Confédération Générale du Travail

France 1895

Synopsis

In Europe the development and institutionalization of the workers' movement at both national and international levels marked the end of the nineteenth century. In France the first national trade union center, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), saw the light of day in 1895 at the end of a long process of transformation of preexisting structures. A gradual clarification of objectives, means, and forms of workers' struggle led to the differentiation of workers' political activities from their union activities and to the creation of distinct organizations to represent each side.

Three factors particularly contributed to the character of the CGT. First, the relatively slow processes of industrialization and urbanization meant that right up to the end of the nineteenth century, the working class was highly dispersed. Second, the force of government repression against the workers' first tentative organizing steps left both deep trauma and, most significantly, initially ruled out a reformist solution. Finally, the separation of managerial from adversarial union functions, established as a result of the 1852 decree on friendly societies, permanently distanced the CGT and indeed the whole of French trade unionism from a strategy of membership services provision.

Timeline

• 1876: General George Armstrong Custer and 264 soldiers are killed by the Sioux at the Little Big Horn River.
• 1880: Completion of Cologne Cathedral, begun 634 years earlier. With twin spires 515 feet (157 m) high, it is the tallest structure in the world and will remain so until 1889, when it is surpassed by the Eiffel Tower. (The previous record for the world's tallest structure lasted much longer—for about 4,430 years following the building of Cheops's Great Pyramid in c. 2550 B.C.)
• 1885: Belgium's King Leopold II becomes sovereign of the so-called Congo Free State, which he will rule for a quarter-century virtually as his own private property. The region in Africa, given the name of Zaire in the 1970s (and Congo in 1997), becomes the site of staggering atrocities, including forced labor and genocide, at the hands of Leopold's minions.
• 1891: French troops open fire on workers during a 1 May demonstration at Fourmies, where employees of the Sans Pareille factory are striking for an eight-hour workday. Nine people are killed—two of them children—and 60 more are injured.
• 1894: French army captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew, is convicted of treason. Dreyfus will later be cleared of all charges, but the Dreyfus case illustrates—and exacerbates—the increasingly virulent anti-Semitism that pervades France.
• 1895: German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovers X-rays.
• 1895: Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière show the world's first motion picture—Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory—at a café in Paris.
• 1895: Guglielmo Marconi pioneers wireless telegraphy, which in the next three decades will make possible the use of radio waves for commercial broadcasts and other applications.
• 1895: German engineer Rudolf Diesel invents an engine capable of operating on a type of petroleum less highly refined, and therefore less costly, than gasoline.
• 1898: Marie and Pierre Curie discover the radioactive elements radium and polonium.
• 1901: U.S. President William McKinley is assassinated by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt becomes president.
• 1905: In the industrial Ruhr region in Germany, 200,000 miners go on strike.

Event and Its Context

The creation of the French National Federation of Unions and Work Associations (FNS) in 1886 and then of the National Federation of Labor Exchanges (FNBT) in 1892 were two indispensable stages in the formation of a national union center.

At the beginning, the CGT was a victim of disagreements between its component parts and thus extremely fragile. During the organization's first years of existence, it experienced several important modifications to its statutes. As a result, historians often cite 1902 rather than 1895 as its real founding year.

Toward Union Independence

Although the first workers' conferences occurred in the mid-1870s, another 10 years passed before the trade union movement really took on some degree of independence. Even then, the FNS, as formed in 1886, functioned as a simple sounding board for the Parti ouvrier français (French Workers' Party) dominated by the followers of Jules Guesde.

The local silk weavers' council called the FNS founding conference in Lyon. Despite moderate opposition, the decision to give the new organization a national and general role passed by 90 votes to 15. The fledgling organization comprised local and regional federations but had to give its core elements, the local councils of different trades, a significant degree of independence. Its statutes declared its opposition to reformism and its support for class struggle and declared the FNS "the sister of all existing socialist workers' federations," which it considered "a friend conducting another wing of the battle with whom we will eventually combine to destroy the common enemy."

At the FNS Montluçon conference in 1887, the collectivist approach inspired by Marx and Engels triumphed over the followers of Proudhon and the utopian socialists. The notion of "bringing capitalism to the edge of disaster" by refusing to work for it prompted the introduction of the idea of a general strike, by which the united workers could overthrow the government and force the building of a new system. At the following year's Bordeaux conference, the FNS adopted the principle of the general strike as the best weapon for emancipation.

In spite of this, the new federation remained strongly subordinate to political action and effectively led a very discrete existence. Much more important was the influence of the National Federation of Labor Exchanges (FNBT). The creation of labor exchanges derived initially from a completely different dynamic than that which had led to the establishment of trade federations. The idea was not new; various proposals for labor exchanges had been discussed in the 1790s. Taken up again by a Paris town councilor, Mesureur, in 1884, it led finally on 3 February 1887 to the opening of an exchange in Paris, followed by openings in Nîmes, Marseille (1888), Saint-Etienne (1889), Toulouse (1890), and so on. By 1892, 14 exchanges existed. Accompanied by a spurt in trade union growth, this rapid development was also partly motivated by a number of republicans, solidly installed in local government, who wished to resolve the "labor question" by establishing social peace. From this perspective, in a period of rising unemployment and increasing strikes, a labor exchange in which the different trades could come together and whereby workers could find work was an essential tool.

Quite naturally, the exchanges decided to link up. A constitutional conference, which brought together a dozen of them, convened at Saint-Etienne in February 1892. It agreed to unify the programs of its various member unions and rejected any involvement of the national or local state in the running of the exchanges. The conference nominated an executive committee made up of one delegate from each exchange to manage the activities of the associated exchanges.

Anarchists and socialists of all persuasions coexisted in this new federation. The anarchists, however, were gathering influence at the time and developed a strategy based on federalism and complete independence from the state and all political parties. The doctrinal differences between the FNBT and the FNS then became irreducible. A strong unifying tendency, however, existed within the FNBT, and its 1893 conference called for a joint conference of labor exchanges and unions to which the FNS was invited. This joint conference took place in Paris in July 1893. It reaffirmed the principle of the general strike and proposed that the two organizations unify more closely.

The Creation of the CGT

One year later, particularly rowdy debates took place at the Nantes conference. The FNBT line passed, by a majority of 65 votes to 37, and imposed a conception of the general strike that rejected the idea of simultaneously conquering state power. A "Workers' National Council" became the umbrella for the two federations and served as a general strike propaganda committee. These organizations had no influence, and it was only really at the Limoges conference in 1895 that the CGT was actually established.

Its founding text gave the CGT the exclusive aim "of uniting workers in struggle on economic issues and in close solidarity to achieve their total emancipation." It asked all present to "keep themselves above all political tendencies." Although not excluding any of the initiatives that had taken place to strengthen workers' organizing efforts to that point, CGT membership would include single trade unions, labor exchanges, local multitrade joint organizations and federations, and national trade federations created to bring together different parts of the same industry or sector and the NFBT.

Different union layers were thus intermingled, and this quickly became a factor that encouraged instability. In addition, relations rapidly deteriorated between the FNBT and the young CGT. Within a year the much weaker CGT was lacking in affiliates. It finally only survived thanks to the support given by the print and railway unions.

For the first seven years following its creation, the CGT barely survived and had very little real influence on events. It was constantly modifying its constitution and was unable to stabilize its leadership. Four general secretaries—Lagailse (1895-1899), Copigneaux (1899-1900), Renaudin (1900-1901), and Guérard (April-November 1901)—followed each other without leaving a mark.

Fernand Pelloutier, the general secretary of the FNBT, was much more influential. Starting in 1895 when he became its leader, he defined the major elements of revolutionary syndicalism and gave the labor exchanges a fourfold purpose: mutual support, education, propaganda, and worker resistance. His premature death coincided with the emergence of two other key figures, Emile Pouget and Victor Griffuelhes. The election of the latter to the head of the CGT in November 1901 marked the victory of revolutionary syndicalism.

As a result, it was possible to settle the issue of trade union unity at the Montpellier CGT conference of 1902. New statutes reaffirmed the desire of the CGT to keep clear of all political activity and required every local union branch to have a double affiliation, both to its local area union and to its national federation. From this point, therefore, the CGT comprised two independent sections: one that included national and isolated union branches of occupational and industrial federations and another that regrouped the labor exchanges and multiunion area, regional, and departmental union organizations.

This created solid foundations for a national union center. The charter that the CGT later adopted at its famous Amiens conference in 1906 made more explicit and deepened the ideas that had been adopted 11 years earlier and subsequently reaffirmed on several occasions, rather than adding anything new.

Key Players

Griffuelhes, Victor (1874-1923): Follower of Blanqui, cobbler, and member of the Leather and Skin Workers' Union, Griffuelhes played a vital role during the early years of the CGT, of which he became secretary general in 1901. An advocate of the replacement of the old skilled unions by industrial federations and a supporter of direct action, he played a key role in writing the Amiens Charter (1906). He resigned his responsibilities in 1909.

Guesde, Jules (1845-1922): Guesde was a journalist. He actively supported the 1871 Commune, earning him a sentence of five years imprisonment and exile. Allowed to return to France in 1876, he then discovered Marxism and fell strongly under the influence of the young German Social Democratic party, launching in 1899 the first French Marxist journal, Égalité. Having helped in the passing of collectivism at the 1879 Marseille Workers' Conference, he founded the Parti ouvrier français (French Workers' Party) with Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law.

Keufer, Auguste (1851-1924): A typographer who led the print workers' union from 1884 to 1920, above all Keufer was the leader of the reformist tendency. He participated actively in the founding of the CGT and was its first national treasurer (1895-1896). In addition he sat on the government's advisory National Work Council from its establishment in 1891 and later became its vice chairman.

Pelloutier, Fernand (1867-1901): A journalist and socialist, Pelloutier joined Guesde's French Workers' Party in 1892 but very quickly opposed its leader with his own libertarian conception of the workers' struggle and eventually resigned. With Aristide Briand, he initiated the founding conference of the FNBT and became deputy general secretary in 1894 and then general secretary in 1895. He was one of the principal theoreticians of anarcho-syndicalism.

Pouget, Emile (1860-1931): Anarchist who participated in the1879 founding of the Paris clerical textile workers' union. In 1889 he published the first edition of Père Peinard (Father Indolent), a publication that appeared for 10 years. Elected CGT deputy general secretary in 1901, he was one of the authors of the Amiens Charter (1906) and one of the leading lights of the revolutionary syndicalist movement. An advocate of industrial sabotage, he published the famous study called Le Sabotage.

Bibliography

Books

Bothereau, Robert. Histoire du Syndicalisme Français. Paris:PUF, 1946.

Dreyfus, Michel. Histoire de la CGT. Paris: Edition complexe, 1995.

Lefranc, Georges. Histoire du Mouvement Syndical Français.Paris: Librairie syndicale, 1937.

Louis, Paul. Histoire du Mouvement Syndical en France,1789-1918. Paris: Librairie Valois, 1947.

Pennetier, Claude. Dictionnaire Biographique du Mouvement Ouvrier Français (Cédérom): Le Maîtron. Paris: Editions de l'Atelier, 1997.

Reynaud, Jean-Daniel. Les Syndicats en France. Paris:Armand Colin, 1975.

Trempé, Rolande. "Renaissance et recomposition du mouvement ouvrier, 1871-1895." In Claude Willard, La France Ouvrière. Des Origines à 1920. Paris: Editions sociales, 1993.

Additional Resources

Books

Bance, Pierre. Les Fondateurs de la CGT à l'Épreuve du Droit. Claix: La pensée sauvage, 1978.

Brécy, Robert. Le Mouvement Syndical en France. 1871-1921. Essai bibliographique. Paris: Mouton, 1963.

Dreyfus, Michel. Les Sources de l'Histoire Ouvrière, Sociale et Industrielle en France: XIXe et XXe Siècles: Guide Documentaire. Paris: Editions ouvrières, 1987.

Estey, James A. Revolutionary Syndicalism. An Exposition and a Criticism. London: P. S. King, 1913.

Jefferys, Steve. Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité at Work: Changing French Employment Relations and Management. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003.

Levine, Louis. The French Labor Movement. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1954.

Leroy, Maxime. La Coutume Ouvrière. Paris: Giard et Brière, 1913.

Mouriaux, René. Les Syndicats dans la Société Française.Paris: Presse Nationale de la Fondation de Sciences Politiques, 1983.

Ridley, Frederick. Revolutionary Syndicalism in France.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Periodicals

Jefferys, Steve. "The Exceptional Centenary of the Confédération générale du Travail, 1895-1995." Historical Studies in Industrial Relations 3 (1997):123-142.

—Sylvie Contrepois