After Michelin announced the closing down of its Cholet and Vannes plants, workers met government officials with a lot of anger: “For 50 years, Michelin has been wearing out our health, and in five minutes, they fire us"; "Michelin the murderer"; "Those liars"...
They have every right to be angry and hopefully the anger will spread and rouse workers to join in a mass mobilization. After all, thousands of workers are being attacked on what matters the most: their jobs and livelihoods.
Every week there comes more news of company closures and mass layoffs. Take, for example, the automotive suppliers MA France, Valeo and Dumarey; the heating company Saunier Duval; the chemical company Vencorex; and other multinational corporations including Airbus, Michelin, Stellantis, Sanofi, Casino, Auchan… On top of that, hundreds of smaller businesses are going bankrupt, as are artisans grappling with the decline in their customers' purchasing power and suppliers and subcontractors that are suffering under the big corporations in command.
This is unacceptable and there is no reason to tolerate it. The big bosses and those who defend them use the crisis to justify the disaster. But can we say there’s a crisis at Michelin when the company boasts two billion euros in annual profits? And what about Sanofi, Airbus, and Valeo when their business revenues and shareholder dividends keep going up?
We’re being told that competition from China is acting like a juggernaut crushing the entire industrial sector. But competition, both national and international, is nothing new. In fact, it is an integral part of the fierce capitalist system. All major corporations are in competition with each other and they compete precisely to gain the largest share of the pie.
They act like vultures. They always want more, just like all capitalist companies. Yes, they wage fierce wars among themselves, but they do so at the expense of workers all around the world, who, in their eyes, are nothing more than the means to manufacture goods – pawns to be bought, sold and thrown out. In Marx’s terms, they are “wage slaves”.
In fact, these capitalist corporations act as though they are the masters of the world able to treat humans and nature as they wish. They can take thousands of workers’ jobs away and turn entire regions into industrial wastelands. They don’t care about pollution or disrupting the climate if it means they can make a few million more. And, when countries go to war and drag us into an evermore barbaric world, they do so to protect the interests of those same capitalist corporations.
When facing these capitalists – the kings of the modern era – politicians are pitiful. From the Rassemblement National (National Rally) to Macron and Barnier to the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front), they all spend their time explaining that we “need to re-industrialize the country”.
But right now not one of them is standing up to demand a ban on factory closures and layoffs! Not one of them is pushing Michelin to secure jobs and wages in Cholet and Vannes! Not one of them is advocating for work to be shared out among employees at Airbus, Sanofi, Valeo and Auchan!
The Mulliez family (owners of Auchan, Decathlon, Leroy Merlin, Kiabi, Saint-Maclou, Norauto…) holds a fortune of over 50 billion euros. Ensuring wages for the 2,400 workers they say they have to lay off would cost them peanuts considering their immense wealth.
The profits of these corporations, present and past, must be requisitioned and used to guarantee that workers’ demands are met. Yet not a single politician dares to say so, because not one of them is truly willing to confront the ruling bourgeois families.
Their eagerness to denounce China, foreign competition, norms and regulations or the European Union’s policies is nothing but a smokescreen. It serves as a distraction and it’s a way of hiding their subservience to the business leaders at the head of these corporations laying workers off.
What the government will never do, workers must impose themselves by fighting for it – we have no other choice. For the thousands of workers who risk losing their jobs, the fight begins today.
It has been years since there have been any victorious, massive class struggles opposing the working class to the big bosses. But workers still have the power of their number. And more importantly, they are the ones who create the profits and fortunes of the capitalists and this works in their favor in the power struggle against all those parasites.
So, if workers unite and organize, they have the power to fight for their own interests and demand the respect they deserve!
Nathalie Arthaud