At the end of the 19th century, women were numerous in the textile industry. In
rural areas, the Catholic Church plays an active role in their exploitation. Buttheir struggles have forged activists. Marie Saderne is one of them, who had aspecial role in the organization of the founding congress of the CGT. ---- TheCGT is today the first mass resistance organization of women, with more than200,000 members. From Marie Guillot, first confederal secretary in 1922, to theCGT newspaper Antoinette with 120,000 copies in the 1970s, the place of femaleworkers in the CGT is old but often ignored. It stems from the courage and thewill of these women convinced that without the workers, the working class willnot be able to win.It was in Limoges, in 1895, a working-class city marked by anarchist currents,that the professional labor organizations decided to unite and found the GeneralConfederation of Labour.XIX, One third of the workers are women workersThose who are forgotten in textbooks and even in union training, play anessential role in the birth and development of the labor movement, like MarieSaderne. It was the Parisians of the working-class neighborhoods who launched thebeginnings of the Paris Commune, by recovering the guns financed by the people.Nearly 10,000 women participated in the organization and defense of the ParisCommune, according to anarchist and feminist journalist André Leo. She will makethis comment at the time: "Do we believe we can make the revolution without women? In 1880, fifteen years before the creation of the CGT and the corsetiers'strike, the first mass strike broke out against miserable wages. At their head?Several thousand ovalist workers, whose task was to prepare the silk thread. Theyare ultimately victorious. Victory was snatched by these Lyon workers who laterparticipated in the International Association of Workers.The longest strike in France's leading industryIn 1895, it was again in the textile sector, at the time the leading industrialsector, that one of his longest strikes broke out in Limoges. His origin ?Appalling working conditions, daily iron discipline for twelve hours, punctuatedby the obligation to follow religious rites, which Marie Saderne and hercolleagues experience daily. They are employed by the company that manufacturesClément corsets. Fines, bullying and dismissals are commonplace. Marie Saderneand her colleagues all come from the Limousin region. She was only 19 when thestrike broke out. She fights with Madame Barry and Mademoiselle Coupaud.The refusal of daily prayer is the trigger for this strike which lasts onehundred and eight days. Marie Saderne participates in the creation of a women'sunion supported by the unions of Limoges, in full preparation of the firstcongress of the CGT. During these three and a half months of strike, about fortyworkers took part in this fight for freedom of thought, the dignity of workersbut also for better wages. Paid only 2 francs a day, they claim the increase of20 additional centimes per corset. The nuns come to replace them in theworkshops. Most of the strikers, including Marie Saderne, lost their jobs. Butthe lessons they learn from their resistance will not be lost.The subordinate worker status of textile workers like Marie Saderne reveals fromthe outset the criminal alliance at play between patriarchy and capitalism. InSeptember 1895, Marie Saderne was assessor for the second session of the foundingcongress of the CGT. This means that she chairs part of the first congressalongside malAt the beginning of the 20th century, debates on the place of women in the homeand in the management of the family arose in the confederation, carried by theconservative fringes of trade unionism. Stupidity and union machismo prevailed,until the exclusion from his union in 1913 of a typographer, Emma Couriau, forthe sole reason of being a woman. In those same years, Madeleine Vernet kept thissad account: on 54 occasions, workers went on strike against the work of women,everywhere in France.The presence of Marie Saderne at the organization of the debates of the firstcongress of the CGT is therefore an important marker. Recalling its history, andremembering those that will take place after it, helps to break the ignorance ofthe role of feminist trade unionists in the labor movement and to cut to piecesthe inferiority complexes that we can feel as trade unionists. It is a continuitywith which we must never break. It is also to shed light on the balance of powerto be held, on the eve of the election - which we hope - of a feminist tradeunionist, Marie Buisson, to the general secretariat of the CGT confederation.Power relations and alliances to nurture which are essential to the future ofmass and class unionism, and therefore feminist.Louise (UCL Saint-Denis)Read the biographical notice of Marie Saderne on the Maitron.fr website.https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article85354https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Femmes-en-lutte-Marie-Saderne-une-ouvriere-a-la-tribune-pour-fonder-la-CGT_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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