French Trade Unions Research Articles

SUD trade unions: The new organisations trying to conquer the French trade union scene

In a context of pluralism and union division, the SUD unions (Solidaires, Unitaires, Démocratiques) have developed strongly in France in recent years. They are often presented as corporatists, and as protest professionals. We will see, in the following article, how this analysis falls short of being able to aid understanding of the complexity of the form SUD unions take, or of explaining the current limits of their actions; and how it equally fails to tackle the questions that SUD raises for the French union movement.

L'institution à l'état vif. Sociabilités et structuration des groupes dans un syndicat de salariés

The Flesh of Institution. Sociable Conversations and Organisational Structuration in a Trade Union Gildas Renou This article explores the variety of internai sociabilities and its influence on the structuration process of political organisations. It is based on an ethnographie study of a French trade union of workers: Sud-PTT. First, the main moments of institutionnal sociability are identified and described (especially the times of congresses). Then we present two styles of sociability characterizing these moments : « remotivation » and « political initiation ». These styles help us to correlate the intensities of implication with the various bounds of groups and cultural subuniverses inside the organisation. Finally we defend the interest of direct observation in the study of activist sociability : it seems to be a relevent method to distinguish efficient mechanisms that empirically determine reactivations and adaptations of internai organisational rifts.

Trade unions for EMU: Sectoral preferences and political opportunities

Surveys conducted on the political economy of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union have seldom considered the response of domestic interest groups, notably trade unions. This article contrasts and explains the positions on EMU adopted by major British, French and German trade unions, in the process reassessing the so‐called interest group approach to preference formulation. It is argued that while the impact of sectoral orientation appears significant, it is mitigated by the intervention of ideological and institutional factors. On a substantive level, unions turned out to be broadly supportive of what many had labelled a ‘monetarist’ project. If as is often argued, social and political cohesion is needed for monetary union to endure, this represents an important development.

French History since Napoleon

Historians and peculiarities of French history revolution, restoration and beyond politics abd political cultures from restoration to Third Republic society and people - Bourgeois Centuries? backwar or different - the strange case of the French 19th century economy Paris versus the provinces the Jewish question from Dreyfus to Vichy France's cultural clashes political thought, intellectuals and the meanings of 1890-1945 defending France - military policy and the quest for security abroad 1890-1945 the collapse of the Third Republic Vichy, the resistance and de Gaulle the economy and the Great Leap Forward women society, and politics in modern France French trade unionism, society and the state religion and belief in 20th century France France and its other.

Les forces syndicales jugées par le dessin de presse

The October-November 1995 social movement provided cartoonists with the opportunity to put the trade-unions leaders front stage (and page), especially Marc Blondel, the FO union leader. Cartoons published then by newspapers exposed bluntly what was left a blur, or only alluded to, elsewhere in articles. This corpus thus helps to understand these complex events : it is somehow elucidation through simplification. But, after 1995, the number of cartoons representing trade unionists has steadily declined, their themes lack coherence, and the only trait connecting them is the traditional weakness of French trade-unionism to play its role in the public sphere.

Every factory a fortress: the French labor movement in the age of Ford and Hitler

French trade unions played a historical role in the 1930s quite unlike that of any other labor movement. Against a backdrop of social unrest, parliamentary crisis, and impending world war, industrial unionists in the great metal-fabricating plants of the Paris Region carried out a series of street mobilizations, factory occupations, and general strikes that were virtually unique in Western history. The unionization of the metal industry, following a series of anti-fascist demonstrations and plant seizures, would constitute the defining episode in modern French labor history and one of the great chapters in European social history. Yet little is known of these extraordinary events. With a style that captures the vivid character of these experiences, Every Factory a Fortress tells the story of the Paris metal workers, who succeeded in organizing the largest Communist union in the Western world, reshaping the parameters of French social relations, and, ultimately, altering the course of French destinies.

Symbolic Networks: The Realignment of the French Working Class, 1887‐1894

How can abstract symbols provide the basis for organizational cohesion? In the early 1890s, the general strike provided such a symbol for French trade unions. In rallying around this symbol, the unions broke free from competing political loyalties and brought about a fundamental realignment of the French labor movement. The article argues that organizational cohesion emerges through the interplay between powerful symbols, political discourse, and social or interor‐ganizational networks. Using archival records and a statistical analysis of the watershed vote for the general strike, the author demonstrates how the organizing power of this symbol was embedded in local multitrade union federations known as bourses du travail and in the corporatist discourse they evoked.

Trade Unions, Restructuring and Individualization in French and British Banks

The European banking sector has experienced radical restructuring in the 1990s. This article compares the experiences and opinions of French and British trade union activists in two banks. It argues that while trade union organization in each country remains distinct, activists' perceptions of restructuring and industrial relations or HRM changes have much in common: there is a growing convergence in working practices and workers' experiences. Job losses, the reorganization of work and segmentation of the labour force have weakened the power of unions to make a collective response. However, despite some signs of growing individualism, there is little to suggest that `commitment' to the employer has increased; and unions continue to rely on collective organization to restrain managerial unitarism.

La théorie des négociations salariales : quelle portée dans le cas français ?

Since the beginning of the 1980’s economic literature concerning the representation of collective bargaining was largely enriched. Its origin is anglo-saxon. Can the resulting models realize the validity of french collective bargaining, the example on which we shall be relying ? The main characteristics of french trade unions, the bargaining themes and the different bargaining levels are described. All of them cannot appear in such models. Most of the economists advise to decentralize the bargaining process (especially in France), as it could struggle the wage rigidity. But only a minimum wage is negotiated on a professionnal category level. Many factors contribute to shed light on union behaviour just as the progress of collective bargaining.

The Politics of French Trade Unionism.

The Politics of French Trade Unionism.

Book Review: International and Comparative: The Politics of French Trade Unionism

Book Review: International and Comparative: The Politics of French Trade Unionism

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:New Perspectives on Industrial Disputes edited by David Metcalf and Simon Milner.The New Industrial Relations by Neil Millward.Willing Slaves? by Andrew Scott.Human Resource Management: Key Concepts and Skills by P. B. Beaumont.Principles of Human Resource Management by D. Goss.Managing Human Resources and Industrial Relations by J. Storey and Keith Sisson.Privatization and Employment Relations: The Case of the Water Industry by Julia O'Connell Davidson.Trade Union Behaviour, Pay Bargaining and Economic Performance by R. J. Flanagan, K.O. Moene and M. Wallerstein.Employment Security and Labor Market Behaviour edited by Christoph F. Buechtemann.Cultural Perspectives on Organizations by Mats Alvesson.Breaking from Taylorism: Changing Forms of Work in the Automobile Industry by Ulrich Jürgens, Thomas Malsch and Knuth Dohse.Labor and an Integrated Europe edited by Lloyd Ulman, Barry Eichengreen and William T. Dickens.The Politics of French Trade Unionism by Jeff Bridgford.

Regulating Labor: The State and Industrial Relations Reform in Postwar France.

In May and June of 1968 a dramatic wave of strikes paralyzed France, making industrial relations reform a key item on the government agenda. French trade unions seemed due for a golden age of growth and importance. Today, however, trade unions are weaker in France than in any other advanced capitalist country. How did such exceptional militancy give way to equally remarkable quiescence? To answer this question, Chris Howell examines the reform projects of successive French governments toward trade unions and industrial relations during the postwar era, focusing in particular on the efforts of post-1968 conservative and socialist governments. Howell explains the genesis and fate of these reform efforts by analyzing constraints imposed on the French state by changing economic circumstances and by the organizational weakness of labor. His approach, which links economic, political, and institutional analysis, is broadly that of Regulation Theory. His explicitly comparative goal is to develop a framework for understanding the challenges facing labor movements throughout the advanced capitalist world in light of the exhaustion of the postwar pattern of economic growth, the weakening of the nation-state as an economic actor, and accelerating economic integration, particularly in Europe.

The Politics of French Trade Unionism: Party-Union Relations at the Time of the Union of the Left.

The Politics of French Trade Unionism: Party-Union Relations at the Time of the Union of the Left.

Difficult times for the French communist party and the CGT

The French Confederation Generale du Travail claims to be exceptional within French and European trade unionism. One of the PCF's last mass organizations capable of exercising an influence on French society, it has experienced a decline that started even before that of the party. Fighting against charges of archaism it has had difficulty in adapting to the territorial evolution of economic activity. The union's effort at ‘reconquest’ suffers from competition with the party in the recruitment to responsible posts, whilst the human resources of both are thinning out, partly because of the way in which the school system has been developing. The proportion of communists in the CGT is growing, but the number of CGT members in the PCF is shrinking, as it is throughout the working population. A decline in action in support of wage claims, which at times in any case transcends the trade unions, and a loss of influence at national level have been accompanied by greater international activity. Its investment in the...

French trade unions: crisis in the 1980s

France has had a Socialist President since 1981, and yet support for French trade unions has declined markedly. This article assesses the nature of this decline and examines the role of government, changes in the labour market, employer policies and trade union strategies, in order to explain this apparent paradox.

Crise du syndicalisme, crise de la classe ouvrière ou crise du salariat?

Trade union crisis, working class crisis or wage-earner crisis ? Jacques Capdevielle. French trade unionism, as that of other developed countries, is in dire straits. While the diagnosis is generally agreed upon, the quest for causes and remedies is difflcult. Trade unionism is confronted with a real revolution, caused by a structural mutation of labor which began about 20 years ago. In its daily life, if not in the factory, the working class has been diluted within the wage earning class, and this dilution both integrated and split it : two convergent factors, in any case, which made it lose its specificity. As if this phenomenon was not complex enough, its analysis was hampered for a long time, at least in France, by the reference to a mythical working class.

La tradition chrétienne du syndicalisme français aux prises avec le temps

THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION OF FRENCH UNIONISM CONFRONTED WITH THE ACTION OF TIME . COMPARED EVOLUTION BETWEEN CONFEDERAL MANIFESTOS (CFTC, CFDT AND THE " CONTINUING " CFTC). To understand the development of the Christian tradition within the french trade union movement, a factorial analysis has been applied to the manifestos voted and approved during the general congresses of the CFTC from 1945 to 1964 and, after the split between the CFDT and the " continuing " CFTC from 1965 to 1985. This analysis underlines the discrepancy between the CFDT, intent upon perpetuating the trend inaugurated after the war, and whose language undergoes irregular but rapid changes, and the " continuing " CFTC which jalously adheres to the funding discourse at the cost of a lexical standstill and a return to the previous values of the CFTC. This radical opposition stems essentially from the lexical dislocation introduced by the CFDT manifestos after 1970. It was between 1973 and 1976 that the two discourse styles were the most divergent. They have begun to converge since 1979, on the subject of union demands and the recourse to négociation. This convergence is more a result of a lexical reorientation on the part of the CFDT than of a similar change on the part of the " continuing " CFTC.

Le vocabulaire des confédérations syndicales ouvrières : une analyse des spécificités

A STUDY OF SPECIFICITIES IN FRENCH TRADE-UNION VOCABULARY (1971-1976) From a corpus of trade-union texts (Congresses and Conferences, 1971-1976) selected from four representative French trade-unions : CFDT, CFTC, CGT and FO, the authors have made a study of the positive and negative ultra-specific forms in the vocabulary (where the frequency is greater than, or equal to, 20). They have established and commented on the comparative tables of these forms, either for each union or in pairs. They have also set up four tables around themes which they judge to be indicative of union practice in particular circumstances : the vocabulary of attack, of unity and of mediation, and performative/declarative verbs. From this study they have drawn the following conclusions : each union has its own system of values ; it is the ideological differences which determine the activity of French trade unions. This does not prevent resemblances, however, between the CGT and CFDT, and especialy between the CFTC and FO. It may be observed that in 1971-1976 a political difference replaced the former religious/secular difference... that is, if the vocabulary is to be believed.

The Influence of Government on Labour Relations in France

Until the First World War, relations between labour and management were on an individual, rather than a collective, basis. Employers and workers had organized for collective action, but, except in the printing and coal mining industries, relations between the trade unions, strongly influenced by syndicalism, and the defensive associations of employers were chiefly violent in nature. Both unions and employers opposed government intervention in the labour market, and the government respected this sentiment. During the war it became necessary for the government to bring employers and unions together on arbitration committees and in less formal discussions in order to encourage uninterrupted production through the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes. Thus the first widespread contact between employers and unions took place under the auspices of the government. The syndicalist philosophy of the French trade unions was abandoned, partly as a result of this demonstration of the importance of governmental support, and partly as a result of the political success of the Communists in Russia. After the war the legal status of the collective bargaining contract was defined,1 but this action was indirect and, as time showed, unavailing as a means of encouraging collective bargaining. The policy of the government was more clearly demonstrated by another law, passed after agreement between representatives of labour and management, which established the principle of a working day limited to eight hours.2 Representatives of employers and unions were given the task of applying this principle to particular industries and regions, and only in case of disagreement was the system of application decided by the government. Since the eight-hour-day law the direct regulation of working conditions and the association of employers and unions both in the formulation of legislation and in its administration have been important features of French labour law.