Friday, July 18, 2008


MOUVEMENT ANARCHISTE DU CANADA/CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
LES ACTIONS CANADIENNES EN SOLIDARITÉ AVEC LE CNT/CANADIAN ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE CNT:


Molly l'aime.


Hier, les actions canadiennes en solidarité avec les travailieurs français employés par le requin Québécois Marc de Serres a commencé par un affichage dans la ville de Québec.



Molly loves it.


Yesterday the Canadian solidarity actions in support of French workers employed by the Québécois shark Marc de Serres began with a postering action in Québec City.
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Solidarity action with the CNT in Quebec City:

Quebec, July 17, 2008 - Today, members of the Collective anarchiste La Nuit (NEFAC-Quebec) put some posters in the windows of the former Omer De Serres store in Saint-Roch in solidarity with 180 workers of DeSerres France who where recently laid off.



It's following a solidarity request from the Paris section of the CNT (National Confederation of Labour, anarcho-syndicalist) at De Serres France that Quebec anarchists decided to do this. Faced with neoliberal globalization, international solidarity must be a concrete and practical value. We could not ignore the anti-social behaviour of a Quebec based boss and remain deaf to the calls of our comrades overseas.



The text of the poster:
A QUEBECOIS SHARK IN FRANCE
Our comrades of the CNT have just contacted us about the actions of a shark from our own country.



Briefly, M. Marc DeSerres, the owner of Omer DeSerres has acquired a French company, Artacréa SA, to get a foot in the door in the old country. But the gentleman announced on last July 2 to members of the Enterprise Committee that he isn’t depositing a single cent of cash into the company accounts. Specifically, as summer is the slack time, it means the dismissal of approximately 180 employees (not counting the spillover effects on suppliers).



The CNT demands that Mr. DeSerres pay to each employee who was dismissed compensation for material and moral damages. It also asks us to disseminate information in Canada.



For more information, visit http://www.nefac.net/CNT

More pictures on our Flick page
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Et aussi en français......
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Québec, 17 juillet 2008 – Aujourd’hui, des membres du Collectif anarchiste La Nuit (NEFAC-Québec) sont alléEs placarder les vitrines de l’ancien magasin Omer De Serres de Saint-Roch en solidarité avec 180 salariéEs de DeSerres France récemment mis-à-pied.



C’est suite à une demande de solidarité de la section parisienne de la CNT (Confédération nationale du travail, anarcho-syndicaliste) chez De Serres France que les libertaires québécois ont posé ce geste. Face à la mondialisation néolibérale, la solidarité internationale doit être une pratique vivante et concrète. Nous ne pouvions passer sous silence les agissements anti-sociaux d’un patron bien de chez-nous et rester sourdEs aux appels de nos camarades d’outre-atlantique.


Le texte de l’affiche :
Solidarité internationale libertaire!
Un requin québécois en France


Nos camarades de la CNT viennent de nous contacter au sujet des agissements d’un requin bien de chez-nous: M. Marc DeSerres.



Brièvement, le propriétaire d’Omer DeSerres s’est porté acquéreur d’une compagnie française, Artacréa SA, pour se faire un pied-à-terre dans les vieux pays. Or, le monsieur a annoncé le 2 juillet dernier aux membres du Comité d’entreprise qu’il n’injecterait pas une cenne dans la trésorerie de l’entreprise. Concrètement, comme l’été est la période creuse, ça signifie le licenciement d’environ 180 salariées (sans compter les effets en cascade sur les fournisseurs).



La CNT exige que M. DeSerres verse à chaque salarié licencié une indemnité de dédommagement matériel et moral. Elle nous demande aussi de diffuser l’information au Québec.
Pour plus d’information : www.nefac.net/CNT
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AND ALSO FROM ONTARIO:
MORE SOLIDARITY ACTIONS TO COME:


Molly has also received the following notice about an upcoming solidarity action, being planned by the Ontario Linchpin/Common Cause people on this same issue.

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Toronto Picket in Solidarity with CNT-F Workers in France‏
Information Picket!!
Sunday July 20, 1:00pm
In front of the De Serres (called Loomis in English Canada) art store at 130 Spadina Ave. (Just South of Richmond)
Join members of the Industrial Workers of the World and Common Causein this informational picket in support of CNT union members in France who were sacked with no compensation by the owner of De Serres /Loomis.
Please also read and circulate the appeal below from the CNT unionsection at DeSerres France in Paris.
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""Liquidation" during the sales season!
The direction of DeSerres France (formerly Artacréa HIS) announced Wednesday July 2nd 2008 to the members of the Enterprise Committee that business funds were bled dry, and, that before the weekend, a state of suspension of payments would be declared to the clerk of the Court of Commerce of Paris by the company lawyer. Today, this is a done deal.
The situation had officially become very delicate since the announcement by Mr. Marc DeSerres, owner of the group DeSerres, and his lawyer, at the meeting of the board of directors on last June 11th of his decision to not inject fresh money in the funds of his French affiliate, thus depriving these funds of absolutely necessary bankroll to pass through the summer, the traditional period of weak activity.
The CNT wants, above all, to thank Mr. Marc DeSerres for a brilliant and emblematic example of management that he has just given to the French employees. The CNT warns of dramatic consequences of this decision: some 180 jobs are in the process of being eliminated and as many families will find themselves in distress.
Mr. Marc DeSerres is a man stuffed full of resources. He even directed, during the catastrophe the Dalbe group at the head of which operates his "friend" of twenty years, Mr. André Jamet. We do not forget all the suppliers (their employees especially), beginning with Pébéo, that risk suffering from this guilty decision.
Exemplary employer in France but also in Canada.
Since June, DeSerres Inc. has proceeded to the closing of his warehouse and dismissed a part of the employees of his all new registered office. Report : 25 to 30 victims. Cheer the artist !
Annoyance, it is this reality that disturbs the centennial year of Quebec business, a birthday at once celebrated by a falsely admiring competition, the hopeful obsequious political authorities , and truly collaborative media. Long live Québec… liberal and capitalist!
The CNT has a moving thought for all those that ostensibly loaned the big man so that he could buy the Artacréa SA Corporation in May 2007,we again want to thank them personally. Moving? No, Pathetic !
"Ah, with Marc, it is different. This is his money that he puts into the business. It knows what he is doing. He knows the products. This is a pro . This is a merchant… Schlurps!"
Is Mr. DeSerres so different from the Apax Partners, the Anglo-Saxon investment fund of sinister memory that financed Artacréa these three years ? Certainly not of course. The two distinguish themselves by a lust for gain and an obsession with the quick profit ; a similar ignorance of the markets for the fine arts and graphic arts in France;an identical incompetence in that which concerns the political and social economy of a business; they share a sly contempt for the employees; they reveal a vulgar similarity in their global approach to cultural questions.
To conclude let`s add some elements of reflection especially for the students of the prestigious pulpit of commerce Omer DeSerres speaking to HEC Montreal. Entitled of course : "The Canadian megalomaniac and the French consequences" :
Marc DeSerres : "I think that France has an extraordinary opportunity."
An opportunity that was, in fact, seized by Mr. DeSerres to show his immense capacity to sow trouble and to ruin the life of the employees.
MD : "Our first strategy is to have a range of interesting products."
So hundreds of scrapbooking references that, on average, sell themselves invaded the departments, via faxes of poor quality (made in unacceptable work conditions in developing countries by businesses not very concerned about environmental norms) which supply our most in demand families of products and on which ones realize us more than 70% of our sales (fine arts, graphic arts, bookstore). The product strategy of DeSerres summarizes itself thus : to charge a lot for mediocre items to the French customers.
MD : "We will renovate the stores, make information current."
Come to visit the stores, notably GGO Damrémont, GGO Voltaire, R&PNanterre: water leaks, obsolete computers , etc. You will verify the union adage : when DeSerres promises, DeSerres lies.
MD : "I believe firmly that one could double the commerce here in 4/5 years."
After 13 months of a remarkable turnaround, the very visionary Marc DeSerres releases us without any more explanations. Firmness he no longer has.
MD : "But I think that there is possible growth."
The employees also amply demonstrated this in progressively rectifying sales, attendance and the average volume in the stores. The problem comes from the DeSerres paradox : I do not do what I think and I do not think what I say.
MD : "[2008] That will be a year of consolidation and profit making in France."
We never will know it for Mr. DeSerres, in his omnipotence as an employer, decided that the year 2008 stopped itself on June 11th.
(Television broadcast "The SME interviews", hosted by Denis Lalonde,February 20th 2008)
Marc DeSerres : "[we] Do not always buy businesses in good health. We obtain for ourselves from all of the parts of market."
Let's profitably recall the "philosophy" of the former employer of TF1for our game "the curious similarities of the exploiters" : "Now so that an advertising message is perceived, it is necessary that the brain of the viewer be available. Our transmissions make it their business to render it available : which means to amuse it, to relax itto prepare it between two messages. What we sell to Coca- Cola is thetime of an available human brain [...]. Nothing is more difficult than to obtain than this availability. This is where permanent change is found .It is necessary to look for permanence in the programs that walk,follow the methods, surf on the tendencies, in a context where information quickens, multiplies itself and trivializes itself."(Patrick Le Lay, then p-dg of TF1 in ' Directors Facing Change',Paris, Ed. du Huitième jour, 2004)
MD : "There were a lot of problems within this chain, can we be precise. The leaders presented their report and carried out a restructuring. The shareholder at the time, a financial group, refused to inject new money into the corporation. The expenditures and the repositioning were reviewed, in the most part, but the work was not finished. In January 2007, their matters were more in order."
Mr. DeSerres, this is hypocrisy. He comes himself to refuse to inject money into the aforesaid corporation. An employee bellows to us : "All employers, all similar, all rot !". Mr. DeSerres recognizes implicitlythat his politics have damaged us ,"matters that were more in order"since his buyback of Artacréa HIS in May 2007 until the filing of theof report of July 2008.
MD : "We work in our circular for the reopening of the 2008 school year return 2008 and 75% of the products offered of the two sides of the Atlantic will be the same."
The CNT pities the Canadian workers and invites them to verify that Mr. Marc DeSerres is not liquidating DeSerres Inc. on the sly.
MD : "It will be necessary to invest superior amounts [to the millions paid out for Artacréa]. We will have to borrow, renovate, invest in the inventory and change the computer system."
April Fools joke or insanity ?
MD : "I am may be old school, but I believe that merchandising is fashionable, replies Marc DeSerres.The people like to pass 45 minutes in a store. The Internet customer ,this is another beast. Our clientele likes to take a walk, discover,touch. We are the counterweight to data processing. The people like the fact that we do not have any cathode screens."
In the absence of a commerce pulpit, this is a pulpit of Zoology that Mr. Marc DeSerres should finance, indeed a pulpit of neodarwinist anthropology . The customer is an "animal". The customers that we create will appreciate. "The customer", "the people" ; this patronizing semantic chosen to work towards depersonalization and subjectivisation of social economical relations,to their processing purely as marketing and accounting. Like P. The Lay, Mr. DeSerres surfs in a manner as distressing as can be :tourism merchant ("merchandising"). For Mr. DeSerres, the customers would be apparently brainless onlookers, consumers of merchandise moved only by sensations and archaic emotions that the merchant would satisfy for money. For the CNT : DeSerres-Le Lay, it is one and thes ame. (Business, "The French Web of Marc DeSerres", 1st April 2008)
The CNT demands that Mr. DeSerres awards to every dismissed employee a financial compensation
Paris, July 7th 2008
-- Common Cause
P.O. Box 347, Station E
772 Dovercourt Rd.
Toronto, ON, Canada,
M6H 4E3
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