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b'Vive la libert\\xe9! A French union threatened to cut off electricity to lawmakers and billionaires before a strike on Thursday.This story about a strike in France is relevant to American politics because a secure working class is the best antidote to encroaching fascism, and nothing has solidified security for workers better than unions. The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new podcasts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.It\\u2019s particularly relevant right now, as MAGA Republicans threaten to stop paying our nation\\u2019s bills if they aren\\u2019t allowed to cut social safety nets for working people. Instead of reacting to Republican hypocrisy and grift for the top 1% as if shame would stop them, it\\u2019s time to give them something to react to by demanding fairness. The People can do this, if they stand together.Today is the \\u201cfirst day of mobilization\\u201d in France as Unions are protesting French President Emmanuel Macron\\u2019s attempt to raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64.Retiring at age 62 with a pension probably sounds pretty great to most Americans. But this story is about how we get what we settle for and we settle for what we are conditioned to accept.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This strike is being posed as a test of weakening support for unions who have struggled in France, much like here, to convince workers to strike."I suggest they also go see the nice properties, the nice castles of billionaires," Philippe Martinez, leader of France\'s second-largest trade union, is reported to have said on Wednesday according to Reuters.Indeed, workers did strike and march today across the country. They halted trains and cut electricity in protest to Macron\\u2019s plan to raise the retirement age to 64:The stoppages are a major test for President Emmanuel Macron, who said on Thursday that his pension reform plan, which opinion polls show is hugely unpopular, was "just and responsible" and had to be carried out."It\'s salaries and pensions that must be increased, not the retirement age," read one large banner carried by workers that opened the protest march in Tours, in western France.The strike \\u201cled to a substantial fall in electricity output and halted deliveries from refineries\\u201d on Thursday. In fact, the rate of striking workers that are a part of the Electric and Gas Industries union exceeded 50% by midday, a spokesperson for the union told Reuters.This is also a story about working people battling entrenched propaganda that is directly against their best interests and does more to mislead than to inform. Much as it is here, this hit to workers is being called \\u201cpension reform.\\u201d And the problem starts right there.Reform is defined as, \\u201cmake changes in (something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.\\u201dIt\\u2019s not reform. It\\u2019s not going to \\u201cimprove\\u201d the pension plan for workers. It\\u2019s theft from working people. It\\u2019s an attack on security. It\\u2019s not reform.The BBC explained how the French system works:Under the French system, very few people have personal pension plans linked to capital investments.Instead, the pensions of those who are retired are paid from the same common fund into which those in work are contributing every month. Workers know they will benefit from the same treatment when they retire.All the country\'s unions - including so-called "reformist" unions that the government had hoped to win to its side - have condemned the measure, as have the left-wing and far-right oppositions in the National Assembly.Macron will likely get support from right-leaning factions. Let\\u2019s ask ourselves about all of the propaganda we\\u2019ve been told about our Social Security, is anyone else doing better? It turns out we aren\\u2019t even in the top ten. Of the top countries with the best pensions in 2022, the U.S. is not on the list and neither is France:1. Iceland2. Netherlands3. Denmark4. Israel5. Finland6. Australia7. Norway8. Sweden9. Singapore10. U.K: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern IrelandSo workers in France are already at a disadvantage compared to many other countries. The United States ranked 20th on the list. It had an overall grade of C+ and a score of 63.9.Want to guess how Iceland pays for that top rating? It\\u2019s doing what the unions suggested the French government do, which is to say the programs are income-related. \\u201c(T)he amount can decrease if you have other income and be canceled entirely if your income exceeds a certain amount.\\u201dThe Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts/podcasts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Unions are basically collective bargaining, which is a way of gathering enough power to take a stand against the powers setting the working conditions to secure higher wages and better benefits.The arguments against unions read like our entire culture, simping for billionaires. This is the editor\\u2019s guild\\u2019s take on the against arguments, which is obviously coming from a union but cuts through the dishonestly too well to dismiss: \\u201cThe anti-union arguments management makes tend to cluster around three major themes: (1) employees should trust management to do what\'s best for everyone, without management having to formally negotiate with employees; (2) the union can\'t be trusted; and (3) sticking with the status quo is better than the uncertainty ...\\u201dIn the U.S., while the Republican Party stands most defiantly against unions \\u2013 including rejecting thousands of good paying jobs for their residents, like Virginia\\u2019s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin just got busted for doing by reportedly halting a Ford plant in Virginia according to sources \\u2013 our entire culture is anti-union, anti-worker, and pro-big corporation, pro-billionaire.By the way, that plant in Virginia \\u201clocation is in Pittsylvania County, near Danville, and is one of the poorest areas of Virginia. The $3.5 billion plant would have created an estimated 2,500 jobs in Southside Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Danville Register & Bee reported Monday.\\u201dAnd who can forget in 2014 when South Carolina\\u2019s then Governor Republican Nikki Haley announced that Detroit\\u2019s Big Three automakers should look elsewhere because \\u201cshe discourages companies from building new facilities in South Carolina if they are planning to bring a union with them.\\u201dEven her Democratic opponent at the time couldn\\u2019t muster up full-throated support for unions, saying he thought the state should \\u201cremain a right-to-work state where workers are free to decide whether to join unions or not.\\u201dRight to work states do not in effect offer choices as their main function.Nurses are on strike right now in Britain as they struggle to pay their own bills and ambulance workers are planning to go on strike. \\u201cThe NHS faces prospect of biggest walkout in its history\\u201d the headlines tell us. Exhausted and struggling to pay bills, British nurses go on strike.They\\u2019re being maligned with the same kind of anti-worker propaganda we get here:\\u2018Striking workers are being greedy and their demands are unaffordable\\u2019\\u201cWhere is [Rishi Sunak\\u2019s] big effort to mobilise the country against these greedy union extremists?\\u201d \\u2013 Douglas Murray, the Sun, 8 December\\u201cInflation-matching or inflation-busting pay rises are unaffordable \\u2026 There simply isn\\u2019t the money.\\u201d Transport secretary, Mark Harper, Sky News, 27 NovemberNotice how none of these arguments take the issues and complaints and even crisis level emergency facing the healthcare system into account? They all place the burden right back on the workers. In this case, it\\u2019s nurses who after nearly three years of a global pandemic, are also struggling to make their own rent. That\\u2019s not acceptable.The headlines against the nurses in Britain tell us a lot about'