THE Strike

Are you feeling the impact are the strikes by the truckers and dock workers who are protesting the cost of fuel?

COME ON SARKOZY!!!
DONT GIVE IN TO THESE COMMIES!!

Paris is the greatest city in the world, BAR NONE and it takes love and compassion and freedom to keep it going the correct way.

NO TO UNIONS NO TO BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY PEOPLE WHO CANT MAKE IT BASED ON THEIR GOOD WORK BUT MUST BAND TOGETHER TO COVER EACH OTHERS MISTAKES.

I'll add that in fact today there was a demonstration against the strike. Transport will continue to be disrupted tomorrow, in any case; after that, we'll just have to wait and see.

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7086162" target="_blank">http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7086162</a>
Despite freezing weather, a crowd of up to 10,000 according to organisers, demanded in Paris that the railway workers return to work and the government not back down from planned reforms. Police estimated around 8,000 took part in the march. "Things have got to change," said one young marcher, Philippe Roux. "These guys (the strikers), they've got job security and the right to strike. And when they talk about pensions, for someone of my generation it just makes me laugh."

Opinion polls show the rail strike is unpopular with most French voters, but railway workers have so far been less keen on talks than union leaders and there remains a chance they will vote on Monday to continue their protest.

It depends on who you talk to, of course. Many see striking as a part of French culture, a tradition if you will, and put up with it because they support the right to strike or support the benefits at stake. Others resent the inconvenience, especially in this case where the pension benefits at stake affect only a relatively small portion of French workers.

I can imagine it would be a major pain. Stacy, your account made me laugh, although I know it's not funny when you're in the middle of it. The closest I've come is when I lived in Besançon. We had water, electrical, and postal strikes which were enough of a pain; I can't imagine the havoc that a strike like this would cause. Are people taking it in stride or are they vocal about it?

Aside from all of the other issues, I will add only that from a personal perspective THE Strike is a pain in THE you-know-what (and I don't even have to commute to work--I really feel for all of those who do). Some metro lines have more service than others (mine unfortunately is one of those that has almost no service), and the buses, which were up to about 40% of their usual schedule yesterday, in general are jam-packed, in some cases leaving would-be passengers standing at the bus stops because there's simply no more room to squish another body into the squirming mass of humans already inside the bus. It's even less fun when you're in virtually intimate contact with someone who doesn't seem to have bathed for a while or someone else with killer breath ("l'haleine qui tue"! how is it that that particular odor can travel across distances and be so absolutely horrible?). Getting out of the bus at your stop is sometimes an adventure in itself. The metro trains can be nearly as full but a little easier to navigate in that regard.

A lot of people who live outside Paris and normally take the RER or SNCF trains to Paris to work are staying in the city with friends or coworkers, or some of them even in hotels when necessary. I'm sure they'd all like to see it end soon, along with many other people who seem to be getting tired of it.

Hi Ellen,

Yes. And it will, clearly, through the weekend. Negotiations have stalled, as they tend to at about this point. From the beginning of the strike, both the unions and the companies were interested in negotiating, but only under government auspices. The Minister of Labor, however, declared that the government would not take part in negotiations until the unions sent their people back to work. That's not going to happen, of course. The declaration was just a way of marking time, while the government looked to see whether the unions could hold their strike together over the weekend.

Participation in the strike has been falling day by day, not unexpectedly. Monday, it could fall some more, which would pretty much doom the strike at this point, or it could rise again, as workers clock time during the weekend, but rejoin the pickets when they see the strike looking like it's failing. Wednesday may see the public employees out on strike, in which case the government's strategy of leaving the cheminots out to twist in the wind will have backfired, since a settlement probably could have been reached with them if negotiations had continued.

I'd say traffic has been lighter on Paris streets than I'd expected. That must mean some people have been avoiding work. But they won't be able to do that forever. Some trains have been running throughout, so have some Métro trains. But service has been much reduced (except on the new #14 line, which is entirely automatic, and thus invulnerable to strikes) and the pictures on the evening news make it look like it's still a struggle.

Marc

I've been out of touch the past few days. Is the strike still going on?

Cant sleep and thought I'd make another attempt to post....for some rerason for about 10 days the Forum only accepted me as a guest and when I tried to register they said somebody else had my name already taken . Hey, ID theft.

No big deal Marc about your Paris strike. Here in NY we have a theater strike and a "little" strike like that is costing the city millions.

Going back to sleep and when I wake up I'll find out this posting was all a dream.

Here in Paris we're hunkering down for the main wave of the strike that will begin tomorrow--that is, Wednesday. (Long-haul trains went on strike at 8 p.m. tonight--that is, Tuesday night.) Local trains, other public transport, gas and electricity are out as of the morning. The transport companies have pared even their "guaranteed" schedules back severely. And in fact, the effects of the strike-to-come were visible as early as this evening on the streets here. The number of buses available on routes was reduced significantly, as RATP presumably just started garaging the ones that would be superfluous. Taxis became harder to get as the evening wore on, according to friends who were out tonight.

Public functionaries, school teachers, and some unions at La Poste and France Telecom join the strike the 20th if it's still going; magistrates join on the 29th if it runs that long. I think it promises to be quite bitter. Both the government and the unions feel they must not budge. It may therefore take a long strike, with the public anger that generates, to compel both sides to bargain seriously. (I have friends who live across the street from former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who receives 24-hour police protection. His security is provided by the CRS, the special forces unit which will handle most of the head-bashing during the strike, should that prove necessary or desirable. One of my friends asked the CRS captain in charge of the securty detail how long he thought the strike would run. Capt. CRS answered, "I don't know, but they've issued our barracks thirty days' worth of provisions." Of course, he may have been showing off. Or maybe they always get 30 days' worth of provisions at a time.)

There have already been some gratuitously violent police actions against students who were striking for quite another reason. I don't know whether that received any coverage in the States. The worst was yesterday (Mon.) at Paris-X in Nanterre, where I'd been attending a conference Thurs.-Sat. It gave me quite a turn to see it on the news.

If the strike goes on even a reasonably long time, I wonder if we'll see occasional electricity blackouts. (As I mentioned, EDF/GDF are out as of Wednesday.) I still keep fond memories of a winter some years ago when my wife and I were visiting during such a strike. All the shops were lit with candles, and we'd carry candles down the hall to take a bath at our hotel. It was charming. Really it was.

Marc