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The Influence of Government on Labour Relations in France
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
The striking feature of labour relations in France is the wide scope of governmental regulation and influence. Employers and unions rarely succeed in solving their labour problems by joint action, and the strikes of August, 1953, attest to the discontent of a large portion of the French labour force.
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.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , August 1954 , pp. 296 - 307
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1954
References
1 Loi du 25 mars 1919.
2 Loi du 23 avril 1919.
3 See Laroque, Pierre, Les Supports entre patrons et ouvriers (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar, for a more detailed discussion of this period. M. Laroque analyses relations between workers and employers from the seventeenth century to 1938 in this study which is one of the finest in the literature of industrial relations in France.
4 The most important members of the alliance were the Radicals (Parti Républican Radical et Radical-Socialiste), the Socialists (Parti Socialiste, Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière), and the Communists (Parti Communiste Français). The Front Populaire was formed as an electoral alliance and as such was extremely successful. Once in power, the alliance was seriously weakened by dissension. It survived several changes in government but finally dissolved in the middle of 1938 when the Radicals forfeited the support of the Socialists and Communists. In this study there is no need to distinguish between the four governments of the Front Populaire, two led by Léon Blum and two by Camille Chautemps, since their labour policies were much the same.
5 By this time the Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire had rejoined the Confédération Générale du Travail.
6 The name was later changed to Conseil National du Patronat Français.
7 Loi du 24 juin 1936.
8 The list included such subjects as freedom to organize, freedom of opinion, minimum wages by job classification and by region, and procedure for revision of the contract.
9 In 1950 representatives of family interests were added to the commission.
10 The ordonnance du 22 février 1945 introduced the councils in all firms employing at least 100 workers, but the loi du 16 mai 1946 broadened the field of application to all firms employing at least 50 workers.
11 The Communists gained control of the Confédération Générale du Travail (C.G.T.) after the Liberation. Their ascendency was strengthened when a group of non-Communists, mostly Socialists, left the C.G.T. in December, 1947, to form the Confédération Générale du Travail—Force Ouvrière.
12 This had been introduced as a required subject in the law of 1946.
13 See Eastman, Harry C., “The Economic Effects of the French Minimum Wage Law,” American Economic Review, XLIV, no. 2, 06, 1954.Google Scholar From 1949 to 1951 the compensation of employees, including employers' contributions to social security as well as wages and salaries, remained a constant percentage of the gross national product.
14 For a detailed discussion of the subject matter of these contracts, exclusive of wages, see Petit, Renée, “Le Contenu des conventions collectives du travail,” Droit Social, XV, nos. 7 and 8, pp. 454–65, 523–9.Google Scholar
15 The Communist-led unions, which before the war were in the minority, now dominate numerically within the labour movement.
16 For the influence of French labour policy on real income see Kalecki, M., “The Lesson of the Blum Experiment,” Economic Journal, 03, 1938, 26–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Eastman, “The Economic Effects of the French Minimum Wage Law.”