Ie 1er– May is a day that invites us to remember past struggles to irrigate those of the present. 1er– May is an opportunity to remember the future in order to seize it collectively, here and now.
The future promised by the increase in the retirement age coupled with the reform of unemployment insurance is that of double punishment for front-line workers, who also have the most difficult jobs. and less recognized. The future promised by the measures put in place to achieve full employment is not one of valuing work and workers, but of dismantling the capacity of work to protect and emancipate them.
We do not want this future that is already taking shape in the present. We do not want this uberized, manhandling work which today resembles a proletariat of services or chores, precarious, pressurized: from the young delivery man on a bicycle to this auxiliary of life who comes to take care of our elders , from the loader behind the dumpster to the cook behind the stove, from those who stock shelves in supermarkets to those who clean offices daily, these frontline workers are the beating heart of our economy and our lives. Applauded on the balconies yesterday, forgotten again today.
The Philadelphia Declaration
Let’s take a moment to remember. In 1944, the Declaration of Philadelphia, carried by the International Labor Organization (ILO), set as “fundamental objective” of “all national and international economic policy” the realization of this right which is the pursuit for all human beings of “their material progress and spiritual development in freedom and dignity, in economic security and with equal opportunity” (statement of Philadelphia, § II-a, 1944).
Yet government policy today is at odds with the realities of living work. Worse, it legitimizes and maintains the existence of inequalities on the pretext that full employment contributes to the massive creation of wealth… but for whom? And under what working conditions?
Make this society happen “inclusive” that the government continues to claim, in which we would all work, cannot be done without justice. And as Alain Supiot writes: “Justice at work no longer only concerns its remuneration and its conditions of execution, but also its meaning and its content. » Therefore, defeating unemployment cannot be done at any cost, and in no case at the expense of the health and dignity of workers.
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