martinez is pushing the union to adopt 
 demands that are emerging spontaneously among workers, partly to better 
 position the CGT against competing union bureaucracies, but above all to 
 avoid a rebellion of the working class against the entire political setup 
 and confine the workers to the straitjacket of a national struggle.\nLe 
 Monde analyzed his strategy yesterday as follows: “Without calling for a 
 general strike, he calls for renewable strike action… Perpetually in 
 crisis, weakened in its traditional bastions of support, threatened with 
 losing its place as France's biggest union to the [pro-PS] French 
 Democratic Labor Confederation in 2017, the CGT is playing for high 
 stakes.”\nThe union bureaucracies themselves are longstanding political 
 instruments of the same ruling class and political establishment against 
 which the working class is mobilizing in struggle. For four years following 
 the election of a PS government in 2012, they organized no opposition to 
 the government’s savage austerity policies, including the initial 
 negotiation of the labor law.\nDependent on corporate and state financing 
 for 95 percent of their budgets, they are not workers’ organizations, but 
 hollow shells dominated by the financial aristocracy. They will prove not 
 only incapable of leading a longer-term opposition to the PS, but utterly 
 hostile to the explosive opposition that is now emerging in the working 
 class to the PS and the 
 EU.\n\n\nCSP-Conlutas\nhttp://www.laboursolidarity.org/France-Strikes-Protests-Blockades?lang=fr\nFrance 
 | Strikes, Protests, Blockades\n31 mai 2016\n\nAccueil > Sindicato > | 
 France | Strikes, Protests, Blockades\nBuild solidarity actions with the 
 French struggle. Here is a recent letter from Solidaire union federation. 
 They are showing us the way to fight the anti-trade union laws and other 
 injustices here.\nUnited, we continue until victory ! This week a series of 
 renewable strike actions started in the railway sector, oil refineries, and 
 road transport. In addition to these national professional sectors, there 
 are local strikes in many other sectors (trade, construction, industry, 
 postal services, the cultural sector, health, ports , etc.). The Public 
 Services Unions (CGT, Solidaires, FSU) are also considering continuous 
 industrial action. The events of 19th of May have gathered hundreds of 
 thousands of people. The night rallies (“Nuit Debout”) are being held 
 throughout France and blockades are being carried out in many 
 cities.\n\nThe majority of the population disapproves of the proposed 
 Labour Law \nContrary to governmental propaganda, the movement remains 
 strong. But it is not yet strong enough to win ! And this is what is at 
 stake over the course of the next few days. The struggle continues 
 !\n\nUnity for Victory !\nWe will not be divided : yes, it is unfortunate 
 that the CGT opposed the renewal of the SNCF rail strike pas Thursday, but 
 it is a different division of the CGT that is responsible for the blockades 
 of 7 of the 8 oil refineries since that same day. The union Solidaires is 
 based on an inter-unionism that brings together CGT, FO, Solidaires, FSU 
 and youth movements, with local unions that are often much larger, on the 
 call “We Block All” launched by the unions CGT, Solidaires, CNT-SO, 
 CNT, FO, LAB, CFDT, and also Nuit debout.\n\nThe State is violent and 
 repressive\nThe trade union Solidaires once again condemns the police 
 violence and the repression (arrests and detentions) of protestors, as well 
 as against union organisations : after ransacking the CNT branch in Lille a 
 few weeks ago, yesterday it was the offices of Solidaires Ille-et-Vilaine 
 that were raided !\n\nThe 26th of May, Before and After, the strike 
 continues and grows in strength !\nThe National Inter-professional 
 Inter-union calls once again for a day of strikes and protests Thursday 
 26th of May. The trade union Solidaires supports all workers already 
 carrying out continuous industrial action and calls to strengthen and 
 reinforce the movement wherever possible. The same goes for the national 
 strike of 14th of June : for the trade union Solidaires, it is not a 
 question of burying the movement ; but rather, to extend and strengthen the 
 strike action. Let’s give ourselves what we need to in order to ensure 
 the withdrawal of the proposed Labour Law and ensure that our demands are 
 included rather than those of the bosses.\n\nThe faster our actions bring 
 the economy to a stand-still and affect the profits of the directors and 
 shareholders, the faster we will win !\n\nVia Solidaires\n\nGeneral Strike 
 In France Getting Closer-Truckers At Refineries Join 
 Strike\nhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/24/france-set-to-grind-to-a-halt-as-strikes-spark-fuel-shortages-an/\nFrance 
 set to grind to a halt as strikes spark fuel shortages and air and rail 
 blockages\n\n<98993795_FRance-labourereform-world-large_trans++gsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdGLvJF5WfpqnBZShRL_tOZw.jpg>\nA 
 member of the CGT (General Confederation of Work) as trade unionists erect 
 a burning barricade to block the entrance of a refinery as they set up a 
 fire to protest against the French labour reform law, in Douchy les Mines, 
 northern France CREDIT:THIBAULT VANDERMERSCH/EPA\n	•  Henry Samuel, paris 
 \n\n24 MAY 2016 • 5:49PM\nFrance was facing transport meltdown on Tuesday 
 as a tense standoff between unions and the government over labour reform 
 saw oil refineries blocked and a fifth of its fuel pumps run dry.\n\nJust 
 three weeks before the Euro 2016 football tournament and days before the 
 British half-term holidays, when thousands of motorists cross into France, 
 at least seven out of eight of the country's refineries were cut off, fuel 
 shortages looked set to worsen and a string of rail and air strikes are 
 looming.\n\nHostilities commenced before dawn on Tuesday when police 
 launched a raid to “liberate” an oil refinery near the southern port of 
 Marseille held by strike picketers. Officers fired tear gas and water 
 cannon to oust protesters blocking the Exxon Mobil refinery and terminal at 
 the Fos-Sur-Mer site.\n\nThey met stiff resistance as picketers hit back by 
 lobbing paving slabs and setting crates and tyres on fire, lightly injuring 
 seven officers.\n\nHowever, unionists said they had successfully managed to 
 block the country's other refineries, along with several fuel 
 depots.\n\nOne in every five of the country's 12,500 petrol stations were 
 either completely dry or out of one type of fuel, a week after oil workers 
 first went on strike, according to Alain Vidalies, the transport 
 minister.\n\nEmergency stocks are sufficient to keep the country's fuel 
 stations in operation for up to two months, according to some experts, if 
 the government chose to tap into those supplies.  But François Hollande, 
 the French president, and his prime minister warned they wouldn’t let a 
 “minority” of unions take the country “hostage”.\n\n\nDespite 
 government assurances everything was under control, news of fuel shortages 
 sparked panic buying, prompting long lines and fuel rationing in parts of 
 France. Some motorists even crossed into Belgium to fill up.\n\nObservers 
 said the standoff was a key test of strength for the hardline CGT union, 
 whose historic ability to mount mass demonstrations that grind the country 
 to the halt and result in government U-turns appears to be on the 
 wane.\n\nIt has called for strikes “everywhere, all round France” 
 against the government’s labour reform, which has prompted frequent 
 street protests over the past two months. \n\nThe CGT, along with others, 
 has called a rolling strike at SNCF, the national railway, from May 31, and 
 an open-ended one on the Paris underground and suburban commuter train 
 networks from June 2 - a week before the Euro 2016 opens amid warnings that 
 “workers” come before football.\n\nEuro 2016: the new tournament format 
 explainedPlay!01:20\nMeanwhile, civil aviation unionists on Tuesday called 
 a strike from June 3 to 5.\n\nThe CGT said the labour reform will unpick 
 France's protective and labyrinthine labour regulations, allowing firms to 
 lay off staff more easily for economic reasons and by providing further 
 exemptions from national rules on pay and working conditions.\n\nPhilippe 
 Martinez, the union’s boss, warned that the government was playing with 
 fire by breaking up picket lines.\n\n“"We'll see this through to the 
 finish, to withdrawal of the labour law," he warned. “This is a 
 government which has turned its back on its promises and we are now seeing 
 the consequences."\n\nThe Socialist government has already pushed the law 
 through parliament without a vote due to a Leftist backbench revolt, and is 
 adamant it will be enacted as its last major reform before next year’s 
 presidential elections. \n\nCritics argue the watered-down law does not go 
 far enough.\n\nWhile France is showing modest signs of recovery, with 
 growth expected to hit 1.5 per cent this year, the International Monetary 
 Fund on Tuesday warned that its economy will not recover sufficiently to 
 cut 10 per cent unemployment and debt without further reforms, notably by 
 tightening rules for receiving generous unemployment benefits – a move 
 likely to draw more howls of disapproval from 
 unions.\n\n<98993930_FRance-labour-world-large_trans++gsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdGLvJF5WfpqnBZShRL_tOZw.jpg>\nAnalysts 
 warn the unrest risks deterring foreign investment CREDIT: THIBAULT 
 VANDERMERSCH/EPA\nIf labour unrest grows it risks deterring faltering 
 foreign investment, analysts warned.\n\nEven home-grown oil and gas giant 
 Total threatened on Tuesday to "seriously reconsider" its investment plans 
 in France due to the strikes, with its chief executive Patrick Pouyanné 
 reportedly saying they constituted a “breakdown in the pact between 
 workers and the company”.\n\nWhile the government has insisted it will 
 stand firm, Christian Jacob of the opposition centre-Right party, The 
 Republicans, remained sceptical.  “That’s what they say until they cave 
 in."\n\n“We know all about that,” added the former ally of ex-president 
 Jacques Chirac, famous for making several U-turns in the face of mass 
 protests.   \n\nFrench government seeks to crush strikes against labor 
 law\nhttp://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/05/25/fran-m25.html\nBy Alex 
 Lantier\n25 May 2016\nIn the face of expanding strikes by refinery workers 
 and truckers against the new French labor law, the Socialist Party (PS) 
 government sent security forces yesterday to crush oil installation 
 occupations and break the growing oppositional movement.\nSince the 
 beginning of the week, all of France's refineries have gone on strike or 
 shut down operations, and truckers have joined to blockade refineries and 
 halt fuel deliveries to gas stations. Broader layers of workers are also 
 moving into struggle. Some port, rail and autoworkers are already on 
 strike, and the trade unions have issued strike calls and requested legal 
 authorization for strikes from June 3 to June 5 at civil aviation 
 facilities and for an unlimited strike against the Paris mass transit 
 system starting June 2.\nEarly yesterday morning, security forces attacked 
 some 200 members of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) union who were 
 blockading oil installations at Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille. “The 
 paramilitary police arrived around 4:30 am and used water cannon and tear 
 gas,” said Olivier Mateu, the regional secretary of the 
 Stalinist-controlled CGT.\nConfrontation with police over labor law [Photo: 
 Flickr user laetitiablabla]\nPolice assaults wounded a number of strikers, 
 according to CGT sources, who denounced “virtual war scenes, with volleys 
 of rubber bullets being fired to clear the blockade.”\n“The police 
 charges were incredibly violent,” said CGT-Petroleum National Secretary 
 Emmanuel Lépine. Police authorities criticized “significant 
 resistance” by the strikers to the repression, which left seven of their 
 men slightly wounded.\nAfter the clash between strikers and security forces 
 ended, around 6 am, tanker trucks entered the site under police escort. The 
 Fos-sur-Mer site, near France's main oil port in Marseille, plays a 
 critical role not only in France, but in all of Europe, supplying pipelines 
 carrying petroleum to refineries in Cressier in Switzerland and Karlsruhe 
 in Germany.\nDespite the brutal repression of the protests, the expanding 
 mobilization of workers has staggered and destabilized the PS government. 
 Yesterday, Transport Minister Alain Vidalies said 20 percent of France's 
 12,000 gas stations either had “totally run dry or faced shortages of one 
 or two products.”\nTrampling on the right to strike, which is inscribed 
 in the French Constitution, the PS is provocatively threatening to crush 
 strikes and blockades across France. On Monday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls 
 said, “We are totally in control of the situation. I think that a certain 
 number of refineries and fuel depots that have been blockaded are being 
 cleared or will be cleared in the coming hours and days.”\nYesterday, on 
 an official visit to Jerusalem, Valls tried to posture as a defender of 
 auto drivers threatened by fuel shortages, declaring, “We will not allow 
 the French people to face shortages or blockades.” He insisted the PS 
 would impose the labor law even though the population overwhelmingly 
 rejects it. “There will be no retraction of the law,” he said. 
 “Otherwise, we will no longer be able to reform the country.”\nIt is 
 not the working class but the PS that is threatening basic democratic and 
 social rights, which it is tearing up in authoritarian fashion to conform 
 to the dictates of the banks. Three-quarters of the French people oppose 
 the law, which increases work hours, undermines overtime pay and job 
 security, and allows the unions to negotiate contracts that violate the 
 Labor Code. Due to its unpopularity, the PS imposed the law without a 
 formal vote in the National Assembly, using the reactionary provisions of 
 Article 49-3 of the Constitution.\nThe PS is signaling that it will seek to 
 break opposition in the working class by force, aiming to isolate and smash 
 successive protests by different sections of workers and youth against the 
 law. In doing so, the PS is carrying out the agenda of austerity and police 
 repression advanced by the ruling class across the European Union (EU). The 
 PS labor law is largely the application in France of the Hartz laws imposed 
 in the face of protests by German workers by the Social Democratic Party a 
 decade ago.\nNow, opposition to austerity and the dictatorship of the banks 
 is rising across the EU, including the struggles of Greek workers against 
 the austerity measures of the Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) 
 government.\nThe blockades of ports, refineries and transport systems is 
 already creating crisis conditions across the French economy. Strikes in Le 
 Havre, France's second port after Marseille, which is strategically 
 important due to its role in supplying northern France and the Paris area, 
 are forcing logistics and shipping companies, as well as the Renault plant 
 in Sandouville, to shut operations.\nThe corporations and the political 
 elite are terrified of a broader struggle of workers against the PS. 
 Olivier Jean Baptiste, a manager at XPLog, a logistics company in Le Havre, 
 told L'Express: “We worked 24 hours a day over the weekend to try to 
 catch up on the backlog. When the blockades were lifted on Friday, we began 
 work again. Since then we are doing the best we can… If things are cut 
 off again, it will be a catastrophe.”\n“Basically, everyone is in a 
 panic,” said an anonymous manager in Le Havre's industrial 
 zone.\nRight-wing politicians are even suggesting that the PS might be 
 forced to abandon the labor reform, at least temporarily, in the face of 
 rising opposition from workers. Philippe Vigier, the parliamentary group 
 leader of the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) in the National 
 Assembly, said, “The government has deepened its own isolation. They will 
 have no other option besides retracting the bill.”\nChristian Jacob of 
 the right-wing The Republicans (LR) dismissed PS assurances that there 
 would be no retreat on the labor law, declaring, “That is what one says 
 until the day one drops something.”\n“We know something about that,” 
 Jacob added, referring to right-wing President Jacques Chirac's decision to 
 suspend the promulgation of the First Job Contract (CPE) in 2006 in the 
 face of mass protests by workers and youth.\nAn effective struggle against 
 the labor law and EU austerity can be waged only as a conscious 
 international struggle of the European working class, organized 
 independently of the trade union bureaucracies and their political allies, 
 including the Left Front and the New Anti-capitalist Party. The current 
 so-called radical turn of the CGT, layers of which are now publicly calling 
 for strike action against the PS, will prove to be a political trap and 
 dead end for workers seeking to fight the Socialist Party’s 
 policies.\nCGT leader Philippe Martinez is pushing the union to adopt 
 demands that are emerging spontaneously among workers, partly to better 
 position the CGT against competing union bureaucracies, but above all to 
 avoid a rebellion of the working class against the entire political setup 
 and confine the workers to the straitjacket of a national struggle.\nLe 
 Monde analyzed his strategy yesterday as follows: “Without calling for a 
 general strike, he calls for renewable strike action… Perpetually in 
 crisis, weakened in its traditional bastions of support, threatened with 
 losing its place as France's biggest union to the [pro-PS] French 
 Democratic Labor Confederation in 2017, the CGT is playing for high 
 stakes.”\nThe union bureaucracies themselves are longstanding political 
 instruments of the same ruling class and political establishment against 
 which the working class is mobilizing in struggle. For four years following 
 the election of a PS government in 2012, they organized no opposition to 
 the government’s savage austerity policies, including the initial 
 negotiation of the labor law.\nDependent on corporate and state financing 
 for 95 percent of their budgets, they are not workers’ organizations, but 
 hollow shells dominated by the financial aristocracy. They will prove not 
 only incapable of leading a longer-term opposition to the PS, but utterly 
 hostile to the explosive opposition that is now emerging in the working 
 class to the PS and the EU.\n\nPolice wounded, scores arrested as French 
 labour protests turn violent against "labor reform" pushed by French 
 Socialist Party\nPolice wounded, scores arrested as French labour protests 
 turn 
 violent\nhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/fresh-protests-strikes-france-over-labour-bill-154235212.html?nhp=1&soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma\nDominique 
 Brule and Gina Doggett\nAFP\nApril 28, 2016\n\nA car burns during a 
 demonstration against the French government's proposed labour reforms in 
 Nantes on April 28, 2016 (AFP Photo/Loic Venance)\nMore\nParis (AFP) - Two 
 dozen police officers were wounded Thursday, three of them seriously, as 
 violence flared in protests across France against a hotly contested labour 
 reforms bill.\n\nSecurity forces in Paris responded with teargas as masked 
 youths threw bottles and cobblestones, leaving three policemen with serious 
 injuries, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said, adding that 24 police 
 were injured overall.\n\nClashes between police and protesters also erupted 
 in the cities of Nantes, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse, with 124 people 
 arrested nationwide, Cazeneuve said in Lyon.\n\nPrime Minister Manuel Valls 
 strongly condemned the unrest, which he blamed on "an irresponsible 
 minority". "They will be brought to justice. Support to the police," he 
 wrote on Twitter.\n\nParis police chief Michel Cadot said highly organised 
 "groups of hooligans" were behind the "inexcusable acts of 
 violence".\n\nThe clashes came as at least 170,000 workers and students 
 took to streets nationwide Thursday in a new push for the withdrawal of the 
 proposed labour law.\n\nThe demonstrations as well as work stoppages, 
 notably in the aviation and public transport sectors, were the latest 
 actions in a protest wave that began two months ago and has proved a major 
 headache for the French government.\n\nOpponents of the labour reform, 
 billed as an effort to reduce chronic unemployment -- which stands at 10 
 percent overall -- say it will threaten cherished workers' rights and 
 deepen job insecurity for young people.\n\n"Be Young and Shut Up!" read one 
 banner at a protest in southwestern Toulouse, highlighting the frustration 
 of youths facing an unemployment rate of 25 percent.\n\n"Over the past 10 
 years or so things have deteriorated horribly for young people," said 
 retiree Gilles Cavaliere at the Lyon protest.\n\nAlso Thursday, striking 
 aviation workers caused one in five flights to be cancelled at Paris's Orly 
 airport, while delays were reported at Charles de Gaulle airport.\n\nAnd 
 newsstands were devoid of national dailies after printers downed 
 tools.\n\n- Bill expected to pass -\n\nThe unions and student organisations 
 plan to pile on the pressure with further protests on Sunday to mark the 
 May Day labour holiday, as well as next Tuesday, when parliament begins 
 debating the bill.\n\nChristophe Sirugue, the Socialist lawmaker who is 
 presenting the bill to parliament after it was reviewed in committee, said 
 Thursday that several points still needed "clarification" but that he 
 expected the bill to pass.\n\nAmong the remaining issues are measures to 
 make it easier to lay off workers in lean times, and whether employers 
 should still be allowed to shed workers if conditions are depressed in 
 their overseas operations and not just in France.\n\nAnother is a proposed 
 surtax on short-term contracts aimed at getting employers to hire more 
 people on permanent contracts, Sirugue told reporters.\n\nYoung people have 
 been at the forefront of the protest movement, with many young workers 
 stuck on short-term contracts or internships while hoping to secure a 
 permanent job.\n\nProtests against the reform kicked off on March 9, 
 culminating in massive demonstrations on March 31 that brought 390,000 
 people on to the streets, according to an official count. Organisers put 
 the number at 1.2 million.\n\nThe CGT union said Thursday's marches and 
 rallies drew half a million people.\n\nThe protests spawned a new youth-led 
 movement called "Nuit Debout" (Up All Night), which has seen advocates of a 
 broad spectrum of causes gather in city squares at night for the past four 
 weeks to demand change, though attendance has been dwindling in recent 
 days.\n\nWith little more than a year left in his mandate, France's deeply 
 unpopular President Francois Hollande has been banking on the labour reform 
 as a standout initiative with which to defend his record.\n\nBut in the 
 face of the protests his Socialist government has watered down the labour 
 reforms -- only to anger bosses while failing to assuage workers.\n\n"The 
 current bill, which is totally unacceptable, spells insecurity and social 
 setbacks for workers and youths," a joint union statement said.\n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/06/08/18787330.php
SUMMARY:SF Solidarity Action With French Workers-Stop Union Busting, Privatization & Deregulation
LOCATION:San Francisco French Consulate\n66 Kearny St. \nSan Francisco Near The  
 Montgomery BART 
 station\n\n\nhttps://www.google.com/maps/dir/37.7923509,-122.4039229/66+Kearny+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94108/@37.7885525,-122.4384268,13z/data=!4m8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x808580884e6635b5:0xd24ceeb04cda0dc9!2m2!1d-122.4034057!2d37.7885732
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/06/08/18787330.php
DTSTART:20160615T000000Z
DTEND:20160615T010000Z
END:VEVENT
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