We now have to spend 15-30 euros more to fill the tank. Once again, we’re being robbed before we even start our working day! Some – those with the lowest wages who live some way from their workplace – may even be losing money by going to work.
The government has thrown a few crumbs to fishermen, truckers and farmers to stop their complaining. But as long as there’s no mass protest, it will allow TotalEnergies, Shell, ExxonMobil and BP to hold us to ransom.
Numerous workers are thinking back to the yellow vest movement that sprang up spontaneously in 2018. But we shouldn’t wait for some hypothetical movement or a call from the trade unions, we should get ready for action.
In companies, 20, 50, 100 and sometimes more of us can have a meeting and pool our thoughts, not just about the kind of action but also and above all, our objectives. We shouldn’t waste our energy on a movement that, like the yellow vests, doesn’t have a clear aim.
There are a lot of ideas circulating like lowering taxes on fuel and freezing the price of gasoline. But the real problem is knowing who will pay on the bottom line because anything that the bourgeoisie doesn’t pay for, we do.
The government can decide to freeze fuel prices but, if it does that, it’ll compensate the oil companies for their loss of profits. And what we don’t pay at the pump, we’ll pay at the pharmacy and the hospital because there won’t be enough money for healthcare.
And it would be the same thing if VAT were to be eliminated. It’s the most unfair of taxes, paid at the same rate by rich and poor alike, and it should be abolished. But if the bourgeoisie didn’t compensate for the loss of VAT revenue, that would be a real scam!
And the worst is yet to come. We’ve been warned of skyrocketing prices for domestic gas, fertilizer, food and plastics and of shortages, e.g. of helium – needed to make computers and smartphones. As a result, all prices will skyrocket.
The only way to avoid being taken advantage of and to protect our vital interests is for wages, benefits and pensions to keep pace with rising prices and for us to get organized to manage this ourselves.
So we need to fight to recoup in our wages what we lose due to the soaring prices of gasoline and everything else. If we lost 50 or 100 euros in the last month, we need 50 or 100 euros more in our wages.
Business owners add the increase of costs to their prices. They never reduce their margins or cut their profits. While we, the workers, should accept one hardship after another? And all this so that the big bourgeoisie can swim in luxury and the government can invest billions in war!
No, we shouldn’t be sacrificed so that war profiteers can jack up their prices and their margins, as well as being spoon fed by the state!
There’s no two ways about it, big business must pay. The money missing from our wages is in the billions of profits piling up in industrial and financial multinationals.
The only way to stop the decline in our living conditions is through a workers’ uprising against the gang of thieves, irresponsible people and criminals who see war as a vast source of speculation and enrichment. Strikes, protests, collective organization are our only means to stop them from plunging the whole of the working class into extreme poverty, whether they are wage-earners, self-employed or small-scale producers.
We are not yet in a position to stop exploiters and warmongers from setting the world ablaze, spreading death and dragging all of us into war. But we must try and use our rising anger over gas prices as fuel for the fight.
Let’s start by saying no to their robbery, by indexing wages on inflation – every single month! – by confiscating the profits or war profiteers to meet the needs of the working class!
Nathalie Arthaud