Throughout France a wave of struggles is continuing through the summer holiday period, which in previous years has often been observed as a truce in the class suurue us me me workers are fighting back against the attacks often provocatively launched just before the holidays.
One of the most significant of these struggles is taking place at the printworks of Caron-Ozanne in the town of AN APPEAL main customer, the regional daily manavemene avesteem me most grant was supposed to be for the ramonansacon nac to ra on ene workers. union reaction.
independent The Revenue ment. So far three very successful editions have been printed.
to maintain their orders with the placing orders. this traditional response was not enough.
the printers approached the Caen Caen in Normandy. Following a recent merger, supervised by the printer's Ouest France (Western France), the modern plant and issued glib statements about the rosy future for the works.
The merger was planned so that the company could get their hands on a £280,000 grant from the regional development fund. The fund is intended to promote new employment, and the creation of 30 new jobs. But no sooner had the merger been carried out than the management decided that the axe of "inefficient' structure they had just created, and on 5 June they sacked 48 The workforce immediately occupied the factory, expelling the management. On going through the management files, they found plans for the sacking of a further 61 workers-the company had decided to carry out the sackings in two stages in the hope ol dividing the workforce and preventing The discovery hardened the workers' determination, and they took over the presses to serve the struggles of the working class. At one of the regular mass meetings they decided to produce their own paper, mockingly called Ouest Licenciements (Western sackings), and invited contributions from all the factories in the region struggling against sackings and rising unemploySome private companies, caught by agit deadlines, have been forced occupied works-on a cash-only basis, of course! In addition the printers are producing material for other workers in struggle, notably the striking printers at the Paris newspaper, Parisien Libere. Revolutionary organisations are also But the struggle does not rest there. The workers realised that they could not hope to win if they confined their a to te one works ner sake is viewed sympathetically by Caen workers and donations have flooded in. But Fearing an attack by the heavily armed rot police. as has occurred in several recent occupations in the area, electricity workers, who agreed that if any attack was launched, mey would cut off the electricity supply to every factory in the town-an excellent example of workers control in action.
The Caron-Ozanne printers also reanse me need to spread their struggle widely-to bring in all the many similar disputes throughout the area, and to coordinate these fragmented struggles into a general counter-attack against the employers. They have thereOuest Licenciements (Western sackings), the paper put out by the striking printers fore issued a call for an open general meeting in September of all workers involved in struggle against the rising wave of unemployment.
This mass meeting has already been prepared by a preliminary meeting of delegates from some of the factories concerned. One of the strike leaders was insistent that a general strike throughout the area would be needed to defeat the bosses' attacks.
John Haine • Les travailleurs revendiquent • Les pouroirs publies cognent
----- pull-quotes -----
ouest licenciements A BLAUPUNKT: • Les patrons licencient