Being a railfan this one caught my interest:
PARIS, Nov. 21 — As a national transit strike stretched into its second week, arsonists disrupted high-speed train service on four main routes on Wednesday. Government officials called the fires a “coordinated act of sabotage.”
The early morning outbreak of fires on the electrical lines supplying the T.G.V. high-speed trains happened hours before talks between transit union and government officials. The negotiators met for more than four hours and agreed to continue on Monday, while strike-weary travelers endured the eighth day of a walkout with no end in sight.
[1]
It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to recognize that what’s going on here is union thugs are in full swing. And would the Union thugs be acting in so desperate a manner, was Chriac in power, instead of the far more sane (and less bendable to union demands) Sarkozy? In the comparison between Chrirac and Sarkozy, I can’t help but be reminded of the air traffic controllers’ strike of some years ago, where president Ronald Reagan said “OK guys you wanna play that way, you’re fired”.
The fires raised the question of whether the striking unions were losing control of their most militant members.
Actually the question in my mind is more along the lines of did they ever had control over their more militant members. That’s a question that may well be asked of any union. Perhaps the question that needs be asked, is who has the larger control over those union member… the unions, or the political parties?
Addendum:(Bit)
Glenn lays out [2] what’s at stake:
SARKOZY PULLING A THATCHER? [3] “If Sarkozy manages to face down the transport union, he’ll have really accomplished something–and I’d expect the other public-service unions to fall into line. The real problem, as in 1968, will be the student protestors. But I’ve seen these kids, and they aren’t the in the same league as their parents (grandparents!) from the Sixties. They’ll cave, too.”
Yep. So, the deal is, the list of possible culprits is not limited to the railway union, but would seem to cut across the whole of the labor movement.
Update: The New York Sun [4] is reporting this morning:
President Sarkozy of France is on the verge of a breakthrough in his ambitious plan to wean his country off the restrictive working practices he believes stand in the way of national prosperity.
Yesterday, the strike of rail and subway workers that has crippled France for nine days was clearly crumbling, as workers began returning to work in large numbers and union branches conceded that support for the dispute is collapsing.
“We think a dynamic of return to work has begun,” Julie Vion, a spokeswoman for France’s state-owned railroad network, SNCF, said.
Union leaders began to concede defeat yesterday. “We have to face reality. Since yesterday’s negotiations, things have changed. The strike is no longer the solution. The strike strategy is no longer winning,” a leader of the Sud union representing Paris underground railway workers, Philippe Touzet, said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
And, as I said yesterday, the rest of the unions fall into line, following this victory for Sarkozy. Memeorandum is doing a fair job in tracking commentary on this one.