Strike Out

Make no mistake about it: I am ready for the transportation strike to end, but, in the interest of making lemons into lemonade, or grapes into wine as the case may be, the strike and its related stress has allowed me a better glimpse at French solidarity.

If you haven’t heard, since last Wednesday, the French transportation workers are on strike over a feud with the government over retirement reforms. The right to strike is held dearly here, so the workers are challenging the government’s position by cutting service on most trains and busses. The public, it seems, is squarely in the middle of a debate over the retirement benefits of 500,000 workers.

There was a strike about a month ago, which was a pain and lasted for about two days. This one looks to be longer and we’ve actually had to deal with it for a few days, so I feel like my perspective is a bit different this time around.

On Thursday, I had a meeting that simply had to take place—strike or no strike. So, like the others who were involved in the meeting, we figured out how to make it work. Most of us walked, which we found basically fine. It was a sunny, if a bit chilly, day and I left plenty of time. I even found myself at some points happy to be joining the masses making due in the face of inconvenience and, at the very least, I claimed my legitimate right to complain about the situation—which made me feel very French. Sadly, it took the one woman who had no choice but to use some transportation (she lived unwalkably far away) nearly four hours to arrive.

The one thing I don’t understand though is why the workers chose this particular method of striking. It seems instead of a work stoppage, they also had the option of just not charging anyone for transportation, which courts have decided is a legal strike method. Then, you could cost the government money and not make the public angry. I know the issues are complicated and retirement is sacred, but I seriously question their strategy.

I also think my goodwill and lemonade making skills are starting to run short, especially as the temperatures have dropped. Josh just said there was an Anti-Strike March today—if only I could get there I would join in and all this from someone who actually believes in unions. Nearly my entire family is part of a union and even my dad said, “In the States, they would have been forced back to work and a cooling off time or intensive mediation would have taken place.”

In truth, for us, this is mostly an inconvenience. So far, we’ve had to miss the ballet (they were on strike fighting to maintain a benefits package dating back to the 1600’s—no joke), an artist fair (even when the metro is running it takes an hour to get to this neighborhood and we weren’t going to walk there), dinner with Josh’s host father he stayed with in 1989 (who lives too far away to walk) and we ended up just walking everywhere else. Nothing absolutely important, but still slightly irritating. We’re hoping that our Thanksgiving dinner at Iris’ isn’t cancelled or, more comically, that I don’t have to haul a whole turkey on my back to Iris’. We also have a friend arriving on Wednesday without any clear way for him to get from the airport to the city, but we’ll figure all of that out. But mostly, I resent feeling like I am being taken hostage over someone else’s fight.

So, we’ll see when this ends. No immediate end is in sight and even when it’s officially over, it will take several days for things to be back to normal. Several French people have said, “Well, you are certainly having a chance to experience a unique piece of France.” I have to say, I prefer cheese and wine to this piece of culture any day.

sPg

PS: These photos are of a recent strike-related protest, a protest earlier this year, and "better days" our friends and family had with the transit system in strike-free times.