It should be noted that the French constitution assigns an important role to trade unions. Along with political parties, they are recognized as associations of citizens that promote democracy in the country and make a significant contribution to its development.
However, in ancient times this was not the case. Until the end of the 19th century, attempts by workers to unite to defend their rights were regularly repressed by both employers and the authorities. It was not until 1895 that the dispersed workers’ associations managed to create the first trade union federation, which was called the General Confederation of Labor (CGT). It still exists today, being one of the pillars of the trade union movement in France. He was considered almost the most militant, given his long-standing ties to the Communist Party, and the rest on the whole now. Although the degree of radicalism and disposition according to the precepts of Marx-Engels for a hard class struggle has diminished.
After all, in more than a century, dramatic changes have taken place in society and the economy. The base of the CGT, and it is the industrial workers, who once made up the lion’s share of wage earners, has shrunk considerably. The peak of the union central’s incredible popularity fell on several post-war decades. What, for example, says such a fact.
It turns out that the “star” of the cinema, Jean-Paul Belmondo, led from 1963 to 1966 the Union of Actors of France (SFA), which is part of the CGT. In addition, while still a student at the Conservatory of Dramatic Art, he starred in the film “Sunday Friends”, commissioned and financed by the VKT, where he played a metal worker. By the way, before him this union was headed by the legendary Gerard Philip, and his deputy was the most talented Michel Piccoli.
Of course, the CGT was and is not the only trade union center in the country. In the same years, others arose with different ideological foundations, including socialist, Christian or oriented towards certain professional segments of the population. Unlike the CGT, many of them are generally seen as reformist, with some resembling more the Democratic Confederation of Trade Unions (FDTU) or less like the Force Ouvrière (“Labour Force”). The French particularity here lies in the fact, as the eminent French economist and sociologist Jacques Sapir, a specialist in these schemes, has said that in each of these moderate trade union centers there are professional associations which can give each a length ahead in arrogance.
But through effort – some more, some less – unions have in many ways become the driving force behind the most serious social achievements. Even before the Second World War, together with the leftist parties, they obtained a 40-hour working week, paid holidays, and after that they initiated the creation of a social security system, which they manage on an equal footing with clientelism and the state. Free health care, unemployment benefits, occupational hazard insurance and many other things that still work. That is to say that the unions have become an integral part of the state in the broadest sense of the term to protect the interests not only of their members, but of all French people, coming from time to time into confrontation with those who would like to encroach on them under some “plausible pretext” happening nowadays.
