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Confédération Générale du Travail

General Confederation of Labour
Founded	September 1895
Headquarters	263, rue de Paris, 93100 Montreuil, France
Location	France
Members	640,000 (2022)
General Secretary	Sophie Binet
Publication	La Vie Ouvrière Le Peuple
Affiliations	ITUC, ETUC
Website	www.cgt.fr

The General Confederation of Labour (French: Confédération Générale du Travail, CGT) is a national trade union center, founded in 1895 in the city of Limoges. It is the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.

It is the largest in terms of votes in the Labour Court elections (34.0% in the 2008 election), and second largest in terms of membership numbers.

Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995–96 (it had more than doubled when François Mitterrand was elected president in 1981), before increasing today to between 700,000 and 720,000 members, slightly fewer than the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT).

According to the historian M. Dreyfus, the direction of the CGT is slowly evolving, since the 1990s, during which it cut all organic links with the French Communist Party (PCF), in favour of a more moderate stance. The CGT is concentrating its attention, in particular since the 1995 general strikes, to trade-unionism in the private sector.

History

The CGT was founded in 1895 in Limoges from the merger of the Fédération des bourses du travail (Federation of Labour Councils) and the Fédération nationale des syndicats (National Federation of Trade Unions). Auguste Keufer was amongst the founders and became the first treasurer.

At the end of Henri Krasucki's term (1982–1992), he began to distance himself from the French Communist Party (PCF). His successor, Louis Viannet, did the same, going as far as resigning from the political bureau of the party.

CGT General Secretary Phillipe Martinez announced that the union will support the week of climate action beginning on 20 September 2019.

On 18 June 2024, the CGT called for a vote for the New Popular Front (NFP) in the 2024 French legislative elections. with the CGT General Secretary Sophie Binet also personally endorsing the NFP. Celine Verzeletti [fr], a senior CGT member and General Secretary of the Federal Union of State Trade Unions, was nominated by the NFP for Paris's 15th constituency. The decision to endorse the NFP presented a turning point, since while the CGT has regularly called for a vote against the far right, in recent decades it has not called for people to vote for any specific party or bloc, due in part to the CGT's Amiens Charter—which recognizes the independence of trade unions from political parties.

Africa

In 1937 CGT began organizing workers in French West Africa. The union's functioning was interrupted by its banning by the Vichy regime, but in 1943-1948 a process of reconstruction took place. The main centers of activity were Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo and the French Soudan. CGT had an upper hand in the Muslim regions in comparison to the rival French Confederation of Christian Workers, who depended on the presence of Catholic communities for its recruitment. CGT emerged as the major trade union force amongst the 100 000 strong organized labour force in Senegal and Mauritania after the Second World War.

Within the CGT branches in the region, there was however a growing wish for independence. A leader of CGT in French West Africa, Bassirou Guèye, promoted this idea. At a meeting of the Territorial Union of Trade Unions in Senegal and Mauritania, held in Dakar 11 November – 12 November 1955, the majority of delegates voted for separation from the French CGT. A conference was held in Saint-Louis on 14 January – 15 January 1956 which formed the Confédération générale des travailleurs africains (CGTA), separating the parts of the West African CGT organizations from the French CGT. At the conference 50 out of 67 delegates had voted for separation.

In Togo, CGT had 45,100 members in 1948 (65% of organized labour). By 1952 the number had decreased to 34,000 (46% of organized labour).

CGT formed a branch in Madagascar in 1936.

Publications

The CGT has two publications La Vie Ouvrière, and Le Peuple  [fr].

Affiliated organisations

Federations

Other affiliates

• Federal Union of State Trade Unions (UFSE-CGT)
• General Union of Engineers, Managers and Technicians CGT (UGICT-CGT)
• Confederation of CGT retirees' union (UCR-CGT)
• Young CGT
• National Committee for the Fight and Defense of the Unemployed

Former federations

Leadership

General Secretaries

See also

• List of trade unions
• Anarchism in France
• Politics of France
• CGT-SR
• Trade unions:
  • French Democratic Confederation of Labour
  • French Confederation of Christian Workers
  • Workers' Force
  • French Confederation of Management – General Confederation of Executives
  • Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques
• Mouvement des Entreprises de France

Footnotes

1. Dalton, Matthew; Bisserbe, Noemie (27 January 2023). "French Union Cuts Power to Pressure Macron on Pensions". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 20 March 2023.
2. Numbers given by Michel Dreyfus, author of Histoire de la C.G.T., Ed. Complexes, 1999, interviewed in Pascal Riché, En prônant la négociation, la CGT "peut faire bouger le syndicalisme", Rue 89, 21 November 2007 (in French)
3. ^ Pascal Riché, En prônant la négociation, la CGT "peut faire bouger le syndicalisme", Rue 89, 21 November 2007 (in French)
4. "BnF Catalogue général". Bibliothèque nationale de France (in French). Retrieved 3 March 2017.
5. La CGT prépare deux journées d'action à la rentrée autour de l'urgence climatique, https://mobile.francetvinfo.fr/economie/syndicats/la-cgt-prepare-deux-journees-d-action-a-la-rentree-autour-de-l-urgence-climatique_3538113.amp Article in FranceInfo
6. ^ Kagni, Maxence (19 June 2024). "Législatives : la CGT appelle à voter pour le Nouveau Front populaire, que disent les autres syndicats et les organisations patronales?" [Legislative elections: the CGT calls for a vote for the New Popular Front, what do other unions and employers' organizations have to say?]. LCP - Assemblée nationale (in French). Retrieved 24 December 2024.
7. "Sophie Binet : « Cette fois, il ne suffit pas de dire non à l'extrême droite »" [Sophie Binet: “This time, it's not enough to just say no to the far right”.]. Alternatives économiques (in French). 21 June 2024. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
8. Jouve, Thierry (20 June 2024). "Législatives : la Haut-Pyrénéenne Céline Verzeletti candidate à Paris" [Legislative elections: Haut-Pyrénéenne candidate Céline Verzeletti in Paris]. La Dépêche du Midi (in French). Retrieved 24 December 2024.
9. ^ "INFO RMC. "Historique": la CGT donne une consigne de vote en appelant à élire le Nouveau Front populaire". RMC (in French). Retrieved 24 December 2024.
10. Fall, Mar. L'État et la Question Syndicale au Sénégal. Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 1989. p. 24, 27
11. Fall, Mar. L'État et la Question Syndicale au Sénégal. Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 1989. p. 31–32
12. Fall, Mar. L'État et la Question Syndicale au Sénégal. Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 1989. p. 44
13. Busky, Donald F.. Communism in history and theory. Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002. p. 128
14. "La CGT en bref". Institut superieur du travail. Archived from the original on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
15. ^ Lorwin, Val (1954). The French Labor Movement. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 324–325.

1. French pronunciation: [se ʒe te]

Further reading

• Ross, George. Workers and Communists in France: From Popular Front to Eurocommunism (1982).

External links

• The beginnings of the CGT, 1895–1921 An account and analysis of the anarchist origins of the CGT, and the later rise of the Communist Party within it.

• Organized Labour
• France

• General Confederation of Labour (France)
• National trade union centers of France
• Trade unions in France
• European Trade Union Confederation
• 1895 establishments in France
• Trade unions established in 1895