LABOR'S CHANCE IN FRANCE
Stern, T. Noel
Labor's Chance in France By T. Noel Stern MANY AMERICANS think of France as a nation verging on collapse, with a fifth column of Communists ready to seize power at the strategic moment. Several...
...Yet the CFTC often disagrees sharply with the right wing of MRP, and avoids close liaison with the party itself...
...Moreover, France has taken no backward step since the war comparable to that made by America in the injunction provisions of the Taft-Hartley law...
...Although there has been a recent increase in unemployment, the number of jobless is only one-tenth the pre-war figure...
...The story of each may be sketched briefly: Confederation Generate du Travail—Founded in 1895 by a merger of anti-statist syndicalists and pro-statist Marxists, the CGT has an uneven history...
...Today it consists of quarreling factions with a membership less than half the figure immediately following World War II...
...In one year West Germany completed four times as many houses as France, and at far less cost per house...
...My conclusion does not make for splashy headlines, for I found that while the bread basket of the worker has been depleted by inflation, there is no sign of an impending Communist revolution...
...Nevertheless, labor is protected by a broad code of favorable legislation...
...Union strength amounted to 70 or 80 per cent of the national working force of ten million persons...
...If labor can end its civil war, it may be able to regain the confidence of the public and find a solution to the key problems of housing and living standards which lie at the heart of the crises of France...
...This at least was a defensive victory for the increase in cash earnings almost cancelled the loss resulting from uncontrolled prices...
...According to the National Statistical Institute, only two per cent of the French family budget goes for housing, while large percentages are spent on food and clothing...
...Although most of its members are non-Communist, its top leaders are either Party members or "submarines...
...Instead the total social balance sheet allows me to express a tempered optimism which I lacked before I went to France...
...V The political status of labor is certainly weaker today than in the confused and troubled period following Liberation...
...So three organizations now divide the bulk of union labor...
...While wholesale prices dropped 7.5 per cent, retail prices fell fractionally by only 2.4 per cent...
...They parted with CGT because of its Stalinist orientation and the destructive political strike of 1947...
...Although the government itself proT. NOEL STERN, associate professor of government at Boston University, recent' ly completed a year as Fulbright professor at the Universities of Rennes and Strasbourg...
...This presents an attractive opening to liberal Catholics in the MRP and CFTC and liberal socialists in the SFIO and FO, provided each can bury ideological and religious differences especially over the parochial school issue...
...Although most of its officers are Catholic, membership includes Protestants, Mohammedans, Jews, and non-believers...
...Part of the cause for slowness in reconstruction lies in the limited number of workers and the general rise in building costs...
...Bothereau and Jouhaux created a new organization with pro-Marshall Plan and anti-Stalinist bias, which they named the Confederation Generate du Travail-Force Ouvriere (CGT-FO...
...II A major cause of the labor crisis is housing...
...One cause was the schism of 1947...
...Several persons have told me in almost identical words, "I have no confidence in the French to come out of their present mess...
...On the local level the CFTC tends to work with the Communist CGT...
...But in France the average working family does not spend even one day's pay per month on lodging...
...In order of their memberships, they are CGT (1,500,000 members or less...
...My answer is that the French social crisis is not so bad as it seems at this distance...
...They are too individualistic and unstable...
...On the negative side for both labor and the rest of the nation are the sharp ideological cleavages in the population, cleavages reflected in the kaleidoscopic change of cabinets...
...The crisis weighs heavily on the shoulders of the laboring population, and less heavily on those of the middle class...
...In 1951 the unions won a 30 per cent increase in monetary wages through collective bargaining...
...After Liberation the unions swelled rapidly, profiting from the heroism and popularity of labor leaders, liberals, and Marxists during the Resistance...
...A working family of three I knew filled itself by consuming a chunky two-and-a-half pound loaf of bread per day...
...Since the divorce of Force Ouvriere in 1947, CGT has come even more under the control of Stalinists...
...Yet the cost-of-living budget for a four person family suggested by the French Union of Family Societies as a minimum standard indicates such a family should have at least $177 per month...
...As a result of inflation the laboring class family can buy only two-thirds of what its income could purchase before the war...
...Labor's loss of face is compensated in part by the current decline in conservative prestige...
...Labor not only has the right to present grievances to management, but also to look at and criticize industry's financial books...
...Many of its members are middle class government functionaries...
...In America a family usually spends about one week of each month's pay on rent...
...In February and June 1952 the CGT attempted large-scale strikes against the government, but failed to win support...
...FO is handicapped by an attribute of many liberals, in that it is a little too bourgeois...
...Although the average French working family has many more francs than before the war, it can buy far less of the good things...
...However, there were two unfortunate aspects of this leveling off of average prices...
...One reason for the caution that tempers my optimism is that French workers must find a way to surmount several serious obstacles...
...Stern's articles on labor and political problems have appeared in the Boston University Law Review, Friends Intelligencer, and Conservation Magazine...
...A father of two children working as an unskilled "metallo" in Paris receives $98 per month in take-home pay...
...Although the unions failed to advance real wages since the war, they have placed a partial brake on the decline in purchasing power...
...Thus the "well paid" Paris metallos face a family deficit of $55 to $79 per month...
...Another reason is the failure'of French architects to follow the example of Netherlands builders in erecting standardized, utilitarian houses and apartments in a hurry...
...It broke all records last year in the basic industries of oil refining, electricity, coal, and steel...
...In a measure the campaign succeeded—partly because of overstocked store shelves and increased consumer resistance...
...Therefore labor leaders have rebap-tized the law the "echelle immobile" or immovable sliding scale...
...The outlook for French labor can be gauged only by studying the general social setting...
...Then pro-labor politicians dominated the government only to fall into public disfavor...
...Since 1946 there has been a continuous political shift from left to right, from Leon Blum to Rene Mayer...
...I studied France's three competing labor confederations at close quarters...
...However, one cannot write the French union movement off as a purely negative force...
...It is often claimed that France's troubles are due to the selfishness of French businessmen who don't know how to produce and care only about making money...
...Instead the French have constructed individual homes which preserve beauty, tradition, and tourist appeal—but the houses are expensive...
...In addition I analyzed social and economic trends to see what hope they offered the workingman to maintain a secure living...
...While this is a just criticism of certain fields, it is unrealistic when applied to the nation as a whole...
...A skilled worker with the same number of dependents averages $122...
...Both the Socialists and the left-wing NRP have grown increasingly vociferous in their campaign for a French New Deal...
...Nevertheless, the Socialist Party remains one of the strongest political forces in France...
...Ridgeway show that their "get-tough" policy cannot work in contemporary France...
...Continued expansion of French industry will provide more jobs, and should help raise the wage level...
...First among these is the state of family budgets as evidenced by thrifty purchases at markets and bakeries...
...The country has witnessed a shaky procession of cabinets, each gravitating further to the right...
...Christian Workers or CFTC (700,000 members), and CGT-FO (about 500,000 members...
...voked no downward spiral, Pinay and Mayer have been able to point to a price plateau somewhat lower than the peak of February 1952...
...Yet there is more stability and hope for the future than readers of the American press might suspect...
...The new law is a watered-down version of the bill originally sponsored by labor leaders, since it guarantees that further inflation shall be followed—after a slight lag—by automatic increases in wages...
...IV Despite their factionalism and loss of adherents, French unions remain a powerful force often directed toward constructive ends...
...As a result the liberal left faces a situation where Communists, Conservatives, and DeGaullists are on the defensive...
...However, unionists feel that the new law hampers them in their bargaining negotiations, since employers contest that labor has already won its victory against inflation...
...During the past year in France I collected statistics and visited workers' homes to appraise living conditions...
...But it bought sausage by the slice—one or two slices at the most for each person...
...Force Ouvriere—Like CFTC, Force Ouvriere avoids organic unity with any party, although most FO leaders sympathize with SFIO, the French Socialist Party...
...Despite a recent speedup in reconstruction of war-devastated areas, the rate of rebuilding still cannot be compared with Holland's or Germany's...
...Other negative factors are the destruction of the last war, the drain of the war in Indo-China, the constant fear of a new world conflict, and France's international trade deficit, which has been narrowed by restrictions on imports...
...His experience in France included three months as director of the American Foundation at the Paris Cite Universitaire...
...Thus union organizers were able to assemble seven or eight million workers into the Confederation Generate du Travail and its smaller Christian Workers rival...
...Ill Another factor which affects the future of the workingman is the condition of the union movement...
...I felt most at home with FO of all the French unions, and found its atmosphere closest to American liberalism...
...Prof...
...One is that retail prices have not fallen as much as wholesale...
...In general it follows Catholic economic philosophy, and is more capitalistic than either CGT or CGT-FO...
...Caught in this change of sentiment, labor unions saw their membership dwindle to three million workers, or 30 per cent of the non-agricultural labor force...
...Best available statistics on the earnings of French workers relate to those in the Paris metal industries, who are among the more highly paid...
...The Confederation Generate du Travail was split by revolt of Leon Jouhaux, who had been its Secretary-General since 1909, and by his younger partner Robert Bothereau...
...As a result leaders of Force Ouvriere complain of a combined squeeze by its two rivals...
...Included are social security, medical insurance, and government allowances to family dependents of workers...
...Nationally the CFTC usually works through the Catholic Mouve-ment Populaire Republican...
...These failures and the bad feeling caused by the riots against Gen...
...Nevertheless Force Ouvriere adheres to the "apolitical" policy of Leon Jouhaux, who believes that labor should protect itself from domination by politicians and by the state...
...For French production stands at 145 per cent of the pre-war level...
...Critics from both right and left accuse FO of domination by American finance and of too close an association with Irving Brown, European representative of the American Federation of Labor...
...Confederation Francaise des Tra-vailleurs Chretiens—The Catholic Workers group was founded in 1919...
...To the workingman the most appealing part of former Premier Antoine Pinay's program was his drive against high prices...
...At times it has dominated labor, but at other periods CGT has been rent with dissension...
...During 1952 pressure on the government forced a reversal of its position on the "echelle mobile," or sliding scale of wages...
...The problem, of housing is further complicated by the extremely low rentals which French people are willing to pay...
...The difference, of course, was collected by middlemen...
...Another is that consumer price reductions are spotty and have failed to touch many basic foods...
...However, a revolt by the left wing of the Christian Workers Confederation caused the organization to drop reference to the Papal Encyclicals from its constitution...
Vol. 17 • July 1953 • No. 7
