"How the Covid-19 fed the nuisance power of the unions"

Denis Jacquet is an entrepreneur and economic columnist.

There are coal-fired power stations. There are also nuclear power plants. You can question some of them, but at least they produce energy, they are useful. Covid-19 has just given birth to a new central, the Covid union central. She too uses her energy, but to destroy. Our government could have preferred to disarm these plants than those in Fessenheim. It has, on the contrary, boosted their power of nuisance, to the detriment of companies that we will be able to criticize when the time comes for social plans.

We called some to work, telling them it was not that dangerous, while calling on the vast majority of others to stay at home, because for those it was absolutely dangerous. Yet there was a way and Asia proved it. Germany too, whose economic activity was close to 75% during the crisis.

The figures are final. Hong-Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand… a few hundred deaths and no stopping of economic activity. Sweden has not deconfined. It has certainly done less well than its neighboring “frugal” countries, but also “well” than France. None advocated the right of withdrawal, none left power to the unions. Factual. Without possible discussion.

This disease has allowed some to unearth an exceptional right, invented in this country which is wary of its companies, in order to protect employees from its abuses: the right of withdrawal. The employee had to avoid taking a risk for his life. Thus, the employee in a company located in a region without the slightest case of Covid, could (and could) refuse to come to work if he thought that the measures were not sufficient to ensure his safety. Road accidents kill 72,000 people every year in France, so imagine that this right is exercised by any employee who has to cross the road to come to work?

However, when it came to essential services, we were less careful, because we had to feed those assigned to home, and suddenly the rules immediately became more flexible. The law knows how to be blind, when it is in the political interest, even if the example of Amazon was a counter-example, but almost unique.

In France, we have gone further. Companies in the name of this right of withdrawal and the precautionary principle, but also to avoid popular retribution and media lynching, have felt obliged to submit to the unions, on their knees, for the purchase of their anti-covid products. . In the same way that doctors were dispossessed of their right to prescribe, buyers of large groups were ordered to submit all their purchases, they who do so year-round, to unions, occupational physicians and other CHSCTs, who yet they have little or no training or experts in the field.

Dispossessed of all responsibility, in an instant, in the name of the precautionary principle. How did the trade union centers, mainly the South, CGT and FO, use it? Like a political weapon. Under a fallacious pretext: health. While 9 out of 10 dead were over 65 years old and nearly 50% of the latter, over 84, which is quite far from the average age of employees ... The unions seized with relish the "slapping machine That we rarely give them with such ease.

First of all, they played time. They took days (sometimes longer) to approve certain products. Very well informed, they detected the penury products and demanded them under penalty of triggering hostilities and pushing the employees to withdraw. Such a well-known radio station could not reopen its studios for more than 15 days, why? Because the unions knew that the wipes could not be found and demanded them to agree to reopen. When they were offered sprays, of strictly identical effectiveness, they said no. Why? Because the product was available and they would have had to go back to work. Consulted in the corridors by the HRD, the FO manager confided that his goal was to “make the connection” with the school holidays and to resume in September!

They then refused certain products, under spurious pretexts. When the WHO said a 90% filtration rate was sufficient for masks, the unions demanded 98% filtration, with no additional interest. Why? Because 98% of the masks were painful, or requisitioned by the state and unavailable. Postponing the return to work.

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Examples of the same kind, among all the major industrialists, are legion. La Poste was accused of not doing its job, but they were unable to. Their unions totally opposed it.

These same unions will demonstrate tomorrow against social plans that they will denounce as infamous, while they are largely responsible. Fortunately, locally, certain trade unionists, more aware and above all still imbued with a true vision of what trade unionism should be, a force in the service of balance and dialogue, sharply disobeyed their centers. It should also be emphasized, because there are still “pure” trade unionists, sincere and committed. This was the case, in particular, in the steel industry. They knew that if they stopped too long, their customers would be gone forever.

But overall, it was the festival of demagoguery. Riding themselves on fear, they have been able to re-gain popularity vis-à-vis employees, who have since had a hard time, for many still, to return to work (or school). They seized on fear and made it a doping product of unionism.

Everyone has decided to run away from the risk and put a brave head forward, for fear of having it cut off. We are definitely entering into the regime of cowardice, which excuses all infamy. Everyone refuses their responsibilities, and gets rid of them like the plague, whatever the consequences and the winners. This illustrates the end of the Republic of responsibility in favor of that of cowardice. In the end, there will be only losers. At the time when all the social plans and the delayed liquidation of tens of thousands of SMEs are unveiled, the unions will have achieved one thing: to ensure that no one returns to work, because this work will no longer exist.

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