The Bourse du Travail (French for "labour exchanges"), a French form of the

labour council A labour council, trades council or industrial council is an association of labour unions or union branches in a given area. Most commonly, they represent unions in a given geographical area, whether at the district, city, region, or provincial o ...

, were working class organizations that encouraged

mutual aid Mutual aid is an organizational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This ...

, education, and

self-organization Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order and disorder, order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spont ...

amongst their members in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Role

Labour

Early Third Republic France was a time of dramatic social and economic change. With the tremendous growth of industrial capitalism in the last twenty years of the 19th century and the continued migration of workers to cities, the traditional system of meeting places for those seeking work was overtaxed. Skilled and unskilled trades alike had gradually developed systems to match those seeking work with employers, but the legalisation of trades unions in 1884, helped formalise these structures. Employers, too, were creating private labour placement offices. The Republican government of Gambetta relied upon the support of working class voters, and so helped create the first Bourses du Travail under the control of newly legalised labour unions. Socialists and radicals, elected to city offices in some areas, made the funding of Bourses du Travail a priority. As the system expanded, radicals in local government extended aid. The ''loi du 14 mars 1904'' mandated that every city of over ten thousand inhabitants had to create a ''bureau de placement'', establishing job offices and undercutting employer run placement agencies. These government offices were usually placed in the local Bourses du Travail. With government support came government regulation. While there was no legal obligation for the state or the municipality to put in place these buildings, their construction helped both the

workers' movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of Working class, working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It ca ...

and

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

of its activities. Business interests and the police saw the formalisation of Bourses du Travail as a way to channel the labour movement away from revolutionary change or to keep an eye on those who promoted it.

Role in revolutionary ideology

The ideology behind the explosion in Bourses du Travail, popularized by revolutionary syndicalists like Fernand Pelloutier, intended to create in them the key organizational component of radical economic transformation. By acting as future co-ordinating bodies, facilitating communication between ''syndicates'' (unions), the Bourse du Travail would co-ordinate production and consumption in the absence of both the state and the private ownership of the means of production. These institutions were central to the notion of

Revolutionary Syndicalism Syndicalism is a labour movement within society that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes and other forms of direct action, with the eventual goal of gaining c ...

which dominated the

Confédération Générale du Travail The General Confederation of Labour (, , 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 C ...

, France's largest labor federation in the first twenty years on the 20th century. Pelloutier and other revolutionary syndicalists argued that the Bourses—small scale, local, self made—were the guarantee that the CGT would remain both directly democratic and revolutionary. They saw labor organizations as interconnecting in three ways: a national federation uniting each specific union (traditional craft or trade unions); a national federation of ''all'' unions (in this case, the CGT); and all local workers, across union and political boundaries, united in the Bourse du travail. Supporters of the Bourse movement believed this structure last should become the most important form of workers' association.

Cultural

The other major change of this period was the Republican promulgation of Laic laws, taking education out of the hands of the

Catholic church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, and eventually taxing and regulating Church institutions. Bourses du Travail, like civil marriage or lay funerals, filled a communal role once played by local parishes. Bourses du Travail were centres of

working class culture Working-class culture or proletarian culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working-class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are often equated with popular culture and low culture (t ...

. Almost every one contained lending libraries, classrooms, meeting halls, and theatres. Family and community celebrations took place here (away from the church), as did classes and political discussions, formal meetings and light entertainment. The Bourses du Travail buildings are still often the locations of theatres and concert venues.

History

Birth in the Third Republic

The idea of French labour exchanges far predates the institution. In 1790, at the height of the French Revolution, an abortive Bourse du Travail was established in Paris. The loi Le Chapelier of 1791 outlawed this and any other labour organisation, and despite the brief legalisation during the Second Republic, unions remained illegal until 1884. Adolphe Leullier presented in 1845 a similar project which he called the ''Bureau central des ouvriers''. The idea of creating a Labour Exchange (''Bourse du travail'') is credited to the economist Gustave de Molinari in 1845. In February 1851

François Joseph Ducoux François Joseph Ducoux (11 September 1808 – 23 March 1873) was a French physician, left-wing politician and businessman. He served as a military physician from 1828 to 1838 before settling in Blois and engaging in local politics. He was a repre ...

submitted a bill to the Legislative Assembly that proposed to establish a state-run Labour Exchange in Paris. His project was also submitted to the Paris Municipal Commission. The project was abandoned, but later revived in 1875 and 1883 and eventually came into force in 1886. In 1875, workers petitioned the Paris municipal council to establish a Bourse du Travail, which was rejected. Labour organisations had existed underground or by other names, but their new status led to an explosion of radical activity. The French Revolutionary tradition was evolving into the economic sphere of union organising, rather than the seizure of power (exemplified by

Auguste Blanqui Louis Auguste Blanqui (; 8 February 1805 – 1 January 1881) was a French socialist, political philosopher and political activist, notable for his revolutionary theory of Blanquism. Biography Early life, political activity and first impris ...

). The first Bourse du Travail, in Paris, was begun in 1887. A building on rue JJ Rousseau was donated by the Socialist municipal council, and a second on rue du Château d’eau was created in 1892. By this time there were 14 Bourses du Travail established around France, by 1902 83, with a further 75 created by 1914.

''Fédération des Bourses de travail'' and the CGT

Anarcho-syndicalism Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchism, anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade uni ...

'' The ''Fédération des Bourses de travail'' (Federation of Labour Exchanges) was created in 1892 at the Congress of Saint-Etienne by Fernand Pelloutier to federate each city's workers' organisations. It was first led by Bernard Resset (1892), then Rieu Cordier, then Fernand Pelloutier (1895) and from 1901 to 1918 by Georges Yvetot. The Federation of Labour Exchanges merged in 1895 with the Fédération nationale des syndicats (National Federation of Trade-Unions), which had been created in 1886, giving rise to the

Confédération générale du travail The General Confederation of Labour (, , 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 C ...

(CGT), which was dominated by a revolutionary syndicalist strategy until 1921. The Federation merged with the CGT in 1902. Many of the leaders of the Bourse du Travail went on to lead the CGT, and the FBT was a co-equal partner with individual unions in the CGTs founding. Bourses have thus been called the ''mère des syndicat'' (the mother of unions) for their role. Structurally, individual Bourses comprised the ''building'' itself (and its social, education, and other practical resources), and the Bourse as a council of local unions. Unions paid a fee to join the bourse, though CGT affiliated unions were often exempted, and sent representatives to regular meetings of all the local unions. The administration of the bourse was by elected representatives. Contrary to Pelloutier's vision, these representatives came from a variety of ideological backgrounds which both represented the local political leanings of unions, but also the wider political left in the area. In many towns there were socialist municipal councils and mayors, either in

Jules Guesde Jules Bazile, known as Jules Guesde (; 11 November 1845 – 28 July 1922) was a French socialist journalist and politician. Guesde was the inspiration for a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter ...

French Workers' Party The French Workers' Party (, POF) was the French socialist party created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law (famous for having written '' The Right to Be Lazy'', which criticized work as such, criticizing heavily l ...

, the Jauresin possibilists of the

French Section of the Workers' International The French Section of the Workers' International (, SFIO) was a major socialist political party in France which was founded in 1905 and succeeded in 1969 by the present Socialist Party. The SFIO was founded in 1905 as the French representativ ...

(SFIO), or independent reformers of the Briand group. This leaves aside the constellation of syndicalist focused socialists (like

Jean Allemane Jean Allemane (25 August 1843, Sauveterre-de-Comminges, Haute-Garonne – 6 June 1935, Herblay in Seine-et-Oise) was a French socialist politician, veteran of the Paris Commune of 1871, pioneer of syndicalism, leader of the Revolutionary Social ...

's Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party), cooperativists, and

individualist anarchist Individualist anarchism or anarcho-individualism is a collection of anarchist currents that generally emphasize the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individuali ...

workers who sometimes played active roles in their local Bourse. In most places

anarcho-syndicalism Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchism, anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade uni ...

was but one small faction in both the bourses ''and'' the CGT, and so the bourses took on roles of a

reformist Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political or religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. Within the socialist movement, ref ...

, or

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

, or strictly trade unionist character which presaged the CGT split.

Rise of the PCF and decline of the Bourse

The birth of the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

began the decline of the Bourse du Travail movement. The CGT, which had regrouped the individual organisations, was swept up in the ideological tumult of the post war years. It became, like much of the French left, dominated by the Communists ideological vision, which saw the loose federalism of Revolutionary Syndicalism as a reason for the failure of the 1918-1919 strike wave. In 1921, the CGT revised its structure, eliminating the local Bourses du Travail as constituent organisation of the Union, and replacing them with a network of ''Unions Locales''. From here on, the CGT followed a British and American model of local trade specific unions, federated into a single national structure. A split, eventually into three federations, created a

(SFIO)-dominated CGT, the United General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail - unitaire or CGTU), where communists cohabited with anarchists and revolutionary trade unionists, and the Revolutionary Trade Unionist General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail - syndicaliste révolutionnaire or CGTSR) in 1923 when the communists gained control of the CGTU. (The CGT and CGTU reunited in 1936, and remained close to the

.) Predictably, these often bitter party divisions in the labor movement made the local and inclusive vision of the Bourses impossible. The Bourses du Travail survived, often as a single organisation union hall, while the history of splits in the French labour movement saw the buildings pass from one hand to another, revert to municipalities, or disappear entirely.

Today

Buildings and communities

Bourse du Travail buildings and institutions remain in most large French cities. Many are headquarters of the local unions which are federated into the Confédération nationale du travail, or of other unions which split from the

. Many bourses were central as places of organizing and resistance during

May 1968 The following events occurred in May 1968: May 1, 1968 (Wednesday) *In Dallas, at its first meeting since its creation through a merger, the United Methodist Church removed its rule that Methodist ministers could not drink alcohol nor sm ...

. In some places municipal governments have retained ownership, or community and radical groups have taken them over. Some have simply been sold off for office space or torn down. In Lille, one of the earliest bourses remains as the home of five unions and a radical community center, and came center stage in the resistance to the deportation of

undocumented immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to do so. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, wi ...

, when 460 ''sans-papiers'' staged a 30-day hunger strike to oppose government policies.

Ideology

The Bourse du Travail concept has been central to

Anarcho-syndicalists Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchism, anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade uni ...

across the globe, and the model greatly influenced

Council communism Council communism or councilism is a current of communism, communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the German Revolution of 1918–1919, November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated wor ...

and other forms of

left communism Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices held by Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions ...

. Anarchists of many stripes point to the Bourse du Travail as an example of a directly democratic, small scale federalist institutional structure.

Outside France

The Bourse du Travail idea was exported along with French imperialism. The FBT's full name was actually ''Fédération des Bourses du Travail de France et des Colonies'', though in practice this meant there were sections in the French

settler A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a Human settlement, settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among ...

dominated parts of

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. These declined with their French counterparts, and did not survive the anticolonial struggle. In Subsaharan Africa, Bourses du Travail were implanted in two ways. In French controlled regions, labor unions were organized by the CGT in the 1930s and 1940s. Their labour halls were styled Bourses du travail, some of which remain as centers of union activity. The rulers of

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Repu ...

created a Bourse du travail at Katanga in 1910 as a state controlled hiring hall, in an attempt to lure labor to areas of planned industrial (mostly mining) concentration. Attempts by local officials to recast this cynically created employment agency into a more worker run operation suggest that the idea of a Bourse du travail never lost its syndicalist connotations.

"When Buttgenbach, managing director of the UMHK, proposed the creation of the BTK to the colonial minister Renkin, the minister promptly called an assembly of the major employers in Katanga, resulting in the creation, as a private enterprise, of the Bourse in July 1910. However, the administration's views on the functioning of the institution were inconsistent with the view of the BTK as a monopolistic, state-run and coercive labour bureau."

Aldwin Roes. The Bourse du Travail du Katanga: 'A parastatal recruitment organisation with monopsonistic powers?' State-capital relations in the mobilization of Katanga's labour power, 1910-1914. London School of Economics, (2007)

Bibliography

Historical Works

* Daniel Colson. Bourse du Travail et syndicalisme d'entreprise avant 1914: les Acieries de Saint-Etienne in Le Mouvement social, No. 159 (Apr. - Jun., 1992), pp. 57–83. * Paul Delesalle. Les Bourses du Travail et la C.G.T., Bibliothèque du mouvement prolétarien, 64 pages, Rivière, 1912. * Robert Gildea. Review Article: La Vie quotidienne des anarchistes en France, 1880-1910 by Andre Nataf; Naissance des Bourses du travail. Un appareil ideologique d'Etat a la fin du XIXe siecle by Peter Schottler; Souvenirs d'un anarchiste by Maurice Joyeux; in The English Historical Review, Vol. 103, No. 409 (Oct., 1988), pp. 1000–1001. * Patrick H. Hutton (ed.). Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870-1940. University of Michigan (1986) p. 122 * Jean-Yves Martin. Aux origines de la Bourse du Travail de St-Nazaire de 1892 à la fin du siècle, in Cahier de l’AREMORS n°3 (1992) * Fernand Pelloutier. Histoire des bourses du travail, (1901). * Maurice Poperen. Creation des Bourses du Travail en Anjou 1892-1894 in Le Mouvement social, No. 40 (Jul. - Sep., 1962), pp. 39–55. * Jean Sagnes. Le mouvement ouvrier en Languedoc: Syndicalistes et socialistes de l'Herault de la foundation des bourses du travail a la naissance du Parti communiste (Midi et son histoire). Privat(1980) * Peter Schöttler. Naissance des Bourses du travail. Un appareil idéologique d'Etat à la fin du XIXe siècle. Presses universitaires de France (1985). * Michael Seidman. The Birth of the Weekend and the Revolts against Work: The Workers of the Paris Region during the Popular Front (1936–38) in French Historical Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 249–276. * Danielle Tartakowsky. Review article: Bourses du travail et federations d'industrie. Trois etudes in Le Mouvement social, No. 178, France-Belgique Fin de Siecle (Jan. - Mar., 1997), pp. 150–151.

Online Resources

* Fernand Pelloutier's ''Histoire des Bourses du travail'', the complete text,
online at pelloutier.net (accessed 28-06-2007)
Also a
on anarkhia.org
an

*
Pierre Besnard. Bourse du Travail Encyclopédie anarchiste. 13 April 2005.
* à la Bourse du Travail Fr:Wikipedia on Anarchist Bourse du Travail in the 1930s * des bourses du travail Fr:Wikipedia list of Bourse du Travail *
Loi relative à la création des syndicats professionnels du 21 mars 1884
*
Association Bourse du Travail Mémoire Vivante, Troyes

*
''FERNAND PELLOUTIER et les Bourses du Travail'': Documentary Film
*
Timeline and history of the Bourse dutravail of Saint-Etienne
.

In Francophone Africa

* Albert Ayache. Essai sur la vie syndicale en Algerie, l'annee du Centenaire (1930) in Le Mouvement social, No. 78, Special Issue: Le Mouvement Ouvrier Francais et l'Afrique du Nord. (Jan. - Mar., 1972), pp. 95–114
Aldwin Roes. The Bourse du Travail du Katanga: ?A parastatal recruitment organisation with monopsonistic powers?? State-capital relations in the mobilization of Katanga?s labour power, 1910-1914. London School of Economics, (2007)
*

Some operating Bourses du Travail

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

Bourse du travail
3 ème Arr. Métro B-Station Place Guichard.

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

(château d'Eau)
Bourse du Travail
3 rue du château d'Eau - Métro République.

Angers Angers (, , ;) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the Prefectures of France, prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Duchy of Anjou, Anjou until the French Revolution. The i ...

Bourse du Travail
14, place Louis Imbach
49000 Angers

Creil Creil () is a Communes of France, commune in the Oise Departments of France, department, northern France. The Creil station is an important railway junction. History Archaeological remains in the area include a Neolithic site as well as a late ...

Bourse du travail
rue Fernand Pelloutier
60100 Creil

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

Bourse du Travail
44, cours Aristide Briand
33000 Bordeaux
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourse Du Travail French Third Republic Syndicalism Anarchist movements History of socialism Left communism Trade unions in France Popular education Anarchist terminology