Abstract
Working-class support is the goal of any trade-union movement, but nowhere is such support more crucial than in France. Given the relative lack of institutionalised relationships between labour and management, organised labour’s power depends to a large extent on its ability to represent and speak for the mass of workers. This ability depends, in turn, on the union’s capacity to mobilise workers. As Alfred Grosser has pointed out: ‘The power [of unions] to mobilise supporters constitutes an essential criterion of their representativeness: many strikes and demonstrations are undertaken solely to exhibit the influence and therefore the representativeness of the group that organises them.’1
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Notes and References
Alfred Grosser, ‘France: Nothing but Opposition’, in Robert A. Dahl (ed.) Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966) p. 287.
Daniel Mothé, Le Métier de Militant (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973) pp. 81–107. Survey evidence indicates that the overwhelming majority of French workers do, in fact, view union militants as devoted to their cause. For example, a national survey of workers in 1969 was asked to indicate whether they agreed with the following statement: ‘Union delegates are devoted people.’ Results were as follows: 80 per cent agree fairly or very strongly; 13 per cent do not agree; 8 per cent no response.
Source: Gérard Adam et al., L’Ouvrier français en 1970 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1970) p. 149.
Martin A. Schain, ‘Corporatism and Industrial Relations in France’, in Philip G. Cerny and Martin A. Schain (eds) French Politics and Public Policy (London and New York: Methuen, 1980) pp. 198–9.
Edward Shorter and Charles Tilly, Strikes in France, 1830–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974) pp. 174–93.
Dominique Labbé, ‘Le Discours CGT’, Que Faire Aujourd’hui, 19 (May 1982) p. 11.
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© 1987 W. Rand Smith
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Smith, W.R. (1987). The Local Union and the Workers: Mobilising Discontent. In: Crisis in the French Labour Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08556-9_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08556-9_5
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