[Music] – Hi Julie! – Hi! – Today's Friday, it's time for the Social Forecast.
– Exactly. Here we go! Today was the third act in the railroad workers' strike whom are fighting to protect our Public service, our common wealth, against private interest and for everyone's mobility.
Since the begining of the movement on April 3rd, we observe a strong support by the passengers, despite the disruption caused by such a strike. The disruption, it is primarily faced by the workers. Indeed, going on strike means losing wages.
And for early-career inspectors or engine driver, who respectively earn €1300 before tax and bonuses, note that's below minimum wage, and at €1600 before tax and bonuses, every day matters. Several support fundraising were created, one on the Leetchi website by several well known personalities, including the filmmakers Robert Guédiguian and Christophe Honoré, or the writer Laurent Binet. The fundraising reached €732.
835 as of today and keeps growing! Those online strike fundraising are really one of the smartest tools of our time for the class struggle. It is a financial weapon that enables resistance which is critical in these times of social rights decline.
Also, 3 railroad workers are walking to the Elysée: they started their journey on foot from Pamiers this Monday and intend to walk all the way to the Elysée in Paris. A walk of 700km to meet passengers and citizens, and explain the reasons behind the strike. Today, they walked from Fronton to Montauban, approximately 22km.
Tomorrow they will leave Montauban and walk to Caussade. They are expected to reach Paris on May 8th. – On every Forecast we are making a recap, it is crucial to remind us about this: postal workers are also struggling for the quality of Public service and decent working conditions.
– Indeed, they are protesting against the mail distribution reform, progressively implemented since 2014 and that should come to full effect around 2020. In department 92 [Hauts-de-Seine], they are on strike since March 26th. They are protesting against the worsening of their working conditions and against the termination of Gaël Quirante, a mailman who was terminated for being on strike.
In Rennes, postal workers have been on strike for 96 days. France Insoumise deputy Alexis Corbière came to support them and remind us all that "their struggle is our struggle, and when the postal workers, who have the lowest wages in the Public service, are on strike for so long, this is an inspiration for us all. " Gironds postal workers have been on strike for a month now and gathered yesterday Thursday in Bordeaux, in front of the regional headquarters, as a reminder that they are not giving up.
In Arles, 80 to 85% of the personnel is on strike since April 4th, the day they joined the fight. – Now about the students, the ones from Lille this time, with something no one expected. Isn't it Julie ?
– Indeed! Very bad surprise for the Lille 2 students. Despite that they didn't blockade the university, they had their finals this week.
. . under CRS [military personnel for internal security] surveilance!
Students and teachers together decided to organise the resistance. Théo, student in Lille, told us about it. We were on the phone just moments ago, he told that the students almost unanimously handed blank exam sheets or with only one word: "strike".
So teachers and students are organising the opposition. – Without transition, what's the situation with garbage men, Julie? – The waste management strike spread all over the country.
In Paris this Monday, workers gathered in front of the Parliament, they are demanding a national waste management service, the acknowledgement of the difficult woring conditions and an early retirement with full benefits 5 years earlier for all, and 10 years for workers exposed to hazardous and difficult working conditions. Personnel from the Grand Belfort planned a new strike day on April 10th. – And this Wednesday, social science and economics teachers protested in from of the Ministry of National Education.
– Absolutely, 500 to 600 teachers gathered for the protest, quite a large number actually since there are only 5600 of them in France. They are mobilized fearing their courses could disappear with the Baccalauréat reform. Currently, this course is the main disciplin in the Economics and Social science education, cherished by Kévin Boucaud Victoire, formerly teacher in this domain, it will not be maintained in the courses core proposed by the reform that removes the different possible paths.
It will only be optional. The teachers are also pointing out the dismantlement of the course. Indeed, political science, one of the three main components with economics and sociology, is now taught with history and geography in a new specialisation.
They also fear that economics could be put forward, leaving sociology out. For economics and sociology in 5th class, a course of financial management could be added, turning the disciplin into a pro-business teaching. – And we also have a new "Dead Justice" day: after that of March 30th, there is the one from Wednesday, April 11th.
– Indeed. Magistrates, lawyers and clerks are still protesting against Nicole Belloubet's new Justice bill act. They are pointing out the dismantlement of the judiciary map, the likely reduction of the appeal courts number, the specialisation of the courts, the privaization of the system and the digitalisation of Justice.
A large gathering took place in Paris this Wednesday: according to the police, 5. 000 took part, and 7. 000 according to the organisers.
A woman came from Rennes to Paris, and wrote to us: "we were a lot, united, with cool banners, a number of draings of Martine [a kid's books character], for instance "Martine goes to the local court", and we see her boarding a plane, there were coffins with lady Justice in them, and we finished with a "die-in", everybody was lying on ground, in the street, just before the Vendôme place, where the Ministry of Justice stands, but we couldn't access is because of a line of police force fully armored and equipped with riot shields. " That's terribly dangerous, people lying on the ground. The bill will be studied on Wednesday 18th by the Council of ministers.
The lawyers will not yield and are planning new actions in the near future. – Moving on to Bessines-sur-Gartempe. Where is that, Bessines-sur-Gartempe?
– In Haute-Vienne. This Tuesday, April 10th, about 30 vehicles drove from Bessines-sur-Gartempe, all the way up to Limoges, by the highway A20. Employees of the Steva factory, that manufactures products for mutliple area: automotive, agriculture or containers for supermarkets, went to the prefecture to ask for help from the State.
The company is under an insolvency procedure for unpaid rents since April 5th until June 5th, when they are at risk of closing for good. It's the 9th redundancy plan in this factory that was recently bought. The workers thought the new owners were financially stable, and even did the extra mile to secure their jobs, accepting a reduction of holidays and a reduction of the break times.
The CGT told us that the difficulty are mostly caused by the automotive sector. According to them, Renault and to some extent, Peugeot, are organising the destruction of the French manifacturing capabilities, with the support of the State. They demand to have the cars made in France and would like to find a new owner for the factory.
Finally, they are asking of financial support by the State, without which they stand no chance. – And now Julie you will talk about the series Black Mirror, and about a specific episode: season 3 episode "Nosedive", in which people are rating each other. – Indeed, in this world where people are constantly rating each other just like we are rating restaurants, or Uber drivers, for instance.
But there, it's for everyone, in this world I could go and rate you, if we meet in the elevator but you don't say hi, I give you a bad rating. – Okay! – And if you are nice to me, I give you a good rating.
And this score has an influence on your actual life. For example, if your rating is too low, you may not be able to get a loan approved. .
. – I've seen the episode, it is quite horrible, but what does it have to do with your Forecast? – Well, reality caught up with fiction: China is setting up a system of "social rating" in order to punish "bad" citizens and give rewards to the "good" ones.
A way for the government to punish those who are spreading fake news, or are smoking in non-smoking areas, don't pay the bus ticket of don't pay their fines. To determine the rating, the government is using all the data available: criminal records, tax records or social network profiles. The system should be fully operational in 2020, but the punishment of citizens with the lowest rating have already started according to several news outlets, despite not being officially plannd before May 1st.
According to Channel News Asia, 9 million people saw their plane tickets denied and 3 million would have been barred from boarding in business class. Beiing News indicated that 17 people were banned from higher education and were barred from registering for avoiding military service. On the other hand, citizens scoring high grades would be awarded privileges.
– This is unbelievable! Remember that in the episode from the Black Mirror TV show we were talking about earlier, those who get bad ratings, become pariahs. – Yes, and end up on the sidelines of society.
So. . .
– It's kind of creepy. – Yes. – Let's go to the other side of the world, Argentina, – where a feminist collective launched an app of public interest.
. . – where a feminist collective initiated a public utility application –Yes the Argentinian feminist group MuMaLa [Mujeres de la Matria Lantinoamaricana] launched releasedthis April 6, during the International Week Against Street Harassment, an application available on Android and downloaded over a thousand times in a week.
It enables women to report anonymously any assault or harassment. Users will be able to give a description of the situation they've been through, give their age and location. The goal being to establish a national map of street harassment and to support public policies in this matter, in particular the proposed law currently under scrutiny by the Argentine Congress, suggesting that street harassment should be sanctioned.
with fines of up to 1. 000 euros. – And we end this Social Forecast with a Republicans bill proposal, Republicans, quite a fan, tell us about it!
– Yes yes yes, it's quite dreadful. This week, they introduced a draft bill in the parliament, about 15 Republican MPs, to regulate the right to strike. And we're talking about banning all participation to a political strike.
Meaning: prohibit all strikes to protest against a government decision, as we can see at the moment with the reorganisation of the SNCF. But let us be reassured, such a text does not have a strong chance of being adopted. because it does not respect the constitutionality of the right to strike, fully recognized in the constitution since 1946.
It is still good to remember. It's the end of the Social Forecast, thanks to Germain Vaudry and Laura Shariaty for the cartographies, and thanks to Kévin Boucaud Victoire for his valuable insights, Kévin who has just published his new book, It's #advertisementtime: "George Orwell: writer of the ordinary people" "Première Partie" editions, 89 pages, a short size thanks to which we discover an Orwell unknown to the public alternately utterly conservative and hard line socialist.
