Berger-Binet: unity is not what it used to be

They talk to each other, appreciate each other, want to build “claims” together. The word intersyndicale has taken on too much symbolism in the past months for Lawrence Berger (CFDT) and Sophie Binet (CGT) take the risk of damaging it. “It’s too precious for there to be solitary advances,” said the first, anxious to erase any impression of a *****. And yet, in this 1er May of very strong mobilization, there is a turning point in union action. CFDT and CGT take different paths.

Laurent Berger says he is ready to meet Elisabeth Borne, Sophie Binet not yet. He even announces it before the meeting of the famous inter-union on Tuesday. He no longer believes that Emmanuel Macron can withdraw his pension reform (“we cannot lie to employees”, he says), it always makes it a prerequisite. He approves of using drones to hunt down thugs when she criticizes them.

He says “no” to pans and other power cuts during cultural and sporting events, while she defends them. At the risk of failing elsewhere like Saturday evening at the Stade de France: the spectators were there for sport, not for politics.

Fitch’s consequences

The CFDT resumes language, the CGT shows the Stade de France the limit of its strategy: could the government finally dream of better 1er may that this? After four months of m***ive mobilization against the pension reform, the long-awaited rupture of the trade union front is looming; a new phase is beginning. Does it allow to put the five-year term back on the road, since that is the objective? Nothing says it, for the moment.

Laurent Berger moves but has not given up the showdown. It changes the objective, that’s all. Supported by social anger, he wants to make the government “pay dearly” for his return to the negotiation game. We must restore the CHSCTs by going back to the work orders of 2017, he demands, while Emmanuel Macron has just promised employers that he would not do it. We must condition the aid to companies to force them to revise the salary grids, he still fixes. Very high conditions in the eyes of the executive, and built, make no mistake, with the CGT.

If the dialogue resumes, it is not close to being conclusive and offering the government the image of “appea*****t” that it expects. And this time, the “whatever the cost” can no longer be an accelerator for emerging from the crisis, as the downgrading of the French rating by the Fitch agency . Elisabeth Borne wanted lower taxes for the middle cl***es: can it still do so?