Strikes in the time of coronavirus french unions threaten to walk off the job they say now is the time to demand more rights and protection for their workers Political Legal economy struggling governments response this is a thoughtful. Hello welcome to the program on the Economic Impacts of covert 19 pandemic has been devastating lockdowns around the world have forced many businesses to file stuff and cut spending unions are now worried welcomes will lose hard full benefits one of the biggest unions in france is calling for a National Rail strike on thursday the c. D. T. Wants president emanuel mccrone to guarantee workers protections in his 120000000000 dollars stimulus package its meant to help companies recover after the pandemic but some rival unions say now is not the time to strike the transport secretary doesnt believe many people will join a planned rally in central paris france has banned public gatherings of more than 5000 people. Well you do manage radio and your newsroom as i told you i really dont understand this strike just last week we allocated fixed 1000000000. 00 to the Railway Sector which will come after recovering 40000000000. 00 in debt weve implemented the capacity for Rail Transport to become a model of success in future decades i know the stance the ideology of the c. D. T. Union rail workers on this issue i know perfectly what they are fighting for what im struggling to understand is at this moment right now in a time of deep crisis for france when the government is heavily supporting the railways the deeper reasons for this strike. The pandemic has led to job losses around the world in france 800000 people are expected to become unemployed in the coming months thats nearly 3 percent of the entire workforce in germany the number of people out of work reached 3000000 between june and august while in italy half of the jobs lost in the pandemic were held by people under the age of 35 and globally more than one in 6 people between 18 and 29 have stopped working since the beginning of the outbreak. Lets bring in our panel in london julian who is a european policy specialist and a member of french president emmanuel more crowns party and in brussels facilis secretary general of the European Movement international a Civil Society network promoting closeout european integration a warm welcome to you all id like to begin with you. In london now this the unions are saying is an opportunity for you guys to erode workers rights youre deliberately eroding workers rights and youre actually riding roughshod over the years of french law. Well weve been hearing this since during the president ial elections in 2017 and this is on the many reasons that people said they refused to vote for a manual macron because he was the president of the rich he was a rough child and all of these issues have if you actually look at whats been happening in from the french government has been incredibly generous generous sorry in the way that it has been supporting workers and during this time of crisis lets not forget that france had what was on the pioneers of whats the follow schemes now are and was the most generous in what they gave to the point to actually shamed other governments by association such as the British Government into applying a photo scheme and protecting its workers in the same way as the french did but why the c. D. T. In as easy striking then whats the point like what i mean obviously they do have a good legitimate grievances they worry that youre using kind of 19 as an excuse to basically get rid of the law think well having read the quote strike on the website and the things that were published recently by the city what theyve been saying is from a variety of different issues so they want to make sure the government prioritise increasing the level of employment which the french government is doing to the best of its ability employment increased by 0. 4 percent in august and 9 pollen percent in july so we can the french government is doing what they can or so the prioritization of helping the city to manage services which french government is always doing and again there were criticisms about the french handling of the s. N. C. F. Whereas the french government already took on 5000000000 euros worth of debt from the s. And saf very recently. Let me bring in. Petrol sassoon us in brussels now this is not just a french problem. This is a global problem when it comes to dealing with covert 19 in the effect its had on industrialization and the workplace what is there a unified european solution to this if youre europe is a liberal measures over the past few months are simply disappears as were going through some of there are still huge structural problems if youre requiring. Context of the. Daily basis its ready either going to investment decided. To stop or it will. Keep their jobs and i see them financially in case that is not possible. The problems of the response being supportive of our borders how are we you that Investment Banking here example working group over the last few months of this interim government in place because more resistant or or with the actual earlier efforts to move to more people legislation if youre late or it doesnt mean that were going to experience and im going in for that do you think its imperative that. d the state Work Together because the problem is our society our societies of. Those earth lisa are our core support it is a sure automation. Its all is new so you pretty much work and you. But when youre looking at somewhere like italy for example where the vast majority of people have been affected petrus have been under the age of 35 youre looking at a generation of people that may not be able to get back to the levels of earning that they had before is that still you know as a stimulus package enough to sort the country like italy out for example. If you get there is a longstanding problem with normandy least likely to be greece spain where thats where i think in the orchestra structure of solutions you shoot training people supporting and there are no worst ever being it isnt nice who are the main employers your people old give for groceries and grow or. Thats what it really important when it comes to measures and who can play his ears and especially. If youre going to you know its time to be targeted and or young people in other part political groups at the mosque because you go for tuition. Digitally. Experiencing and the intention of your being here is for me to that european citizens that we need to go after good jobs for us to create jobs judy how as in london its a 1600000000 dollars. Sorry 120000000000. 00 aid programs the Stimulus Program 6000000000. 00 of that are actually allocated to the Railway Industry itself so we are talking a massive amount of money that what the strings. Well the strings of for the time being a particular member say such as france what is being done is now. Transport services for example general local flights are being told that in france in particular that theyre not allowed to run flights that are less of what the knots run flights on routes where there are journeys like taken by train by 2 hours or less which is causing problems for certain sectors within the industry struggles the low cost transport flights and industry and the airlines that rely on these to make a profit and run their businesses however for the time being we theres always going to be some sort of unforeseen consequences of many decisions we dont know what thats going to be across europe particularly in. The European Commission president speech this morning at the state of the e. U. Theres being a big push towards digitalisation which is going to have an impact on all these industries allah may make them more efficient to make them easier to use for the average traveler user or company but were going to have to wait and see what happens lets now bring in the glass and then the other things the c. D. T. Union joins us from paris the name of this 120000000000. 00 stimulus package 6000000000. 00 wage allocated to the railways so why nothing going out on strike. Well were not complaining about the amount of money a located were complaining about how this money will be used the government announced that 10100000000000 will be used to for employment but in the reality there are a lot of. Financial aid and. And also tax incentives for companies but there is no security to guarantee any job so the problem is in france that we have unemployment that increased very much after discovering it were talking about 22 percent of increase and especially for young people under 25 years old that have an increase of 29 percent of employment. And the say time so so so so many jobs are lost salaries are pretty used employees lost also a lot of flack ation days because its a measure of the covenant until the end of the year but in the mean time the evidence were disproved distributed to shareholders. So we consider that companies do not take any social ethical and responsibility in this crisis so what youre saying is i think this is what youre saying affecting you know is that the french government is actually bailing out the bosses and not the workers well theyre asking theyre helping companies so that Company Still be alive but on the same time they they do not have any guarantee that their workers will still keep their jobs so yes we need to have more control more guarantee for the jobs which is not the case today you know as in london what can you make those guarantees. Well myself personally i cannot make these guarantees but the reality of the situation is the number of processing that will then make the guarantees and lets lets not lets say that but but what is happening now is for example the french finance minister said that the funding going towards these companies had to be used to support the employment and developed is that while shareholders may be getting paid dividends which is not necessarily something that i may personally agree with if the issue at hand is that if the shareholders on time place sadly Many Companies on tables operate and we need these companies to operate in front across the french sectors and industries and as well as to help in the european recovery these businesses need to be kept running because if companies arent kept running then there are no jobs if there are no jobs and unemployment skyrockets further and we should really be very cognizant of the fact that again from this had one the most generous fellow programs in the world emulated to some respect by the usa and the u. K. When they realize it couldnt do anything differently and when we actually look at the reality a situation was thought out of this crisis the government is doing absolutely everything that it can to ensure that all companies and Industries Related are being kept running that photo programs are being kept running for another 2 years it was announced recently and that temporary wage subsidies training subsidies and unemployment support is being kept running as well it may not be the best for. Employees to have to miss out on some holidays as a result of thats but personally i as a french citizen i think its a price worth paying to make sure that the country keeps running not exhaust you think its a price worth paying. Well you know the crisis has a lot of effects on everything on people unemployment on the Public Service as well and what was announced is if you see it on the paper is very optimistic and very good but in reality. Theres a lot of things missing and we dont forget this money is our money its the peoples money so its workers money its our taxation and we should have worked to say what how it should be used as well so lets start what what about the Public Service during this crisis we realized how how important the problem of Public Service can be in this specially in how Social Security and all the. All the social protection and and then they they realize that its really very essential to have efficient Public Service some announcement were made for hospitals but its been many many many years that all the governments that were succeeded their main their main interest was to reduce the Public Investment and it specially for schools and medical care and also search security and now were a light that its a big mistake so its very difficult to cope with all these cuts during many many years but so this is why we are saying that its not enough what theyre doing is not enough because even today after the the the peak of the crisis were in the hospitals they are all they cannot take care of all the problems they have even today they have a lot of people coming and. All the doctors and workers there are having a lot of overtime so we know there are some problems they try to do things but yeah its been so many years that ive been doing the opposite of what should be done and what theyre doing now is certainly not enough petrus facilis in brussels on the one hand you have julian owens who says hes very proud of the french governments response to this and says its something that other countries should be emulating that we have one of last in paris saying that actually is not enough what do you think is this a model the other countries should follow. I think there is a bit in spirit tension across the poor dont mind if its 7th year or 2 were seeing a complete transformation of government of being army and we are seeing the action of between theres only really good losers the guards are increasing interest im just becoming more of the work and i was generally its a source of instability and really does that lead us to see problem veritas or. Any other movements will become part of the imperative here is to Work Together to fight a new compromise and new consensus for the economy of the century it hurts us and for us. The need to origins in it where your society is operating its not my b. B. C. And. Who isnt part of our responsibility to boost our weight finding the balance we were. And. Its we need ruby and we need a much more work release the conversation really won an argument not a labor one. There are people who are on. Meetings be. Regional about empowerment. Or are you going to come. Into the police and. Find. These people are going to all of these. The petrel so what youre saying effectively is that covert 19 has excel aerated this new way of working which was always going to come but here its now in front of us right now were talking about things that Remote Working would talk about the way we actually get to the office if we go to the office indeed at all what about the strikes what about the strikes that the c. D. C. Is proposing is that therefore helpful or unhelpful when it comes to face facing this new world. It is interesting because the. European commission. If it made a difference to. The source of specialization and the strike that theyre generally a theater people in marginalized is left behind. Trying to find a way to avoid the. Demonstrations joining more than 44 parties and i think its important even to its. More i live. In the european live because that sense. Youre. Going to go away. So people who are demonstrating. Part of the group or. Was not the point that i was. Even. Worse i mean the thing about additional back were saying we are not equal im not going to sleep. At night not the big group of madness i mean that whole meeting basic structure and survives and. All. He said is the discourse. To go if you behaving responsibility responsibly by calling for a strike physically as we just heard there is a new challenge when it comes to the way we work and covered one thing you know what we would prefer not to call for strike to be honest but at the proper response is that the social dialogue is completely broken with the government. For instance ill give you an example we should be today discussing new negotiation on teller work because most of the people especially my trade union i fear isnt professions and managers in my trade union and there are 80 percent of them actively working today and we and then we ask for negotiation on telly work and theres no negotiation at all. Lets talk about the retirement theory for our government is you think this. The capacity it has to block all of the debates in General Assembly block all the negotiation and. Push and push forward these lows in force using the 49 to 3 i dont know if you know what this but this is a way to block all the discussions between the social partners and the government so yeah we would prefer not to strike we would prefer to earn our salary as everyone because i reminders that when you are on strike you are not paid. But then if we have any other way to do it we would prefer this the problem is that our government is not very is not listening to us and not true and there is no negotiations at all you know is wasnt your government listening to the people. What i mean the government is listening to the people is why theyve had multiple National Conversations regarding multiple important issues of the digital. Beginning of Judicial Movement and the new macro led to multiple discussions of people across france same thing regarding ecological policy and quite honestly the french government has done quite a lot isnt there french people but for example in a move that was nakedly political because it didnt suit them i remember when at last phillipa organized meetings of all union heads late that will be last year we got into judicial crisis and all of the union had started to work out at one point because they would be giving specifically what they needed to and they refused to negotiate similarly right now with the Pension Reforms whats happened is that its actually been delayed in terms of discussion because quite honestly de france government doesnt want to push through a reform project this way while theres a crisis happening in crisis i mean until next year then i think the crisis to actually stop the reforms that you dont want no french government still once and some reforms in most was believe the french reforms are positive i mean ive looked for the entire project of law on the paper Pension Reforms and person is something that i agree with many other people agree with the issue is that its more politically expedient to pretend that the government is trying to force through things undemocratically because if he should try to people to what i think are incredibly irresponsible protests for example just yesterday 7852 new infections on the 12th of september it was 10561 were about to be in a situation where de economy may have to go into lockdown yet again if things can get under control and the problem is that when that happens and they will be even greater issues with employability financing and the like and i would just like to go back again to what is being said about the not enough being done for the Public Services lets not forget that from. Gave Health Workers pay rise worth 9000000000. 00 euros in total each receiving around 183. 00 euros and that this was done according to the manifest that i was before the 2017 and that this was done following decades of neglect of Health Services and Public Services by both right wing and left wing parties so we already know its not we are running out of time and i do want to come to petros console of silis he paints a very joining things a very rosy picture of whats happened in france suggesting that actually its a model worth emulating however there are a number of Different Countries are using code 19 as a way to crackdown and erode workers rights is that concerning you. Certainly. You know you really just beat on the premise of. Source of commerce one of the its there are actual words. You hows he going to get the sleeve of legislation. For what it will all who labor markets and all who see any time who instanced in dakar and if you know we are. Asking some of the more farms also for their actions and words to make sure that we mean. Were not were not. Right by what we believe. Are worse. And make sure that there were more people who these people. Who were. Not going to happen because. You are who used to sponsor. A parent or whatever. I want to thank all our guests julian how as and they love us and petros for so loss and thank you for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our web sites out there at dot com and for further discussion goes off Facebook Page thats facebook dot com for slash a. J. Inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter and we are at a day inside story for me and one current and entire team here and i to now. Keeping law and order is a primary function of any state. When protecting the people became Police Brutality a domestic incident became a global lock. In a country torn apart by racial inequality. In americans find a leader to unite. Follow the key issues of the us elections. On aljazeera context these are the same storytelling around the biggest issues but had to do you should do it again. But on the clock in doha the top stories here on aljazeera and a Police Operation to get thousands of refugees off the streets and into a new tent camp has begun on the greek island of lesbos theyve had to shelter wherever they can since swept through europes largest refugee camp and laura 9 days ago it had house more than 12000 people nearly 5 times the number it was built for many of the homeless have been reluctant to move into the new camp fearing they will be stuck with 70 deckers in lesbos where authorities have been encouraging the refugees to move. I mean certainly if you look just behind us there youll see the moving in the line stretches all the way up the road which is the most that weve seen it since this calm was set up just a couple of days ago and this is because of the operation that was undertaken this morning around 630 this morning nic riot police came stood in a cordon formation with their riot gear with their shields telling the refugees to move you then had people in sort of plastic type suits hazmat type suits going to the tents and gesturing for the refugees and the migrants to get up to pick up their belongings and to come here i think we can call that almost like a peaceful message of force basically telling them it is time it is time for you to move willingly but certainly the message was there visually very strongly that if you dont go to move we will move you forcibly at some point this is also the message that weve had from the authorities here an exam that this is the only option for them where they can be safe where they can get food and water medical attention and most importantly only the ones in this camp are going to be having having their side
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