The French Labor Movement

Monograph based on a thesis dealing with the history of the labour movement in France - discusses socialism and collectivism of skilled workers, treats the formation of the first French socialist political party (parti ouvrier), discusses the emergence of trade unions, and includes a literature survey. Annotated bibliography pp. 201 to 210, and references.

Historical account of the labour movement in France during the period form 1910 to 1928 - covers the development of trade unions, organisational and administrative aspects of the general confederation of labour (cgt), leadership, social policy, strike action, election behaviour, employees attitudes to the war effort, etc. Bibliography pp. 161 to 167.

This book is based on careful historical analysis and personal observation. Dr. Lorwin has broken his material down under three main headings: first, an abbreviated history of the origins and development of French unionism through 1944; second, a close examination of the critical years 1944-53, which saw the reunification in the Confédération Générale du Travail of the Communists purged in 1940, and the subsequent bolt of the anti-Communists to form the Confédération Générale du Travail-Force Ouvrière; and, third, an analysis of the international life of French unions, their bargaining techniques, their structure, and their goals. While the discussion in the first two parts of the book is significant, the major contribution to knowledge is in the third section. An extremely valuable analysis for those who are concerned with the nature of French unionism, students of political behavior, and particularly to those who are engaged in discriminating between institutional myths and institutional realities.

First published in 1984. This volume brings together many of the foremost French and North American specialists on the French working class movement. Although they differ substantially in their theoretical and ideological orientation, they share a left perspective. Their original essays provide a coherent and comprehensive analysis of the history of the movement, focusing on the constraints and opportunities created by the economic crisis of the 1970s and the political change ushered in by the Socialist Party’s victory in 1981.

This study of the evolution of labour movements in the US and France from 1876 to 1914, illuminates the turn to syndicalism in France and craft unionism in the USA, and the impact each form of unionization had on the shaping of the French and the US states.

Many historians have examined the French labor movement, but few have gone beyond chronicling unions, strikes, and personalities to undertake a concrete analysis of workers’ aims in their historical context. Searching for what Marx called the “real movement” of the working class, Bernard H. Moss presents a sophisticated revisionist interpretation that uncovers a core ideology of social vision underlying the many changes and variations in French socialism. To define this ideology and delineate its social base, Moss cuts through conventional distinctions between artisans and proletarians and between anarchism and socialism to derive an intermediate category, the federalist trade socialism of skilled workers. Originally manifested in the trade movement for producers’ associations and cooperatives, this socialism eventually found revolutionary expression in Bakuninism, possibilism, Allemanism, and revolutionary syndicalism. The social base of this movement was the skilled craftsmen undergoing a process of proletarianization. In The Origins of the French Labor Movement, Moss rehabilitates ideology both as a vital force in history and as a serious subject for scientific history. He proposes important revisions in our understanding of French politics and society in the nineteenth century and suggests a new approach to socialist ideology, not as abstract theory, but as the result of historical experience and process. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

In February of 1996, Columbia University and New York University marked the centennial of the French labor movement by jointly sponsoring a conference to reflect on the history of this movement and on the future prospects for trade unionism in France. A Century of Organized Labor in France is a collection of papers presented at that conference, written by distinguished historians and social scientists from both France and the United States, as well as by important French trade union leaders. Offering an interdisciplinary approach that is rare among studies on this subject, this volume examines the trajectory of the French labor movement and provides rich lessons for students of contemporary France, Western European politics and society, and comparative labor movements.