 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. This is part of our May Day series on the issues faced by workers around the world. We are going to be talking to trade union representatives from various countries on how workers are faring, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. What are the challenges in front of trade unions as far as organizing is concerned? Today, we have with us Patrick Correa of the International Department of the CGT Metal Workers Union in France. Patrick, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you President for invitation everyone. Yes, so I just first wanted to ask could you talk a bit about the COVID-19 situation in France and especially the impact on the workers because we do know that France is one of the most affected countries. There have been over 24,000 people have died. The number of cases has been huge. So could you talk about how especially the working classes suffering at this point? Okay, this is a quite difficult situation we're facing actually in France. I think it's the same thing around the world. You know, the pandemic has been very strong in the country and we take measures now for been two months ago by locking down all the country, you know, and sending all the workers back at home, especially teleworking, but in some essential areas like in the supermarkets, food industries, or health and safety of the three novels, we have to stay at work. So at the moment we are still locked down and all this essential work in the public service in transport, health and so on, they are still working and taking care of us and they are this the more precarious, the more I would say poorer workers actually are taking care of all the other population and I think that we have to keep them our recognition at the moment and I think the society and the employers and the government have to give them their recognition about the fact that they are essential to this country and essential to all the people's life. So at the moment we are, the government has announced that the lock locking down should be over in two weeks now, but actually we don't know if the health situation will be more quiet. We don't know if we have a good conditions to go back to work. Actually what the government wants to do is to force the labor class, to force the workers to go back to work because that way we are worried about, it's about the economy, it's not about the health of the population, about the workers. So we are trying to force us to go back to work and many companies have already started working again since now two weeks. So we have announced that it will reopen the school, not for education purposes, but just because the school will take care of our kids and then the parents will be able to go back to work. But actually we know that we are not able to provide aid to the workers. We don't have masks, we don't have gels, we don't have clothes, we cannot respect the distance between the people, between the workers. So we say we cannot reopen at the moment, that's not possible. And with regards to the reopening strategy itself, one of the things you were talking about is the impact on essential service workers. So could you talk a bit more about them, what is the situation especially in the informal sector right now? We don't have many informal sector actually, but we have many in the food industry, in the transport, you know, like in the deliveries, you know, post office and so on. We have many, many precarious workers. And over there, we have the bad working conditions, the app will receive only minimum wage here in France, but these workers actually are essential because without them, we will not be able to get food, we will not get deliveries, many things we cannot get. And the fact that show this Christ is that the blue color workers are the essential part of our economy, are essential part of the life of all the citizens. And that's what shows really important to us is that we need, what we described is to get rid of precarious work, get rid of the minimum contracts that give only not different wages to the person. So that shows this Christ and there is an inequality. This Christ shows a huge inequality between workers because the white color workers are actually teleworking from home. Right, exactly. They are safe, they are home and that's normal, but the blue color workers are forced to go back to work and they are worried every day about going to work because we will get ill, we will go to the hospital and even die. So this is the inequality of the situation. You can see that also when you look at the kids that are going to school, the kids from the white color workers are actually home, they have a laptop and they work from home and they study, but the kids from the blue color workers are more precarious ones at home that they have no laptop, they cannot get education. So this is the reality of this crisis. They are not meaning, some areas are France actually, they have lost their job, they don't have food to eat because one part of the kids in these areas when they went to school, that's the only place where you can get one meal per day. Actually, we don't get this meal. This is the crisis, only shows the inequalities that capitalism has created in our countries and all across the world. Exactly. And could you talk a bit about how the economic policies, especially of the Macron government in recent years have heightened some of these inequalities? Well, yes, I think that's what we've said, it's a border understatement that told a few years ago that the dominant class was winning the class struggle against the working class. And I think that Macron is at the end actually of capitalism at the end in this policy. What he has been only doing is try to increase the inequalities only for money going back in the pocket of a rich person of this country around the world. What he's doing is only taking money from the workers to get them to get it to the capital. When he was trying to cut the pension, it's not to get a system more sustainable. It's not only the fact that he wanted to give the money of all the pensions to the capital, to a pension fund. That's the only thing he was thinking of. So that's it. That's always the same policy around the world. And when he makes all the contracts more precarious, it's not about the fact that he will get a more easier job. No, it's because the fact that they like this, the employer can put more pressure on the workers and even earn more money. That's the only thing we're interested in at the moment. So it's only we have always the same policies, even when the president of government changes, it's always the same policy. And you mentioned the pension reform. So just last year and the beginning of this year saw massive protests across France on this issue. Over the fact that the age of retirement would be raised, over the fact that it would be a points-based system which would be graded based on very vague criteria. So could you tell us a bit about what the situation currently is with the protests? Not of course the protests now, but before the lockdown, what was the situation with the protests? And because it was a countrywide thing. So what was the government forced to concede? Well, just before the we were locked down, I can say that the government was under pressure. The massive struggles we have organized, also the support with the citizens who are shown that during all these months of protests was huge and still increasing. That's just incredible that more than 61% of the population was supporting TGT's action actually during all those time. And you know that when you have a huge struggle, normally the support is going down. But actually it's not the case during this pension reform. The youth tries in the transport in many areas, but they are still supporting it. Before even the crisis started, the only idea of the government was try to force the vote on the pension reform. And that's what they did. That's what they did. And they were using this crisis to force the vote on the pension. But they are so worried about the fact that the, I would say, the, the, the, the unhappiness and the, we could also start again about protesting a lot. But now the pension reform has been frozen. Okay, right. Okay. That's it. It's been frozen. And even we have now some significant messages from the government that will, they will drop it. Oh, okay. Good to know. So that, but in that aspect, I think it shows when we, we're working class is acting, is protesting, even if it's long, even if it costs a lot, at the end, we can have a result. And we, and this process has been, I think, a huge success. Exactly. And to come back to the COVID-19 aspect, could you talk a bit about the sort of solidarity actions that workers, workers unions, workers organizations have been conducting in France to basically help their fellow comrades at this time of need? Well, solidarity is really important at the moment. That's true. But I think the main concerns about the fact that the solidarity is to, to, to provide at the moment, all the, I would say, basic needs that our members have to get when they go to work, mass, gel, you know, gloves. And so our, our process is to give them what they should have and also our support during this Christ. So there's a lot of solidarity is also between, I would say, the workers among themselves actually during this Christ. And what's shown this Christ is that actually, even if we are locked down in there, we are separated from all of our, I would say, our comrades. We have never been talking so much actually. We talk, they use the new ways of communication, like we are using today to communicate a lot and exchange a lot. So we have never been such a good, I would say, communication and exchange of information between our, among our workers actually. And this is between, even between workers that have never talked to each other from different companies, from different sectors. That's the kind of solidarity we act in. Actually, we have a solidarity we show is also about the protect the migrants that come to France. We are trying to get, I would say, measures to protect them because they are locked in this situation. We are trying to protect the person that actually in the streets, we are confronting the COVID-19. We are trying to provide food in some areas where they don't get food because they have no money or not access to supermarket. We are trying to do everything we can at the local level to help them at the national level to organize what should be the role of state to fulfill the basic needs of all the citizens and population of this country. Right. And finally, it's a larger question. So one of the key challenges both right now and in the coming months for trade unions will be on organizing itself. So, you know, how do you organize at a time when people are maybe a bit more scared to come out in rallies and big processions and marches? How do you do meetings? So what are the kind of ideas that you in the CGT have been thinking about regarding how to engage workers both right now and in the immediate months? Well, actually, we're talking about Mayday. Mayday is an important day for all the working class around the world and especially in France. It's a really important day for us as a union. We do the first time ever but we are not be able to rally in the streets of Paris. So that is, we have no, we are in the industry that's the first time ever. So, you see, this is just crazy. So we have to find new ways of protecting, acting and so we have been very, very active in the very communication networks. We are using Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, all these different systems to communicate and now tomorrow I say all our members are encouraged to put leaflets in front of their class, homes to protest and about the actual situation. Our health is more important than their money. So that's the main message we want to address to our politics and the employers and capital at the moment. So, yes, what I told you is that this crisis shows that we have the capacity to even be more efficient. We have tools but we are not using them. We have not been using them properly and now we are using them and we can see we can be even more efficient than capital itself when you're using them correctly. So I'm looking after the international issues in Metalworkers Federation. I've never been so in contact with all my comrades around the world and especially in Europe. We are exchanges every day by Skype on the situation, different companies and the situation of the countries, what are their problems, how can we can help them. So we have never been talking so much. I think that's the way to deal about internationalism. It's about a way to build an international struggle against the capital by communicating and we are not being communicating enough. And you're talking about organizing. That's a key problem at the moment. When workers are not working, this is difficult. So we have been trying to organize many meetings as we can. We are providing many information as we can because the workers are actually teleworking. They have no information from their companies. We are trying to send them any information. They can get all the advice we can deliver them. We're trying to do so. And in the companies, well, even when the companies where they are working, our delegates are there. They are there with the worker. They are just close to the workers every day. So many of our delegates are actually in hospital because they have been working with our members. We don't care because we have to do so. That's our duty to be close to them and help them every day. That's the way of organizing too. And the capital that we are trying to do is to use these health measures from the government, you know, the lockdown to forbidden the access to the companies. We have been to tribunals to the courts. And the court said the TGT has been banned from many companies because they said we cannot go into the company because of health issues. The court recognized the fact that our delegates, our members, have the right to go inside the company. So what we are trying to do and we have a duty when we are in the company is to make, to condemn, to go to court, to tell them you don't respect health and safety measures. Thank you so much, Patrick, for talking to us. Thank you. Thank you for the time. Take care.