Abstract
In beginning this analysis of CGT and CFDT militants I make an explicit assumption: to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous saying about the rich, French union militants are different from the mass of workers and union rank-and-file members. They are different primarily in that they spend many hours in organisational activities that often will block, if not harm, their advancement as workers. Militants pass much of that time confronting management with workers’ problems and complaints. They do so reimbursed only for a specified number of work hours lost, and in many instances work beyond their ‘delegated’ hours, receiving no compensation at all. Theirs is not a life of glory, praise and comfort. What motivates them?
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Notes and References
Stephen Bornstein, ‘From Social Christianity to Left Socialism: The Itinerary of the Catholic Labor Movement in France, 1930–1978’. (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1979) p. 30.
Dominique Labbé, ‘Le Discours CGT’, Que Faire Aujourd’hui, 19 (May 1982) p. 8.
Compare these figures to those of a national sample of workers questioned in 1969. Whereas none of the CGT members had ever been a member of the CFDT, 26 per cent of CFDT members had previously belonged to the CGT. See Gérard Adam et al., L’Ouvrier français en 1970 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1970) p. 137.
George Ross, Workers and Communists in France (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982) pp. 243–79.
Smith, ‘Revolutionary Trade Unionism in France: Goals and Constraints in the French Democratic Confederation of Labor in Grenoble’ (University of Michigan, 1975) pp. 85–91.
William Spinrad, ‘Correlates of Trade Union Participation: A Summary of the Literature’, American Sociological Review, 25:2 (Apr 1960) p. 241.
Patricia Fosh, The Active Trade Unionist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) pp. 4–9.
For a good summary of this approach, see Arnold S. Tannenbaum, ‘Unions’ in James G. March (ed.) Handbook of Organizations (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965), esp. pp. 746–7.
Arnold S. Tannenbaum and Robert L. Kahn, Participation in Union Locals (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson & Co., 1958) p. 229.
Tannenbaum, op. cit. pp. 746–7. For other studies that support this position see Lois R. Dean, ‘Union Activity and Dual Loyalty’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 7 (July 1954) pp. 526–36;
Eugene C. Hagburg, ‘Correlates of Organizational Participation: An Examination of Factors Affecting Union Membership Activity’, Pacific Sociological Review, 9 (Spring 1966) pp. 15–21;
Martin M. Perline and V. R. Lorenz, ‘Factors Influencing Member Participation in Trade Union Activities’, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 29 (1970) pp. 425–38;
Gregory E. Huszczo, ‘Attitudinal and Behavioral Variables Related to Participation in Union Activities’, Journal of Labor Research, 4:3 (Summer 1983) pp. 289–97. See also the numerous studies reported in Fosh, op. cit., and Tannenbaum, op. cit.
Michael Mann, Consciousness and Action among the Western Working Class (London: Macmillan, 1973) p. 36.
The gamma statistic is an ordinal measure of relationships, varying between — 1.0 and 1.0. See William L. Hays, Statistics (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963) pp. 655–6. Union participation is measured by the number of hours per month spent on union activity, as reported by each respondent. These figures were collapsed into five categories: 1. 10–15 hours; 2. 16–25; 3. 26–35; 4. 36–50; 5. More than 50.
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© 1987 W. Rand Smith
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Smith, W.R. (1987). The Union Militant: Roots of Union Activism. In: Crisis in the French Labour Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08556-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08556-9_3
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