This reiterates part of the information already sent to clients.
None of us will be seconding the general strike announced by the two largest union federations for Wednesday. We believe with varying degrees of ferocity that slowing labour reform, while conceivably benefiting an elderly class of hyper-protected functionaries and trade union officials, would damage even further the economic prospects of the two groups worst hit by the crisis – immigrants and young people, into both of which categories most of us fall.
Those of us who regard ourselves as syndicalists in some sense also reject the strike because we believe it suicidal to the cause of trade unionism in this country. The government is inhibited by markets and by Brussels from changing course, and any sign that it were about to do so would cause further economic destruction for people like us, although perhaps not for the people who have called the strike. There is nothing to be gained by it.