Talk and public discussion on June the 28th (Tuesday) at 6pm at The Cowley Club
From Brighton-SolFed, we want to support the French workers in their struggle against the Hollande government´s law aimed at reforming worker´s rights. Especially to the people facing police brutality and repression.
Nowadays in Europe, it is not unusual for governments to attack working conditions with the excuse of “deficit control” or the “competitiveness of the economy”. What is unusual (and amazing) in France, is the worker´s firm opposition.
This struggle concerns all of us. Their victory or their defeat will be ours, so we invite all of Brighton´s working class to show solidarity and join this event for the diffusion of information about these events and a discussion on our French comrades strikes.
On January 20th a general strike was declared on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe over rising living costs, ending in early March and achieving an agreed $250 wage rise for all workers. Forty seven trade unions, associations and political parties under the umbrella organisation LKP (Committee against Extreme Exploita-tion – Lyiannaj Kont Pwofitasyion in Guadelou-pean Creole French) brought all economic activity to a standstill.
Although Guadeloupe is officially part of the French Republic, the traditional labour organisations in metropolitan France isolated and ignored the struggle and media coverage was rare and superficial.
The response of the Paris government was hostile, sending in the gendarmes and the notoriously brutal CRS riot police. Memories are still fresh in Guade-loupe of the 100 workers shot dead by the CRS during a demonstration in 1967. The leader of the LKP, Elie Domota, stated:
For our twenty-fifth reading group we will be reading the first half of In The Crossfire by Ngô Văn. From the blurb: