French Immigrants On Strike … The Global South Strikes Back
It’s often easy to forget that the struggles right before our face are not quite as local as we think they are. The situation confronting immigrants here in Califas, for instance, while having its own unique form, exists in many other places across the globe.
Earlier this summer, the European Union (EU) passed a set of draconian, anti-immigrant laws, prompting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to comment to gathered members of the South American trade bloc, Mercosur, that the EU was seemingly choosing the same “barbaric” immigration policies as the US…and in a show of solidarity, even suggested that perhaps economic retaliation, of some sort, might even be necessary. ¡Chingao! … sitting on such a vast supply of oil, and with the US economy spiraling deeper into crisis as it is, I can’t but help to imagine (or is that daydream) if Chavez’s threat was also extended to the US. In short, respect the dignity of Latina/o immigrants, cease the degradation of immigrant labor, or face the consequences! Forget about issues of morality or any other such thing (after all, as Malcolm X argued, this country has proven itself fundamentally immoral from the very beginning), do you think this country would finally then realize its historic dependence on not only foreign oil but also immigrant labor?!?!
Sadly, the truth is more than likely not; it would probably only push this country towards some form of fascism all that much quicker…on the foreign policy front, that is, an expansion of imperialist policies toward Venezuela (more than likely, heightened armed aggression in the name of national security) and, on the domestic front, ever-more militarization of immigration policy.
Fascism?! I can hear it already…isn’t that just more of that over-heated, conspiratorial-laced, leftist rhetoric? I actually don’t think so; in fact, when you really begin to consider the current mix of our military interventions abroad, the expanding prison-industrial complex here at home, the evisceration of civil liberties under the pretext of a War on Terror, the “immigrant-as-enemy” discourse permeating both policy makers and the popular culture, the destruction of social democratic programs from another era that had served as a safety net (which, it should be said, arose as a direct response to the Great Depression and the two general ideological directions in which the world was turning to address the crisis: that is, to the Left or, like Germany and Italy, to the Right), one can’t help but believe we have to seriously consider the possibilities….especially as the economic crisis deepens.
Recently, the Italian government of right-wing Silvio Berlusconi proposed the fingerprinting of the entire Roma (Gypsy) population, echoing policies of Europe during World World II. In fact, I gotta mention here that the Porrajmos, as the Holocaust is known in the Romani language,claimed roughly 1 million Gypsy lives in a pre-war population that had been somewhere around 2 million. That’s right, one-half! of the entire European Gypsy population exterminated during the war, yet when one reads about the genocide of World War II, this Holocaust is made all but invisible. Perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised; after all, just this past weekend outside Naples, two young Roma girls drowned, and with their bodies in full view, Italian sun-bathers continued their business of enjoying the afternoon and sunbathing. Is not this story but an extreme reflection of the same dynamics underneath the story in my last post: that is, some lives are just simply not considered valuable.
But while there are tremendous forces arrayed to keep those outside the formal body politic silenced, to maintain their invisible status, and thereby to preserve the status quo, they continue…as they always have…to refuse and resist. The following is a recent story I came across regarding the immigrant rights movement in France (who, under right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy, has spearheaded the wave of xenophobia inside the EU) and what strategies they, as largely migrants from Africa, have employed to assert their dignity.
We would do well to listen, to learn from them, to take leadership from those that are most often neglected, and to recognize…as I believe Chavez did in his statement…that whether we are in San Pancho or Fresno, Chichicastenango or Caracas, Naples or in the banlieues of Paris, we’re all connected. And that no matter what language we speak…Spanish or Vietnamese (a la Montoya’s art above), Spanglish or Romani, English or French, a deep knowledge of one another, and a profound solidarity with one another in the face of racial capitalism is absolutely necessary. It might just save us from a very, very dark future.
“They work here, they live here, they stay here!” French immigrants strike for the right to work—and win.
France has an estimated half-million undocumented immigrants (8% of
the population, compared to 4% in the United States), including many
from France’s former colonies in Africa. The sans-papiers
(literally, “without papers”), as the French call them, lead a shadowy
existence, much like their U.S. counterparts. And as U.S. immigrants
did in 2006 with rousing mass demonstrations, the French undocumented
have recently taken a dramatic step out of the shadows. But the sans-papiers did it in a particularly French way: hundreds of them occupied their workplaces.
Bakay, Omar, and Issac, three cleaners for the Quick restaurant
chain who are sitting in to demand working papers. Photo credit: Marie
Kennedy.
Snowballing strike
The snowflake that led to this snowball of sit-in strikes was a
November immigration law, sponsored by the arch-conservative government
of President Nicolas Sarkozy, that cracked down on family reunification
and ramped up expulsions of unauthorized immigrants. The law also added
a pro-business provision permitting migration, and even
“regularization” of undocumented workers, in occupations facing labor
shortages. The French government followed up with a January notice to
businesses in labor-starved sectors, opening the door for employers to
apply to local authorities for work permits for workers with false
papers whom they had “in good faith.” hired. However, for low-level
jobs, this provision was limited to migrants from new European Union
member countries. Africans could only qualify if they were working in
highly skilled occupations such as science or engineering—but not
surprisingly, most Africans in France are concentrated in low-wage
service sector jobs.
At that point, African sans-papiers took matters into
their own hands. On February 13, Fodie Konté of Mali and eight
co-workers at the Grande Armée restaurant in Paris occupied their
workplace to demand papers. All nine were members of the Confédération
Générale du Travail (CGT), France’s largest union federation, and the
CGT backed them up. In less than a week, Parisian officials agreed to
regularize seven of the nine, with Konté the first to get his papers.
The CGT and Droits Devant!! (Rights Ahead!!), an immigrant
rights advocacy group, saw an opportunity and gave the snowball a push.
They escorted Konté and his co-workers to meetings and rallies with
other undocumented CGT workers, where they declared, “We’ve started it,
it’s up to you to follow.” Small groups began to do just that. Then on
April 15, fifteen new workplaces in Paris and the surrounding region
sprouted red CGT flags as several hundred “irregular” workers held
sit-ins. At France’s Labor Day parade on May 1st, a contingent of
several thousand undocumented, most from West African countries such as
Mali, Senegal, and Ivory Coast, were the stars.
But local governments were slow to move on their demands, so with only
70 workers regularized one month into the sit-ins, another 200 sans-papiers
upped the ante on May 20 by taking over twenty more job sites. Still
others have joined the strike since. As of early July, 400 former
strikers have received papers (typically one-year permits), and the CGT
estimates that 600 are still sitting tight at 41 workplaces.
Restaurants, with their visible locations on main boulevards,
are the highest profile strike sites. But strikers are also camping out
at businesses in construction, cleaning, security, personal services,
and landscaping. Though the movement reportedly includes North
Africans, Eastern Europeans, and even Filipinos, its public presence
has consisted almost entirely of sub-Saharan Africans, a stunning
indication of the degree of racial segregation in immigrant jobs.
Strikers are overwhelmingly men, though the female employees of a
contract cleaning business, Ma Net, made a splash when they joined the
strike on May 26, and groups representing domestics and other women
workers began to demonstrate around the same time.
Organization of sans-papiers at a May 22 general strike march organized by the CGT. Banner calls for “regularization for all.” Photo credit: Marie Kennedy
“To go around freely…”
The sans-papiers came to France by different means. Some
overstayed student or tourist visas. Others paid as much as 7,500 euros
($12,000) to a trafficker to travel to the North African coast,
clandestinely cross by boat to Spain, and then find their way to
France. Strike leader Konté arrived in Paris, his target, two long
years after leaving Mali. A set of false papers for 200 euros, and he
was ready to look for work.
But opportunities for the undocumented are, for the most part, limited
to jobs with the worst pay and working conditions. The French minimum
wage is 8.71 euros an hour (almost $13), but strikers tell of working
for 3 euros or even less. “With papers, I would get 1,000 euros a
month,” Issac, a Malian cleaner for the Quick restaurant chain who has
been in France eleven years, told Dollars & Sense.
“Without papers, I get 300.” Even so, he and many others send half
their pay home to families who depend on them. Through paycheck
withholding, the sans-papiers pay taxes and contribute to the
French health care and retirement funds. But “if I get sick, I don’t
have any right to reimbursement,” said Camara, a dishwasher from Mali.
He told L’Humanité, the French Communist Party newspaper, how
much he wished “to go around freely.” “In the evening I don’t go out,”
he said. “When I leave home in the morning, I don’t even know if I will
get home that night. I avoid some subway stations” that are closely
monitored by the police.
When asked how he would reply to the claim that the undocumented are
taking jobs from French workers, Issac replied simply, “We are French
workers—just without any rights. Yes, we’re citizens, because France
owned all of black Africa!”
“They work here, they live here, they stay here!” Strike poster in
the window of the occupied Bistro Romain restaurant on the Champs
Élysées in Paris. Photo credit: Marie Kennedy.
Business allies
The surprise allies in this guerrilla struggle for the right to work
are many of the employers. When workers seized the Samsic contract
cleaning agency in the Paris suburb of Massy, owner Mehdi Daïri first
called the police. When they told him there was nothing they could do,
he pragmatically decided to apply for permits for his 300-plus
employees. “It’s in everybody’s best interest,” he told Le Monde,
the French daily newspaper. “Their action is legitimate. They’ve been
here for years, working, contributing to the social security system,
paying taxes, and we’re satisfied with their work.” He even has his
office staff make coffee for the strikers every morning.
Though some businesses have taken a harder line against the strikers,
the major business associations have called for massive regularization
of their workforces. According to L’Humanité,
André Dauguin, president of the hotel operators association, is
demanding that 50,000 to100,000 undocumented workers be given papers.
Didier Chenet, president of another association of restaurant and hotel
enterprises, declared that with 20,000 jobs going unfilled in these
sectors, the sans-papiers “are not taking jobs away from other workers.”
For the CGT, busy with defensive battles against labor “reforms” such
as cutbacks in public employees’ pensions, the strike wave represents a
step in a new direction. The core of the CGT remains white, native-born
French workers. As recently as the 1980s, the Communist Party, to which
the CGT was then closely linked, took some controversial anti-immigrant
stands. Raymond Chauveau, the general secretary of the CGT’s Massy
local, acknowledged to Le Monde that some union members still have trouble understanding why the
organization has taken up this issue. But he added, “Today, these
people are recognized for what they are: workers. They are developing
class consciousness. Our role as a union is to show that these people
are not outside the world of work.” While some immigrant rights groups
are critical of the CGT for suddenly stepping into the leadership of a
fight other groups had been pursuing for years, it is hard to deny the
importance of the labor organization’s clout.
Half empty or half full?
With only 400 of 1,400 applications for work permits granted
four months into the struggle, the CGT is publicly voicing its
impatience at the national government’s insistence that local
authorities make each decision on a case-by-case basis rather than
offering broader guidelines. But Chauveau said he is proud that they
have compelled the government to accept regularization of Africans in
low-end jobs, broadening the opening beyond the intent of the 2007 law.
And on its website, the CGT boasted that the sans-papiers
“have compelled the government to take its first steps back, when that
had seemed impossible since the [May 2007] election of Nicolas
Sarkozy.” Perhaps even more important for the long term is that class
consciousness Chauveau mentioned. This is “a struggle that has changed
my life,” stated Mamadou Dembia Thiam of Senegal, a security guard who
won his work authorization in June. “Before the struggle, I was really
very timid. I’ve changed!” Changes like that seem likely to bring a new
burst of energy to the struggling French labor movement.
Planning at the University of Massachusetts Boston and visiting
professor of Urban Planning at UCLA. Chris Tilly is director of the
Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and professor of Urban
Planning at UCLA . In addition, Kennedy is a board member of Grassroots
International, and Tilly is a Dollars & Sense Associate.
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2008/0708kennedytilly.html
