It’s early morning at the bus depot in Ivry-sur-Seine. With around 150 buses scheduled to depart for the first shift of the day — mostly northward to Paris — things usually move at a breakneck pace. But not today — nor much at all recently. For over forty-three days and counting, workers here have been on strike over the government’s proposed pension reforms, leading to dozens of cancellations and delays every day.

Like others in the Paris metropolitan area, the Ivry depot bears the signs of a long and bitter struggle. Handwritten banners hang from the employee cafeteria reading “Depot on Strike” and “Immediate Withdrawal [of the government’s planned pension reform].” Under the gaze of supervisors and several police officers across the street, about a dozen strikers maintain the picket line, delaying but — in accordance with the law — not physically blocking drivers who start their routes. A stereo blasts contemporary pop and French hip-hop while supporters, many of them students, gather around a brazier to keep warm. According to union officials, between 30 to 40 percent of bus drivers scheduled to work Thursday morning (January 16) are on strike or on sick leave.

“We’re against this reform that’s going to make us lose a lot of money in our retirement,” says Jean, forty, a driver and veteran of six years’ employment at the Paris transit authority, who has been on strike since December 5. Like others, he declined to give his last name for fear of workplace repercussions. “But it’s not just for us, not just for the special pension schemes. We’re fighting for everyone, our kids, everyone.”