At the beginning of the 20th century, John Mitchell, “the boy president” of the United Mine Workers, stormed into the anthracite region and convinced miners, underpaid and exploited, that the coal they mined wasn’t “Slavish, Polish or Irish coal, it’s coal.”
When on September 17, 1901, the UMW issued a call to strike, over 125,000 miners walked off the job. At the vanguard were miners in the Lehigh and Schuylkill fields. It was a long, bitter strike that hurt everyone. Miners lost their wages, stores closed, entire families had to go to work, earning barely enough to survive. Many left the region to seek jobs elsewhere and never returned.
When the strike was finally settled in March 1903, miners received a 10% wage increase, a sliding wage scale, and an 8-hour workday for several categories of miners. Pleading the miners’ cause before the Anthracite Coal Commission, the national board assembled by President T. Roosevelt to arbitrate, Clarence Darrow, “attorney for the damned,” proclaimed that, above all, miners had won a moral and spiritual victory:
“They (financial interests, such as those of J. P. Morgan, controlling the mines) are fighting for slavery, while we are fighting for freedom. They are fighting for the rule of man over man, for despotism, for darkness, for the past. We are striving to build up man. We are working for democracy, for humanity, for the future...”
In France, in 2018, April has become a month of strikes: railway and airline workers, civil servants, and students have walked off the job or out of the classroom to protest government policy and make their demands heard. Airline workers are demanding higher wages. Railway workers and students are fighting for the preservation of what they call “le modèle républicain,” a model of public service and equal opportunity representing the ideals of the French Republic.
In this French model, general interest takes precedence over the individual, and civil servants—who may be teachers, secretaries, doctors, nurses, economists or high-ranking government officials—work for the good of the nation. Railway workers, though not civil servants, work for the national rail company that still belongs in large part, at least for the moment, to the state. They too have a mission of service, and the development and maintenance of the rail system continues to be financed by the taxpayer.
I’ve lived in France for 30 years and I have benefited from “le modèle républicain.” To begin, there is the national health system. When I compare my benefits to those of friends or family in the States, I would say I receive better care for a more affordable price. I also depend on reliable, reasonably priced public transportation. When I retire, I’ll receive a public pension. For the moment, as a university professor, I am one of those civil servants serving the nation by educating its young people. I am “in the system,” and I believe the system is good.
President Macron does not share my belief, and this may be the crux of current strikes, though it all started with the SNCF, the French national rail company. The president and his majority in Parliament have voted to put an end to the “special status” of rail workers, first put in place in 1909 but considerably modified since. This means railway workers can retire earlier than the national retirement age of 62; they have 28 days of paid vacation per year (the average in France is 33), and once they’ve completed a long training and probationary period, they are guaranteed employment for life.
Claiming to be carrying out directives issued by the European Union, the government has voted to privatize passenger service in France in 2020 and put an end to the “special status” for new recruits in the same year. The law also contains many technical components concerning the legal status of the SNCF and the payment of the company’s extensive debt, due in large part to the development of the TGV, high-speed trains.
Except for specialists, few can truly grasp, as the French like to say, “the complexities of the dossier.” Yet, concerning the strike of the “cheminots,” railway workers, everybody has an opinion, and this may be because something else is at stake. Many feel Macron’s government has declared war on “le service public” and “le modèle républicain.”
For the entire month of April, my university has been closed by striking students. For me, this has meant being glued to my computer, doing most of my work on-line. My eyes, neck and wrists are aching, but this may be a blessing in disguise: the trains that carry me back and forth to work have been cancelled because of the rail strike.
Striking students are protesting what they fear will become a system of selective admissions to enter university. Currently, public universities are open to anyone with the French high school diploma called “le baccalauréat.” At the end of high school, students all over France take a series of national exams. If they pass, they are guaranteed a place in a university where their education is basically free.
From my experience, first-year university studies in France often turn into a free-for-all, leading to the survival of the fittest, natural selection that roots out about two-thirds of new students. Beginning this year, students will apply, much like in the USA, and places will be limited from the start. For many students, this puts an end to their equal opportunity to study what they choose, where they choose, as is the past.
In 1902, miners went on strike for dignity and decency. Today, life is easier, but the issues worth fighting for are less clear-cut. Macron wants to reform France. He is pushing through new laws, for the university, the national rail system and much more, leaving the French stunned by the speed of change. Seeking to place services in the hands of the private sector, he is counting on enterprising individuals to “make France great again.”
If he succeeds, he’ll seriously shake up le modèle républicain. He is certainly “working for the future,” but only time will tell if he is also “working for democracy and humanity,” to echo Clarence Darrow’s words.
