Syndicalism in France Part 15

In matters of administration the _Bourses du Travail_ have made a step in advance since the early part of the century. They have succeeded in organizing the _viatic.u.m_ (aid to workingman traveling from town to town in search of work) on a national basis, and have amplified their services as employment bureaus. They are now systematizing their statistical work by making monthly and quarterly reports on the state of employment in their locality, on strikes, on the growth of organization, and on other industrial matters of interest. Their financial situation has been considerably improved, and in a number of cities they have left the munic.i.p.al buildings and have built their own "people's houses"

(_maisons du peuple_).

Regard for matters of administration has not diminished the zeal of the Bourses for anti-militaristic propaganda. Most of them have organized in recent years the so-called _Sou du Soldat_ (Soldier's Penny). They send financial aid to workingmen who are doing military service, invite them to the social gatherings of the syndicats, distribute syndicalist literature among them, and in all ways try to maintain in the soldiers a feeling of solidarity with the organized workers.

The Federations of industries and trades after 1902 concentrated their attention upon their particular trade and industrial interests. The story of these Federations is the story of organization, education, and strikes which can not be told here in detail.

While the Bourses and industrial federations attended to the particular, local and administrative interests of their respective organizations, the General Confederation of labor intervened or took the initiative in questions that interested all or a considerable part of all workingmen.

The new statutes went into force on January 1, 1903. The elections secured the predominance of the revolutionary syndicalists in the Confederal Committee; Griffuelhes was elected secretary of the Confederation; Pouget, a.s.sistant; Yvetot, secretary of the Section of Bourses. In October of the same year the Confederal Committee was summoned to an extraordinary meeting to consider the question of the suppression of employment bureaus. This question had agitated a considerable part of the working-cla.s.s for many years. The workingmen had protested time and again against the methods and procedure of these bureaus, and their protests had been found to be well founded by all who investigated the matter.[188] The methods of the employment bureaus had been condemned in Parliament, and the Chamber had pa.s.sed a bill to suppress the employment bureaus with indemnity in 1901-2. The Senate, however, rejected it in February, 1902, and the question was dropped indefinitely.

[188] Senator Paul Straus in _La Grande Revue_ (Feb., 1914), pp. 320 _et seq._

The workingmen of the food-producing industries (_alimentation_) were particularly interested in the suppression of the employment bureaus. In October, 1903, exasperated by the fact that twenty-five years of lobbying and of pet.i.tioning had produced no results, they decided to take the matter into their own hands. October 29th, a "veritable riot"

took place in the _Bourse du Travail_ of Paris, the police used their arms, and many were wounded on both sides.[189]

[189] _Journal des Debats_ (Nov. 6, 1903), p. 865.

The Confederal Committee decided to lend its help to the workingmen in the struggle. It appointed a special committee to direct the movement.

The plan adopted was to carry on a wide agitation for some time and then to arrange protest-meetings on the same day in all industrial centers of France. December 5, 1903, hundreds of meetings were held all over France, at which the same demand was made that the employment offices be abolished. The meetings were arranged with the help of the _Bourses du Travail_ which appear in all such cases as the centers of agitation.

November 5, 1903, the Chamber, by 495 votes against 14, voted a law suppressing the Employment Bureaus within a period of five years, with an indemnity of six million francs. In February, 1904, the law pa.s.sed the Senate with some modifications.

The agitation for the suppression of the employment bureaus appeared to all as a manifestation of the new theories on "Direct Action." "The socialist syndicats have wrested the vote of the Chamber by the pressure of rebellion (_Coup d'emeutes_)" wrote the _Journal des economistes_.[190] The revolutionary syndicalists themselves considered the agitation as an ill.u.s.tration of their methods, and the success obtained as a proof of the efficiency of the latter. The report to the Congress of Bourges (1904) read:

[190] _Journal des economistes_ (November, 1903), p. 315.

Under the pressure of the workingmen the Government, till then refractory to the reform, capitulated.... To-day it is an accomplished fact; wherever syndicalist action was exercised with perseverance and energy, the employment bureaus have gone. This fact is characteristic. The General Confederation has the merit, thanks to the immense effort of the interested themselves, of having obtained a reform in a relatively short time, if it is compared with the slowness with which everything concerning the workingmen is done.[191]

[191] _XIV Congres National Corporatif_ (Bourges, 1904), p. 8.

The policy of the General Confederation, however, had opponents within the Confederation itself. A struggle for supremacy between the two tendencies was inevitable, and it took place at the very next Congress of the Confederation at Bourges (1904).

The report presented to the Congress of Bourges showed that the Confederation had made considerable progress since 1902. It counted now 53 Federations of industries and trades, and National syndicats (against 30 in 1902), 15 isolated syndicats, and 110 _Bourses du Travail_, a total of 1,792 syndicats (against 1,043 in 1902), with 150,000 members.

The Section of Federations of industries had received in dues for the two years, 11,076 francs; its total budget amounted to 17,882 francs; the Section of _Bourses du Travail_ had collected in dues 9,016 francs and had a total budget of 12,213 francs. The _Voix du Peuple_ was now self-supporting, and had increased the number of its subscriptions. The Congress of Bourges, for the first time, was organized on the financial resources of the syndicats without munic.i.p.al or governmental subsidies.

It was known before that the Congress of Bourges would discuss the question of methods, and both sides, the revolutionary syndicalists and those who were called "reformists," made all efforts possible to obtain a majority at the Congress. There were 1,178 mandates from as many syndicats. This was the system of representation adopted by the Statutes of the Confederation in 1902. At its Congress the Confederation resolves itself into an a.s.sociation of syndicats; the Federations and Bourses disappear and their const.i.tuent elements, the syndicats, take their place. Each syndicat--no matter how large or how small--has one vote; and one delegate may represent as many as ten syndicats. At the Congress of Bourges the 1,178 mandates were distributed among 400 delegates, of whom 350 came from the Provinces and 50 from Paris.

The attack on the Confederal Committee was led by M. Keufer, the delegate and secretary of the Typographical Union (_La Federation du Livre_). He accused the Confederal Committee of violating the statutes, of being partial and biased and of trying in every way to harm the _Federation du Livre_, because the latter pursued "reformist" methods.

"Yes," said M. Keufer, "we prefer the reformist method, because we believe that direct and violent action, commended by the anarchists, will cost thousands of workingmen their lives, without a.s.suring durable results."[192] He insisted that it was necessary to try conciliatory methods before declaring strikes and to solicit the help of representatives in the legislative bodies. He showed that, on the one hand, even the revolutionary syndicalists were compelled by circ.u.mstances to use such methods, while the _Federation du Livre_, on the other hand, did not shrink from strikes and from direct action, when that was inevitable. M. Keufer was supported by M. Lauche, the delegate of the machinists, and by M. Guerard, the delegate of the railway workers.

[192] _XIV Congres Corporatif_ (Bourges, 1904), pp. 95-6.

The accusations of the "reformists" were repudiated by a number of revolutionary syndicalists who reaffirmed in their speeches adherence to the ideas, described in the preceding chapters, on the State, on direct action, etc. They were the victors, and the report of the Confederal Committee was approved by 812 votes against 361 and 11 blank.

The main struggle, however, centered on the question of proportional representation. This question had been brought up at previous Congresses by the delegates of some larger syndicats. At one time even some of the revolutionary syndicalists had advocated proportional representation as a means of finding out the real strength of the various tendencies in the Confederation. But after the Confederation became decidedly revolutionary, the revolutionary syndicalists became decidedly opposed to proportional representation which they now regarded as a move on the part of the "reformist" element to obtain control of the Confederation.[193]

[193] _Mouvement Socialiste_ (Nov., 1904), p. 61.

Proportional representation was defended by the delegates of the Typographical Union, of the Machinists and of the Railway Workers. They criticised the statutes adopted at Montpellier which gave every organization, regardless of its numbers, one vote only in the Confederal Committee. This system, they declared, vitiated the character of the Confederation, and gave predominance to the minority. They claimed that the delegates in the Confederal Committee expressed the opinions shared by a small proportion only of the organized workingmen and that the Confederation was, therefore, a tool in the hands of a few "turbulent"

individuals. They demanded that some system of proportional representation should be adopted which should give every organization a number of votes in the Confederal Committee proportional to the number of its members.

The opponents of proportional representation argued that this system would stifle the small syndicats; that all syndicats were of equal value from the point of view of the economic struggle, because small syndicats often achieve as much, and even more, than large ones; they pointed out that proportional representation would make necessary continual changes in the number of delegates in the Confederal Committee, because the effective force of the syndicats is in constant flux and that it would be impossible to find out the true figures. They claimed that proportional representation could not be applied to economic life, because it was no fault of any one trade or industry if only a few thousand workers were employed in it, while other industries required hundreds of thousands of workingmen. Even from the point of view of strength, they argued, a small syndicat may have more value than a large one because it may embrace a larger proportion of workingmen employed in the trade. The opponents of proportional representation repudiated the a.s.sertion that only the small syndicats were with them and pointed out that some of the largest federations, as the Metallurgical Federation with 11,500 members, the Federation of Marine with 12,000 members and others, were against proportional representation.

The opponents of proportional representation carried the day and the proposition of "reformist" delegates was rejected by a vote of 822 against 388 (one abstained).

The Congress of Bourges thus sanctioned the revolutionary character of the Confederation. The "reformists" frankly admitted that they had suffered a defeat and attributed it to the fact that two-thirds of the delegates were new men in the movement and under the influence of the anarchists.[194] The revolutionary syndicalists triumphed, and extolled the historical significance of the Congress of Bourges which, in their opinion, was a "landmark" in the history of syndicalism.

[194] A. Keufer, _Le Mouvement Socialiste_ (Nov., 1904), p. 93.

The Congress of Bourges adopted a resolution which was to concentrate the attention of the Confederation for the next two years on one question: an eight-hour working day. The Committee appointed by the Congress to consider the question reported that two ways of obtaining an eight-hour day had been indicated. One proposed to prepare a bill to be presented to the public authorities and to organize public meetings in order to show the government that public opinion demanded the pa.s.sage of the law. This method was rejected by the Committee because ever since 1889, workingmen had presented such pet.i.tions to the public authorities on the first of May, but without any results whatsoever.

On the contrary, the other "direct" method which recommended the workingmen to "hold aloof" from the public authorities, and to exert all possible pressure "on their adversaries" was adopted by the Committee.

The Committee argued that the experience with the employment agencies had shown that this method gave better results. The report of the Committee read:

If the recent campaign has resulted in the suppression of the employment bureaus, it is because the movement was becoming dangerous.

Every day employment bureaus were abolished, anonymous violence was committed against the owners of the offices (_placeurs_), a considerable number of shops were damaged, numerous collisions took place between the police and the workingmen, Paris was in a state of siege, and it was in order to calm this agitation that Parliament voted a law making it permissive for the munic.i.p.alities to abolish the employment bureaus.[195]

[195] _XIV Congres Corporatif_ (Bourges, 1904), pp. 205-6.

The Committee, therefore, recommended that the same method be used to obtain an eight-hour day, that big manifestations be organized all over France on the 1st of May, 1905, and that afterwards an active propaganda be carried on by a special commission appointed for that purpose by the Confederal Committee "in order that beginning with the 1st of May, 1906, no workingman should consent to work more than eight hours a day nor for a wage below the minimum established by the interested organizations."[196] The recommendation of the Committee was adopted by the Congress with an amendment of Pouget which still more emphasized the "direct" method to be used.

[196] _Ibid._, p. 207.

To carry out the decisions of the Congress, the Confederal Committee appointed a special commission to direct the movement for an eight-hour day. The Commission sent out a questionnaire to all syndical organizations, asking all those who were in favor of the movement to lend their help. A number of manifestoes, posters and pamphlets were published and spread abroad in tens of thousands of copies in which the meaning of the movement and its importance were explained. In the trade-journals, in the cars, in the streets, and wherever possible, brief mottoes were posted, such as: "Eight hours of work means more rest and more health," "To work more than eight hours means to lower your wages," etc. On the _Bourse du Travail_ of Paris a big placard was put up with the words: "From the first of May, 1906, we shall not work more than eight hours." Delegates were sent out on repeated tours into the province to carry on the propaganda and agitation. On the first of May, 1905, over 150 meetings were arranged in different parts of France at which the question of the eight-hour day was considered.

As May 1, 1906, neared, the agitation in the country became more and more intense. A number of events helped to increase the agitation. In March, 1906, a catastrophe occurred in the mining districts of Northern France which resulted in the loss of workingmen's lives. A strike accompanied by violence followed. In April, the letter carriers of Paris struck, causing some disorganization in the service for a few days.

Toward the end of April the number of strikes and manifestations increased in Paris. The agitation was exploited by the enemies of the government and particularly by the monarchist papers. The Government of M. Clemenceau, on the other hand, tried to discredit the movement by spreading rumors that a plot against the Republic had been discovered in which monarchists and leaders of the Confederation were involved. The _Voix du Peuple_ published a protest of the Confederal Committee against this accusation. Nevertheless the government searched at the same time the houses of Monarchists, Bonapartists and of leading members of the Confederation, and on the eve of the first of May, it arrested Griffuelhes, Pouget, Merrheim and other syndicalists together with a number of well-known monarchists.

The first of May found Paris in a state of siege. Premier Clemenceau had collected numerous troops in the capital. Since the days of the Commune Paris had not seen so many. Among the bourgeoisie a real panic reigned.

Many left Paris and crossed the Channel. Those who remained in Paris made provision for food for days to come. The papers spoke of the "coming revolution" which the General Confederation of Labor was to let loose on society.[197]

[197] _Journal des Debats_ (27 April, 1906), p. 769.

The strike movement was very wide. According to official statistics, the agitation of the Confederation affected 2,585 industrial establishments and involved 202,507 workingmen. The sweep of the movement may be grasped from the following table giving the statistics of strikes in France since 1892:

_Year_ _Number of _Number of _Number of strikes_ establishments_ workingmen_

1892 261 500 50,000 1893 634 4,286 170,123 1894 391 1,731 54,576 1895 405 1,298 45,801 1896 476 2,178 49,851 1897 356 2,568 68,875 1898 368 1,967 82,065 1899 740 4,290 176,826 1900 902 10,253 222,714 1901 523 6,970 111,414 1902 512 1,820 212,704 1903 567 3,246 123,151 1904 1,026 17,250 271,097 1905 830 5,302 177,666 1906 1,309 19,637 438,466 1907 1,275 8,365 197,961[198]

[198] _Statistique des Greves_, 1893-1908.

The movement a.s.sumed various forms in different trades. The printers, for instance, pursued their conciliatory methods and obtained a nine-hour day in about 150 towns. In some trades the strikes developed a more or less acute character and continued for several months after the first of May.

Some of the "reformists" declared that the movement was a complete failure.[199] According to official statistics,[200] the results of the strike movement were as follows:

[199] _XV Congres National Corporatif_ (Amiens, 1906), p. 103.