Syndicalism in France

by Lewis L. Lorwin

While the compagnonnages were reconstituting themselves during the Consulate and the First Empire, another form of organization began to develop among the workingmen. This was the friendly or benevolent society for mutual aid especially in cases of sickness, accident or death. Several such societies had existed before the Revolution and the law Le Chapelier was directed also against them. “It is the business of the nation,” was the opinion of Le Chapelier, accepted by the Constituent Assembly, “it is the business of the public officials in the name of the nation to furnish employment to those in need of it and assistance to the infirm”.[18] Friendly societies, however, continued to form themselves during the nineteenth century. They were formed generally along trade lines, embracing members of the same trade. In a general way the government did not hinder their development.

Mrs. Beatrice Webb and Mr. Sidney Webb have shown that a friendly society has often been the nucleus of a trade union in England. In France the friendly societies for a long time played the part of trade unions. The charge of promoting strikes and of interfering with industrial matters was often brought against them.[19] There were 132 such trade organizations in Paris in 1823 with 11,000 members, and their numbers increased during the following years.

The form of organization called into being by the new economic conditions was the société de résistance, an organization primarily designed for the purpose of exercising control over conditions of employment. These societies of resistance assumed various names. They usually had no benefit features or passed them over lightly in their statutes. They emphasized the purpose of obtaining collective contracts, scales of wages, and general improvements in conditions of employment. These societies were all secret, but free from the religious and ceremonial characteristics of the compagnonnages.

One of the most famous of these societies in the history of the French working-class was the Devoir Mutuel, founded by the weavers of Lyons, in 1823. This society directed the famous strikes of the weavers in 1831 and 1834. Its aim, as formulated in its statutes, was: first, to practice the principles of equity; second, to unite the weavers' efforts in order to obtain a reasonable wage for their labor; third, to do away with the abuses of the factory, and to bring about other improvements in “the moral and physical condition” of its members. The society had 3,000 members in 1833.[20]

In 1833 the smelters of copper in Paris formed themselves into a society which was to help them in their resistance against employers. Two francs a day was to be paid to every member who lost employment because he did not consent to an unjust reduction in his wages or for any other reason which might be regarded as having in view the support of the trade; in other cases of unemployment, no benefit was allowed, in view of the fact that in ordinary times the smelters were seldom idle.[21] The society was open to all smelters, without any limitation of age; it was administered by a council assisted by a commission of representatives from the shops, elected by the members of the society of each shop. The society was soon deprived, however, of its combative character by the government.[22]

A strong society of resistance was organized by the printers of Paris in 1839. Though secret, it gained the adherence of a large part of the trade. In 1848 it had 1,200 members—half of all the printers at that time in Paris. It was administered by a committee. Through its initiative a mixed commission of employers and workingmen was organized which adopted a general scale of wages. This commission also acted as a board of mediation and conciliation in disputes between employers and workingmen.[23]

The compagnonnages, mutualités and resistance-societies aimed partly or exclusively to better conditions of employment by exerting pressure upon employers. These societies reveal the efforts that were being made by workingmen to adjust themselves to the economic conditions of the time. But after 1830, other ideas began to find adherents among the French workingmen; namely, the ideas of opposition to the entire economic régime based on private property and the idea of substituting for this system a new industrial organization.

The history of the socialist movement of France before 1848 can not here be entered into. It has been written and rewritten and is more or less known. For the purposes of this study, it is only necessary to point out that during this period, and particularly during the revolutionary period of 1848, the idea of co-operation, as a means of abolishing the wage system, made a deep impression upon the minds of French workingmen.[24]

The idea of co-operation had been propagated before 1848 by the Saint-Simonists and Fourierists, and particularly by Buchez who had outlined a clear plan of co-operation in his paper L'Européen in 1831-2. Similar ideas were advanced during the forties by a group of workingmen who published L'Atelier. But only with the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848, and under the influence of Louis Blanc, did the co-operative idea really become popular with the workingmen. Between 1848 and 1850 the enthusiasm for co-operative societies was great, and a considerable number of them were formed. On July 6, 1848, the Constituent Assembly voted a loan of 3,000,000 francs for co-operative societies, and this sum was divided among 26 societies in Paris and 36 in the provinces.[25] But the number of those founded without assistance was much greater; about 300 in Paris and many more in the provinces. Of these societies most perished within a short time while the rest were dissolved by the administration of Napoleon III after the coup-d'état of 1851.[26]

The Revolution of 1848 was an important moment in the history of the French working-class. Though the socialist idea of the “Organization of Work” (L'Organisation du Travail) which was so prominent during the Revolution passed into history after the days of June, it left an impression upon the minds of French workingmen. The belief in a possible social transformation became a tradition with them. Besides, the Revolution gave a strong impulse to purely trade organizations such as the sociétés de résistance. Before 1848 they had existed in a few trades only. The period of the Revolution witnessed the formation of a large number of them in various trades and strengthened the tendency towards organization which had manifested itself before.