French carworkers victimised

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Colin Foster reports on a

In THE left wing PASOK government in Greece is denying that sections of the Greek armed forces attempted a coup last weekend. But it has suddenly retired 14 generals and two air vice marshals. There are reports that PASOK and the Communist Party have called on their members to be prepared to resist any attempt to impose a new military regime on the country.

In 1967 the Greek army coup put in power the colonels' regime that repressed the Left. It lasted until July 1974, when it was toppled after an attempt to organise the takeover of Cyprus triggered a Turkish invasion of the island and brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war.

ACCORDING to the senior US military adviser in El Salvador, the ruling junta cannot defeat the left wing EMIN guerillas, Worse for. Reagan, the junta is reportedly almost out of ammunition, requiring an urgent transfusion of £40 million in aid to sustain its war effort: AFTER victories for French car workers in their recent wave of strikes for higher wages, the employers have hit back with sackings. And they have done so with the encouragement of the Socialist Party-led government.

The strikes started in the paintshop at Renault Flins on January 6, and spread to other Renault factories, to Citroen, to Chausson, to Peugeot, to Fiat and to Talbot. Increases were won, and according to reports in the French revolutionary press the strikers went back feeling strong and confident.

On the return to work at Chausson Gennevilliers on February 16, for example, the weekly Lutte Ouvriere solid gain for the future" Rouge concurs: «'The general atmosphere is one of satisfaction with a wellconduçted strike".

At Citroen Aulnay, however, there had been a scuffle in the factory on February 2 between CGT demonstrators and members of the CSL - a semi-fascist organisation which serves as a company union in Citroen.

Labour . Minister Jean Auroux denounced the CGT as responsible for the clash, and called for the "exclusion from the labour community of those who use terrorist methods" Citroen's notoriously hard-line management followed up Auroux's statement by suspending a number of workers and sacking eight, including Akka Ghazi, the leader of the CGT in the factory, and three other CGT delegates.

Under French labour law union delegates (roughly equivalent to shop stewards) cannot be sacked

bosses' backlash

without a lengthy legal procedure. The Citroen bosses had first to go to the Works Committee - where the trade union majority rejected the sacking - and now to the Labour Inspectorate.

700 workers from Aulnay attended a CGT meeting in Paris on February 12 to call for strike action against the sackings. The CGT leadership (dominated by the Communist Party) has however stuck to cautious tactics. They have protested against the sackings by having the sacked workers continue to arrive at their jobs.

Citroen

The Citroen management has made no attempt to exclude them from the factory - but the foremen and supervisors, no doubt on management prompting, have issued statements threatening "al iate action" if the iked workers continue turn up.

Renault Management in nationalised Renault. followed Citroen's example. At Flins they are seeking the dismissal of three delegates of the Socialist-leaning CFDT. There too, the sacking has been rejected by the Works Committee and has gone to the Labour Inspectorate.

The local CFDT branch was in favour of indefinite strike action, but local CFDT leaders have managed to restrict the response to short protest The union leaders' sive is determined by their political ties to the government. Abandoning much of le fn MILIAL V hat the previous right ing government called lusterity' Only Miterrand and Mauroy have new name for it: 'rigour' he CFDT has dissented ightly, calling for 'selecve rigour'. wvi naire, under the slogan, •The Workers' Voice Against Austerity": Under France's electoral law, voting takes place in two rounds, and if eliminated in the first round the revolutionaries will be calling on their voters to vote for the Socialist Party or Communiat Partv in the second dob. CATAT TTY round.

by Jenny Fisher

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reports, "We have shown our strength, and it's a

muted response to the employers' counter-offen-