larely a thousand people live in Bretmcelles, a small French town in Normandy. But no less than 1,500 cramsed into the municipal ballroom for a mceting on Sunday, 19 January. From all over the region, they had come to pledge their support for the fight of 86 workers at the local Piron factory to protect their jobs.
Proh is a small engineering works which sub-contracts for the motor industry - mainly Renault, Simca (Chrysler-France), and Citroen. But a British workers are learning to theit cost - when the car industry sneezes, its sub-contractors catch double pneu in France today.
Two months ago the workers at Piron turned up one day to find that ory had run out of fuel. After a confrontation in the office of the boss, Mr Piron senior, they were told that be was filing a petition for bankruptey.
For the moment they went back to work, but then one of the workers noticed a lorry loaded up with machinery and about to leave the factory.
workers seized the lorry and then went to see Piron again. *Withdraw your bankruptcy petition and gustantee our hours and wages, and you can have your machinery back, they told him. But he refused, so the workem prepared to fight in earnest, setting up a struggle committee to tepresent all the workers- unionised, non-unionised and managerial staff.
The next day. 13 December, Piron announced that he was suspending the payment of wages. The response of the struggle committee was immediate •Faced with the cynicism and uselessness of the bosses,. the workers have decided to get rid of the Pirons, father and son from the factory. They had sacked the bosses!
PUBLICITY
For the time being, however, they carried on production. They did thi not because they believed they could run the factory in their own interests under capitalism, but as a means of advancing their strugple. It won enormous publicity for them in the local and nalional press, and by finishing off some uncompleted orders they pot money to put towards their They also used this opportunity to challenge in practice the whole capitalist organisation of work, and hint at how it could be orgalisell in a different type of society. bowing that the workers could do perfectly well without the boss - thauph not che other way round - they decided to cut down the inhuman work-rate, and to ban night-working Most importantly, they discussed bow they would be paid during the struggle, and decided not to maintain the old differentialswe re all indispensable to cach acconding to his needs, They stressed, however, that they were not going to fall into the trap of setting up a workers co-operutive: "It's not self-management. It's not co-minagement. It's simply workers' conrol ron could apposnt anyone he liked to run the factory; but we demand the right to check on the running whenever its consequences cause - uppear to threaten the factory and the workforce.
What they were saying amounted to monia. And there's plenty of it about this: "We refuseto curry the cost of your crisis, the capitalist crisis. Wete not overly concerned as to what solution you come up with nationalisation there was no heating because the fact anotherboss-to keep the factory open and guarantee our jobs. But be sure that Workers at Piron - work went on as usual, but without the boss we'll make it so hot for you that you'll have no alternative but to come up with a solution, What's more, wealso intend to establish our own means of control over the running of the factory to make sure that no decisions are taken which could harm our interests.
And as a first step towards this, a miss mectine elected four of their num ber subject to immediate recall look into all aspects of the financial management. This "financial control"
commission took its place alongside others already established to populirise the struggie. PRIVATE ICURNERS OF FRON KNUT NOTNO!
was naly a short-term tactic aimed af struggle. While the Lip workers could finance their struggle for months by making and selling watches to the goneral public. the market for car compo neats is much more limited - and the car piants were only prepared to buy on terms winch would cripple the ability of the workers to continue the sirLigale Furtbermore, legal action was pending to force the workers out of the factory. A new tactic was but to give needed. And on 7 January the paper Onest France published the following statement from the struggle LUE BELLO.
Alt action group made up of workers from Bretoncelles, with a view to guaranteeing their means of existence against the closure, has decided to put in a safe place a quanuty of components mamly belong: no matter the ing to Renault and CEPEM. These compunents will be handed back it the factory is kept open and empl oyment guaranteed.
They had smuggled ten tons of components out of the factory as ransom for their jobs!
OCCUPIED
was threatened and the workers deeided to leave the factory peacefully.
instead.
Ing", they told the police. That's all right - we are the public the CFDT union federation - to which most of the Piron workers belong- came to plead with them to ding to bourgeois legality i was not their property. But the workers were rather more interested in wor kers" legality - the right to defend their interests by any means open to them. The officials lett empty handed workers décided to change their quarters again, and - with the grud into the municipal ballroom began the work of turning interest into active support, showing the relevanoe of their own struggle to otber workers faced with the samie threat of unemployment.
CUT-PRICE
Already by the beginning of January a couple of support com mittees had been set up in the nearby towns, while the local peasants were supplying cut-price proFIsions. of support committees formed by tratie unionists in Various industof political groups - had grown to organise fund-tais- more than 15. A central meeting was held with delegates from cach, and it was decided to organise, along with the struggle committee, a mass rally at Bretoncelles on 19 January. struggler priest unemployment an the region:
the newspapers to see which factornoled, and next morning teams set off to leaflet them. Drawing the lessons of Piron The text concluded:
oncelles wart to make contact with But the continuation of production you-we must co-ordinate our struggles, The villory of the workers dep winning publicity and support for their ends on il.
others wunted time to think it over.
The same day police intervention But they were not downhearted - next morning they occupied the town hall 'You say it's a public build Meanwhile the local officials of return their ransom After all. accor On 9 January, however, the Piron ging agreement of the council - moved Then Ten days later the number Te presentatives The rally wasa huge success. Confident of widespread support, the mass meeting of Piron workers the following morning then took a vital and un- region. precedented decision: to work acriPeiy fomras the co-ordination of all A special liaison' commission was elected and at once checked through ies were already affected. Four were *We denounce the chronic inabilicy of the capitalist system to satisfy our clemeniary needs. The workers of Bret- working class movesent on how to capitalist crisis RESPONSE years.
The response from one factoryRadiac in Briane, occupied wince Octowas immediately favourable. The But next day came news of 75 redunTO IT MARTIN MET struggles now l employment ir which are rich ish labour mov