Season Of The Strike

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All the same, Blair's single-minded insistence on keeping a lid on public sector wages strikes some observers as irrational. "He says he doesn't want to fritter money away on wages and salaries, but 80% of the budgets in health and education are wages and salaries," says John Kelly, professor of industrial relations at the London School of Economics. "In some education authorities, the turnover of teachers is 35% a year. Any private sector manager would realize that's a problem and that more money is part of the solution." Frustration with low wages, overwork and bad conditions is widespread in the health service too — which the government has just offered a 10% hike over three years, with a similar amount on top of that available to those who learn new skills. Blair's determination not to be seen as a union-loving, tax-and-spend socialist is intense. But to buy labor peace — both a teachers' strike and a third firefighters' walkout loom, and union contributions to his party are way down — he and Brown may need to loosen up the purse strings. — By J.F.O. McAllister/London

FRANCE
Strikes by French workers may be a ritual, but so was human sacrifice among the Aztecs — and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is determined not to become a victim. As his government faced down mass protests by the country's most streetwise sectors — farmers, truckers and state employees — Raffarin scored a win, or at least a reprieve, against unions keen to flex their muscles amid slow economic growth and plans for government reform.

To know what not to do, Raffarin had only to recall his brief stint as a minister in France's last conservative administration. In 1995, Prime Minister Alain Juppé's government trumpeted its will to slash welfare payments and curtail generous retirement benefits for government workers, only to be brought to its knees by three weeks of paralyzing strikes by enraged transport, utility, postal and telephone workers. This time, Raffarin played a smarter game of divide and conquer.

The farmers came first, with a campaign to blockade wholesale food distribution centers they believe don't pay enough for their produce. The government said it wouldn't tolerate lawbreaking, thus setting the stage for a negotiated settlement, which Raffarin duly praised. Then came the truckers, seeking an extra month of pay, better protection from cheaper competition in Central and Eastern Europe, and shorter working hours. Barricades went up at some 30 locations in France, but the front began to crumble after four unions with relatively few truckers among their members pulled out of the action altogether. By the time the government moved in with police and threats to yank licenses from uncooperative truckers, the air had already gone out of the protest.

With those disputes quelled, the government could view more calmly the public sector strikes that came next. An estimated 80,000 workers from state-controlled firms, including railroaders, air traffic controllers and electrical utility workers, took to the streets to protest the government's still vague intentions to speed up privatization. Less than a third of scheduled flights took off from France's main airports, and public transport was more of a hassle than usual for commuters. But measured against the high watermark of 1995, the protest remained an orderly show of force rather than a major disruption.

That could still come. Not until next spring will Raffarin tackle the sensitive issue of pension privileges for state employees, who pay less and retire earlier than private employees. Raffarin may get some help from Taxpayers Associated, a group that's pressuring the government to stick to its election promises. Over the past two weeks, the organization has run a series of eye-catching ads meant to rally the public: "Let's not give public sector lobbies the last word!" Still, however cleverly Raffarin couches the details of pension reform, that initiative could unleash a far more potent ritual than last week's relatively harmless dress rehearsal. — By James Graff/Paris

ITALY
There's a joke Silvio Berlusconi used to tell: He's in a helicopter with his son and daughter surveying a large union rally below. The billionaire Prime Minister decides to drop a €100 bill down to make at least one protester happy. Berlusconi's daughter notes that dropping a pair of €50 bills from the helicopter would brighten the day for two people, while his son thinks he should toss five €20 bills out the window to please five people. Over the noise of the helicopter, the pilot yells back: "Sir, why don't you throw yourself out and make them all happy?"