A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #350 - "We are not our parents, " on the PSA Aulnay strikes Presentation of the documentary film (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

This is the story of two strikes at the PSA-Aulnay-sous-Bois car 
factory, in the Paris region. Two mirrored strikes, that of 1982 which 
is the first of the factory and also the first major strike of the 
immigrant OS (skilled workers) who work on the assembly line; and that 
of 2013 which is the last strike of the factory since it closes and 
eliminates 3,000 direct jobs and several thousand other "indirect" jobs 
among subcontractors. For the inhabitants of the department of 
Seine-Saint-Denis (93), it is the disappearance of the first private 
employer in a territory already marked by precariousness. But far from 
being miserabilist, this documentary speaks of struggle and 
working-class dignity. Director Matteo Severi and co-writers Madeleine 
Guediguian and Sarah Cousin were involved in this struggle. The workers 
opened the doors of the factory to them, sharing their story with us 
through this film. Here is an interview with Matteo and Madeleine. We 
thank them for answering our questions.

Can you introduce yourselves? Why did you make this documentary?

We are a collective of writers and technicians, both film professionals 
and non-filmmakers, who created the association Méga Bits Par Seconde 
(MBPS). We have been self-producing this film for 10 years, which allows 
us to have control over everything: the writing, the direction, and also 
the distribution. It is essential to tell the story of struggles like 
this one, which have no place in traditional media. Our collective was 
born out of the PSA-Aulnay strike, even though we knew each other from 
before. Originally, we were hosts of a radio show on Fréquence Paris 
Plurielle (106.3 FM) but also and above all activists. We became 
politicized as high school students during the CPE and the suburban 
revolts in 2005-2006 and we all found ourselves at university during the 
movements against the LRU in 2007. We already had a connection with the 
PSA-Aulnay workers before their strike, we had already done radio shows 
together. When the strike began, they naturally brought us into the 
factory. We were part of their struggle at the factory, but also on the 
radio because every week the workers spoke on our show "Au fond près du 
radiateur" (At the bottom near the radiator). A bond of trust and 
complicity was born.

What are the intentions of your film?

From the beginning, we were struck by the strength of the workers' 
memory in the Aulnay factory. A strong legacy was linked to the factory, 
embodied first by the veterans who experienced the 1982 strike, but also 
by the younger workers involved in the 2013 strike, who claim to be part 
of this history. With the closure of the factory, this memory was about 
to disappear. We wanted to help preserve it from oblivion and tell it to 
as many people as possible.

Also, as activists, it seemed important to us to tell the story of what 
happened in the years 1981-1983, the major automobile strikes that 
marked this era, but also initiated a political cycle in which we are 
still present today. In the film, images of the factory are compared 
with archives from the early Mitterrand years. In 1981, there was real 
hope with the arrival of the left in power, in society but also in the 
struggles. Immediately after the presidential victory, there was an 
outbreak of struggles, particularly in the automobile industry, among 
immigrant unskilled workers. The left initially supported these 
movements in 1982. But in February-March 1983, the discourse changed as 
socialist reforms were (definitively) suspended, and Pierre Mauroy 
announced the austerity shift. The socialists ultimately did not "change 
life" but rather adapted to the increasingly globalized liberalism. But 
on the ground, struggles were still dynamic, and the government decided 
to dissociate itself from them by ethnicizing and denominationalizing 
the strikers. These are the statements of Pierre Mauroy (Prime Minister) 
and Gaston Defferre (Minister of the Interior), who spoke of "religious 
agitation" and "holy strikes" in Talbot. The socialists were there to 
support capitalism, so they tried to divide the working class to disarm 
it. Recalling this prevents us from getting tangled up in the carpet of 
essentialization - from which it is sometimes difficult to separate 
ourselves because it is part of the rhetoric of the social-democratic 
power. When the layoffs began, the socialists introduced "return 
assistance" for immigrant workers, because they could not accommodate 
all the world's misery. They prepared the ground for the National Front, 
which would achieve good electoral results in the following years, in 
1984-1985.

Today, we have not emerged from this political rhetoric with a 
dissociation between workers and immigrants. But it is quite the 
opposite, the working class and immigration, it is the same story, it is 
not disjointed. We can quote Abdelmalek Sayad in his book La double 
absence, Des illusions de l'émigré aux douleurs de l'immigré: "Clever 
who can separate, in the conjunction that the immigration of the 
colonized achieves between the colonial fact[...]and the social 
dimension of the working condition of which immigrant workers are one of 
the new components."

Finally, we wanted to work on the representation of the working class by 
trying to be as close as possible to reality. We all have images and 
representations of the world of workers but we went to rub shoulders 
with it and the reality is not entirely what we thought. The same goes 
for representations surrounding immigration-which, let's remember, is 
linked to the labor issue-there's the myth of immigrants who just walk 
the walk upon arriving in France. In reality, it's quite the opposite; 
they were fighting. With this film, we sought to transcribe reality from 
the workers' point of view.

Can you specifically discuss the two strikes mirrored in the film, the 
one in 1982 and the one in 2013 in Aulnay?

In 1982, it was the first strike of the unskilled workers who demanded 
two things: a 400 franc raise and freedom of association. This last 
demand was important because at PSA (Peugeot-Citroen alliance) the most 
crass employer practices still existed with the CSL union - 
Confédération des Syndicats Libres, formerly called CFT - which was also 
a militia in the pay of the bosses that repressed the existence of any 
other union organization. The CGT was clandestine. 1982 was the 
emergence of this union. The strike lasted 5 weeks but not in the 
factory, which was guarded by the CSL. The strikers found themselves in 
the company parking lot, production was blocked by thousands of workers, 
and clashes took place with the CSL, which notably used helicopters to 
fly over the picket line and throw bolts. For 1982, we will talk about a 
movement for dignity with immigrants who constitute themselves as 
political subjects while they are excluded elsewhere because they are 
isolated people who live in shelters, who cannot vote, etc. When you are 
an immigrant, you have no political existence but if you don't have one, 
you are massacred at work. The strike is a victory. They obtain the 400 
franc increase, the union elections become free and allow the creation 
of a CGT section (union which supervised the entire movement) as well as 
rights to training and hopes of advancement within the company. More 
broadly, this strike and the others in the automobile sector, allow the 
adoption of the Auroux law on union freedoms with the obligation to 
create CHSCTs, CEs, etc.

The 1984 strike is briefly mentioned in the film. The atmosphere is 
completely different. The government no longer supports the strikers, 
and employers seek revenge for previous victories. At PSA-Aulnay, there 
are 800 layoffs, mostly among immigrants and union members. The young 
CGT branch is decapitated. Between 1984 and 2005, there are no more 
strikes at PSA-Aulnay.

In 2013, it was an existential fight against the factory closure. The 
strike would last 5 months, still today it is the longest strike in the 
automotive industry, mobilizing around 500 people out of 3,000 employees 
in total, but be careful, there are only 1,500 workers left. We clearly 
see in the film this entire army of managers, accompanied by bailiffs in 
the boss's pay, who watch for the slightest deviation from the strikers 
to launch disciplinary measures. From 2 months of struggle, the strike 
also becomes a movement of solidarity around a dozen strikers who are 
fired for strike action. Faced with the inevitability of the factory 
closure, the objective is to demand a good severance pay and the 
reinstatement of the fired strikers. A strike fund is set up and allows 
them to hold out - we can see its extraordinary functioning in the 
documentary. Last but not least, it's not an inter-union organization 
that's organizing the struggle, but a strike committee that, from the 
very beginning, puts aside union labels and allows everyone to take 
their place in the strike.

Is it relevant to compare these two strikes? Why?

As we've just said, the two strikes are not identical. One is offensive 
and vertical in the sense that it's supervised by the unions, the other 
is defensive but horizontal with the strike committee and daily general 
assemblies. But in both cases, it speaks of worker dignity with 
unionized and non-unionized people who take action and succeed in 
blocking the chain! Bringing these two moments into resonance is showing 
the same pride and strength in recovering from your company what it 
takes away from you every day... you become a political actor, a 
collective with a voice, you create a balance of power.

The title we chose, "We are not our parents," is also there to recall 
the differences. In 2013, the strikers are no longer newcomers. They 
were born in France, they have a permanent contract, and an educational 
background. So it's not the same trajectory, and yet they are in the 
same places as the old ones, experiencing the same things. PSA and the 
capitalist system are there to remind you and assign you a single place: 
that of a worker.

More broadly, what portrait can you paint of the working conditions in 
automobile factories, of their evolution, in the Paris region but also 
elsewhere?

We are mostly familiar with what happened in Aulnay in the early 1980s, 
but overall there was a significant rise in class conflict during this 
period. In a few months, around fifteen industrial sites were blocked 
throughout France with similar demands: wage increases, recognition of 
immigrants and equal treatment, particularly in terms of qualifications, 
and freedom of association. Then, from 1984 onwards, there was a 
backlash with layoffs and the anti-immigrant/Islamist discourse that 
began to be heard (see above).

At the end of the 1980s, there was a new surge with strikes that began 
in Sochaux and Mulhouse to demand a monthly salary of 1,500 francs and 
which spread throughout the country. The automobile industry is a 
particular and central sector of capitalism. You are in direct contact 
with the exploitation and extortion of surplus value. The chain is a 
brutal and merciless relationship.

In the 1990s, bosses reorganized work and did everything to break down 
solidarity. It was the implementation of Toyotism that destroyed the 
workshop culture. Workstations became rotating, the production space was 
reorganized, and workers no longer had the opportunity to discuss or 
form a group. Moreover, everyone was responsible for their own work; it 
was the principle of self-control and self-monitoring. Management became 
fashionable and sought to eliminate the boundary between bosses and 
workers. At PSA, "quality circles" were established, where you were 
asked to criticize your neighbor's work and approve the elimination of 
their position. This was also the period when temporary work exploded; 
people were transient. There was also subcontracting, which divided and 
scattered the different workshops that were previously grouped together 
in the same place. Finally, the working class and manual labor are 
denigrated, particularly by the National Education system. Technical 
schools lose their qualifications, and all students must go into general 
education. In this prevailing climate, there is some small resistance, 
but it remains a bleak plain.

Struggles resume at the turn of the 2000s, for example at PSA Aulnay in 
2005 and 2007, where strikes break out and walkouts become increasingly 
regular. But these are more defensive strikes against factory closures 
or competitiveness agreements that push workers to work for free on 
Saturdays, for example. This is the end of night work, which was a space 
still protected from bosses' pressure and which allows for a little more 
income. All this against a backdrop of blackmail over closure and 
outsourcing.

The transmission of the class struggle is at the center of the film. How 
does it work? At the time and today?

As we have just seen, everything was done to break the working-class 
culture. But social reality is stronger than anything. It is, first and 
foremost, an oral history! For the memory of the 1982 strike, all the 
PSA-Aulnay workers were aware of it because the witnesses were still 
there in the factory and in the strike, even if there were not many left 
due to a high turnover. There were only 5 "survivors" involved in 
unionism and the struggle. Transmission is built initially with everyday 
gestures of solidarity, at work or outside. People live together, also 
forge bonds of neighborhood, camaraderie. It is then that the struggles 
come, which are privileged moments of transmission. When we go on 
strike, we hold pickets, we demonstrate, of course, but we also eat 
together, we play cards, we dance, we sing, we tell each other the 
stories of the elders... and thus the history of the working class, and 
more broadly of the territory, is transmitted. We are far from 
sociological or political analysis books. No need because it is 
experienced in the work and its struggles.

With this documentary, we transmit in our own way this story that was 
told to us, also from the fact that we were part of the struggle. We 
also brought other references that we read for the occasion, 
particularly on the period of the early 1980s. In the film, there is a 
moment when the workers choose to project images of the 1982 strike with 
the help of external support. It is a moment of celebration even if 
everyone already knows the story.

It is finally the media of struggle that are the custodians of this 
workers' memory. In the film, we privilege these sources: there are the 
images of the film "Haya" which was shot by Claude Blanchet, a communist 
activist from Aulnay-sous-Bois who went there in 1982 with his camera; 
but also the subjects of the IM'média agency, which documented the 
immigration struggles at the time. When there is a social movement, 
there are always traces that are produced by the protagonists or their 
entourage, photographs, poems, songs, etc. All of this exists, you just 
have to search for it and it is much richer and more precious than the 
INA archives. This working-class history, we have to do it ourselves 
otherwise no one else will. We too were part of this history of the 
production of traces. In 2013, we were 23-year-olds who had no idea of 
making a documentary film. We were witnesses and actors whom the workers 
trusted and who opened us up to their world.

The automobile industry is a pillar of capitalist production and 
structures our landscapes and society as a whole. In this respect, the 
Paris region and northern France have been profoundly affected by this 
sector. What do you think are the major consequences of the presence of 
these companies, followed by their decline or departure, on the 
territory, the population, and the workforce?

The Aulnay factory was built after 1968 to replace the historic Citroën 
factory on Quai de Javel in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. It was a 
political will to transfer the production sites to the outskirts and 
thus avoid the contagion of the strike and the struggles as had happened 
in May 1968. Aulnay-sous-Bois, as its name suggests, was the countryside 
in the early 1970s. The Cité des 3000 was built for the workers of the 
Citroën and then PSA factory, workers that the bosses went to look for 
abroad for a good part. A city was thus built with its sociability that 
we see in the film. In 2013, when the closure of the factory was 
announced, 3,000 jobs were going to disappear but also all the 
subcontracting which ultimately impacted around 10,000 people in the 93. 
Seine-Saint-Denis is the poorest department in metropolitan France, yet 
PSA-Aulnay was the largest private employer in the department. Its 
closure - effective in 2015 - had a terrible impact: local businesses 
are closing, like the "Le Galion" shopping center, which was a hotspot 
in Aulnay, whose decline began with the first layoffs at Citroën in the 
1980s; job insecurity is skyrocketing; police pressure and violence are 
following.

Ultimately, this is the "normal" functioning of extractivist capitalism. 
A company arrives, structures the territory to meet its needs, exhausts 
the resources, and ultimately leaves to find better profitability. The 
region is then left in the lurch, drained, devastated. We can also use 
the image of a bubble, dear to finance: one is created, capital inflates 
it, then it bursts and they leave. For your information, at the same 
time as the closure of PSA-Aulnay, a PSA factory opens its production 
lines in Morocco. The space left behind and deserted can then be 
reclaimed by urban capitalism. Today, with the Grand Paris project, real 
estate speculators are making a killing, and part of Aulnay-sous-Bois is 
gentrifying. The bourgeois city is expanding, causing the working-class 
town to disappear. The Galion shopping center has been destroyed.

Twelve years later, how are things going for the film's protagonists?

Three-quarters of the strikers left PSA; this was also part of the 
end-of-conflict agreement. The group was quick to separate itself from 
the most rebellious elements. About a third of the workers did not find 
work again; it must be said that for a worker, it is complicated to 
re-enter the job market at 50 years old. Those who are still there have 
had to move. Some have gone to other PSA sites, such as Poissy, for 
example. Others are going to work in logistics, sales, or services in 
general. They find themselves very isolated. The closure of the plant 
brought its share of tragedies: separations, poverty, depression, 
suicide. In short, there is no typical trajectory; it is rather a 
breakup of the fighting community that had been built up over the years 
in Aulnay. The plant was both a place of exploitation but also a point 
of convergence and possible resistance with thousands of people. At 
least in the factory, you could resist. Alone, it's more complicated.

But the former strikers have, for the most part, maintained a "state of 
mind." The core group of a few dozen people has participated in all the 
other struggles since: the Labor Law, the Yellow Vests, pension reform, 
Palestine... we regularly cross paths at the protests! There are also 
some committed people in the neighborhood. Very few give up, and they 
continue to piss off the bosses and the leadership. Currently, there is 
a strike at the Poissy factory. There are former PSA-Aulnay workers 
there, especially those who left to join the Sud-Industrie union. 
Finally, every year, there is a barbecue that brings together the "old 
Aulnay workers," everyone to exchange news. The Lutte Ouvrière 
festival-heavily involved in the 2013 strike-is also a place to meet and 
share this workers' anger, which remains tenacious and lively. Last 
November, we screened the film in front of former strikers, it went very 
well, it was a good time for discussion even about the dissensions 
within the movement, because there were some and it's important not to 
hide them even if in the culture of struggle we often try to sweep them 
under the rug.

All this makes us want to invite you to screen the film and discuss. How 
can we do this?

We're currently organizing a tour. We have to do everything ourselves, 
as we're self-producing. We really want to share the film, to have 
exchanges through public and political discussions, with two goals: to 
bring workers back to movie screens and to bring the working world back 
to cinema. We also have an educational and popular history approach; the 
film is also a way to reclaim our past and the struggles of our elders. 
We're currently looking for venues to host the film! Cinemas, 
alternative venues, media libraries, etc. The film isn't just about 
social struggles in the automotive industry, and can appeal to a wide 
audience. Assembly line work and its logic are everywhere in the world 
of work, and many places in France can identify with the history of 
Aulnay-sous-Bois. Don't hesitate to contact us and spread the word!

To contact the MBPS association, by email:
megabitparseconde at gmail.com or on Instagram: @mbpsasso

https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4450
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