The proposal to return to local industry unions, organized by professional sector and adapted to local realities, is sometimes perceived as a whim of revolutionary syndicalists. Yet, it was the tool for overcoming trade unions mired in a corporatism inherited from feudal and artisanal traditions. And it was the best response to the challenge faced by isolated union members.
1979: Weary of the struggle, yielding to the demands of the union hierarchy, the leaders of the Metalworkers' Union in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, from the last major company in the sector, BBT, agreed to dissolve the union. They then retreated to a company-level union, as had long been required by the directives. The workers in the small workshops of the 19th arrondissement abruptly found themselves among the ranks of isolated union members, deprived of support in their resistance (the local CGT union doing its best to take over) and of all democratic rights within the CGT. 2023: The Confederal Congress in Clermont-Ferrand, after a glimmer of hope at the Marseille congress, finally addressed the question, without really finding an answer: "What to do with a third of the union members who currently have no union?" We might add: what to do with the unions in struggling companies that are barely surviving?After several months of determined struggle at L’Équipe in February 2026, the employees succeeded in securing the continuation of the Proofreading department and the permanent employment of a freelance proofreader. This victory was made possible thanks to the commitment of union members throughout the profession.
General Union of Book and Written Communication Workers (CGT)
The Parisian history of the merger of the old trade unions into the General Union of Book Workers (SGL) is a complex one. It's worth noting that the CGT-U period, a split within the CGT from 1921 to 1936 affiliated with the Red International of Labor Unions and linked to the Communist International [1], accelerated the process. There was a stated desire to build proletarian unity beyond sectoral disputes and the various links in the chain of the graphic arts industry. At its peak in the early 1970s, it boasted over 10,000 members! However, it was only very recently that the last trade union disappeared: the Parisian Typographical Union, a demise caused by the transition from lead type to computers. The Proofreaders' Union found a second wind in its integration into the SGL, despite the recriminations of a few anarchists nostalgic for a rich and unique history.
A Striking Force
Throughout its long history, the SGL was not spared from bureaucratic issues, clashes between political currents, or the persistence of corporatist reflexes. But none of the major conflicts involving factory occupations lasting for months could have been waged without the natural solidarity of workers organized in the same union. It was thanks to the regional union that some employees could refuse to "steal" work from union members at a competing company, or that others refused to do the work of a company on strike. It was thanks to the regional union that employees of the contracting company mobilized in support of those at a subcontractor. When the owners of Le Parisien Libéré shut down the paper during a labor dispute, it was through the regional union that Parisian press workers contributed 10% of their wages. The locked-out workers' pay was thus maintained for nearly two years. Another notable action: mobilizing hundreds of workers to storm the Jean Didier printing plant in Massy, from which the strikers had been violently evicted by a few dozen mercenaries.
A comprehensive view
An industry union also allows us to understand management strategies across the entire chain, from editorial offices to distribution and manufacturing. This enables us to coordinate union responses to management strategies. This is how it's possible to mobilize dozens of union members in the middle of the night to distribute leaflets at around a hundred meeting points throughout the Île-de-France region during a campaign to unionize the thousand home delivery workers of Le Parisien newspaper. Try doing that with a company union! More simply, it's thanks to a regional industry structure that it's possible to recruit volunteer activists from companies with the strongest union presence to help develop unions in the weakest sectors. Or that it is possible to intervene in support of undocumented workers whom temporary employment agencies use in printing, brochure production, and mailing. Finally, the regional industry union is legally stable and spares company activists the hassle of dealing with the complexities of managing membership dues—the "cogitiel and cogtise" systems—which are enough to discourage anyone from building a union within their company! The company union is now the norm. But it is only viable and stable in large companies.
Structuring and Class Consciousness
The gradual consolidation of trade unions into industry unions from the beginning of the 20th century marked the progress of a proletarian class consciousness. The subsequent shift, from industry unions to company unions, marked the decline of this consciousness. An industry union naturally defends the employees of all companies; A company union naturally defends "its" company...
Experiments are being conducted (see box). In many CGT departmental unions and in some federations, examples of rebuilding local or departmental industry unions [2] are beginning to emerge, sometimes purely for pragmatic reasons. This is either for professions dispersed across micro-establishments or to regroup isolated union members within the same profession. Will the 54th CGT Confederation Congress be able to remove the statutory obstacles and allow these experiments to develop?
Jean-Yves (UCL Limousin)
Confederation Trials and Errors
The issue of CGT structuring is not new. The confederation is pushing for other solutions, and it's all the better if some examples have borne fruit. The inter-company union organizes "employees from all backgrounds, professional and statutory, on a local scale." But it has the drawback of bringing together employees with very different and unrelated jobs, without a common set of agreements, and without a shared space for mobilization. It's an incubator for future company unions. The site union allows for "reconstituting the work community [...] particularly in areas with a high concentration of workers." It brings together different professions in a coherent way, for example, the saleswomen in a shopping center. This is already more relevant, since it is in fact... a budding local industry union!
Validate
[1] See also “1922: The ‘anarcho-syndicalists’ lose the CGTU,” Alternative libertaire no. 219, Summer 2012. https://unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?1922-Les-anarcho-syndicalistes-perdent-la-CGTU
[2] See also “Nantes: The creation of a construction industry union,” Alternative libertaire no. 359, April 2025. https://unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Nantes-La-creation-d-un-syndicat-d-industrie-de-la-construction
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Structuration-de-la-CGT-L-exemple-du-Syndicat-general-du-Livre-parisien
Link: (en) France, UCL AL #369 - Trade Unionism - Structuring the CGT: The Example of the Parisian General Bookworkers' Union (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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