Is France the Champion of Strikes?
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00:00 And for more on what these strikes say about France, Solange Mougin joins me in the studio.
00:06 Solange, France has a reputation for being a country that strikes the most in the world. In
00:12 fact, that's what my Uber driver was telling me this morning since I had to take an Uber and not
00:16 the train to get to work. But is that stereotype actually true? Well, it really depends on the
00:21 numbers that you look at and hear the statistics while they're actually all over the place. Every
00:26 country has its own way of computing what exactly consists of a strike. The US, for example, it only
00:32 counts strikes of over a thousand people. Italy, as another example, it doesn't publish its figures
00:37 because it says that they're not reliable enough anymore. And Spain doesn't count general strikes
00:42 in its figures, but it computes smaller ones. But it is safe to say the obvious that France does
00:48 have a strong strike culture and a history of striking. If we take statistic as figures, then
00:54 yes, France has the most strikes per 1,000 workers with the nation being neck and neck with Denmark.
01:00 If we take the OECD's figures, it puts Costa Rica on top and then Denmark and then France. But that
01:06 study was disputed because it took into account the number of days that workers couldn't get to
01:10 their jobs, not just the strikers. And then we have the European Trade Union Institute's numbers.
01:17 Its latest figures put Cyprus on top. Now, of course, these figures are old. Some stop in 2016,
01:24 2017, and they often also cover a decade. And there's actually a reason for that. If you compare
01:30 decades, it tells you more about the strike culture and the longer trends rather than one
01:35 year being particularly active in strikes or not. Now, the European Trade Union Institute actually
01:41 found that France, since 2000, strikes have been dropping here. Of course, there are years where
01:47 there are spikes, like 2010, like 2019, and more recently with last year's pension reform strikes.
01:54 Now, of course, it's premature to call this a full on downward trend. But how and why French
01:59 workers are striking may be changing. And France is actually not alone in these shifts. In Germany,
02:05 for example, there's been an upward trend in labour strikes. But again, you can't really fully
02:10 compare these two countries because in Germany, it's only trade unions that can call strikes,
02:15 whereas here in France, you also have a strong culture of political strikes as well.
02:19 And today's strikes, Solange, are about wages and bonuses in the public sector during the Olympic
02:25 Games. And of course, keeping in mind the games are happening during July and August, which is
02:30 the sacred holiday time when vast majority of French workers go off on their annual leave.
02:36 But to what extent do these strikes actually work?
02:39 Well, of course, it depends on a case by case situation. And here there is a strong sentiment
02:45 among strikers, "Hey, those workers got good bonuses, we want them too." But beyond that,
02:51 and on the whole, strikes have a long tradition of bearing fruit in France. If we go all the way
02:55 back, it's the wrath of the people that was behind the revolution. Then there's La Commune,
03:00 or the insurrection in 1871, among working class people. Same for the 1930s strikes that transformed
03:07 labour laws and made them as they are today. Then of course, the national strikes of May 1968.
03:13 And more recently, France has had protests against gay marriage, pension reforms,
03:17 police brutality. And of course, there are these pretty much yearly transportation strikes for
03:23 wages. Now, these two are changing shape with months on end of strikes being a thing of the
03:30 past. Now, select days are chosen, select hours as well. This can actually help make them more
03:36 effective, but it can also help workers who do not get paid when striking. Not everyone knows this.
03:41 You don't get your salary when you strike, the days you strike. Now, according to the International
03:45 Labour Organization, nearly all of the employees in Italy, Austria, France can collectively fight
03:52 for better wages and conditions. It is widespread right here that people respect. But this does not
03:58 mean that French labour unions are running the show in France. Only one in 10 workers in France
04:04 belongs to a labour union that's below the OECD average. But this low figure actually may play a
04:10 role in how and when workers strike. It is also a case with today's transportation strike. There
04:15 is a tendency in France to strike globally. There's a tendency to strike first and then negotiate
04:21 later rather than the other way around. And that also tells us something about France's work
04:25 culture. Oh, yes, indeed. It does. Thank you so much, Salam.