The decree of M. Millerand was particularly significant in one respect: it called upon the workingmen organized in the syndicats to elect fifteen members of the Superior Council of Labor. M. Millerand pointed out the significance of this measure in a speech delivered on June 5, 1900. Said he:
The workingmen are henceforth warned, that in order to participate through delegates sprung from their own ranks in the elaboration of economic reforms which concern them most, it is necessary and sufficient that they enter the ranks of that great army of which the syndicats are the battalions. How can they refuse to do this? By inducing them to do so we believe that we are defending their legitimate interests at the same time that we are serving the cause of social peace in this country.[127]
The “Councils of Labor” were organized by two decrees from September 17, 1900, and from January 2, 1901. Composed of an equal number of workingmen and of employers, these Councils had for their principal mission to enlighten the government, as well as workingmen and employers, on the actual and necessary conditions of labor, to facilitate thereby industrial harmony and general agreement between the interested parties, to furnish in cases of collective conflicts competent mediators, and to inform the public authorities on the effects produced by labor legislation.[128]
M. Millerand emphasized that the Councils of Labor were to bring workingmen and employers together for the discussion of “their general interests” and that this new institution would be one more motive for the utilization of the law of 1884 on syndicats. “To encourage by all means the formation of these trade-associations, so useful for the progress of social peace,” wrote the Minister in his decree, “is a task which a republican government cannot neglect.”[129]
To enlarge the possible operations of the syndicats, the government also introduced a bill into the Chamber (November 14, 1899) which contained several modifications of the law of 1884. This bill proposed to extend the commercial capacities of the syndicat and to grant the syndicat the rights of a juridical person.
To complete the series of measures which were to impart a peaceful character to the syndical movement, M. Millerand introduced into the chamber a bill (November 15, 1900) on the regulation of strikes and on arbitration. This law-project proposed a complicated mechanism for the settlement of economic conflicts. It hinged on the principle that strikes should be decided by secret ballot and by a majority vote renewed at brief intervals by all workingmen concerned; permanent arbitration boards in the industrial establishments were part of the mechanism.[130]
Toward this series of labor laws the Congress of Lyons was to define its attitude. The principle of the Superior Council of Labor was accepted by a majority of 258 against 205 votes (5 blank); the project on the regulation of strikes and on arbitration was rejected by a unanimous vote minus five; the Councils of Labor proposition was rejected by a majority of 279 against 175 (18 blank).
The discussion on the labor laws brought out the fact that the idea of “direct action” had undergone further modifications as a result of the policy of the government. M. Waldeck-Rousseau was denounced by the speakers as “a clever defender of the interests of the bourgeoisie” who wished merely to stop the offensive movement of the workingmen.[131] The legislative measures of the “pseudo-socialist minister”,[132] Millerand, were interpreted as schemes for restraining the revolutionary action of the syndicats.[133] The workingmen were warned that, if they accepted the laws, they would “reinforce a power which they wanted to destroy”.[134] They were reminded that the main function of the syndicat was to organize the workmen for their final emancipation which presupposes the “abolition of the wage-system” and that all “so-called labor laws” would only retard the hour of final liberation.
The revolutionary elements of the Congress did not deny, however, the possibility or the desirability of reforms. They insisted only upon particular methods of obtaining reforms and upon a particular kind of reforms. They rejected all peaceful discussion with employers because the interests of employers and of workingmen were held to be distinct and antagonistic. They did not want an “economic parliamentarism”[135] which would necessarily take the sting out of the workingmen's weapons and deprive the syndicats of their force. They wanted such reforms only as should “undermine the foundations”[136] of existing society and which should advance the movement for “integral emancipation” by strengthening the forces and the organization of the workingmen.
Such reforms could be obtained only “independently of all parliamentarism”,[137] by the workingmen organized in their syndicats displaying all their initiative, manifesting all their energies, relying only upon themselves and not upon intermediaries. Only in this way would the syndicats wrest “piece by piece from capitalistic society reforms the application of which would finally give the exploited class the force which is indispensable in order to bring about the social revolution”.[138]