THE FRENCH POST OFFICE STRIKE. T HE strike in the French
Post Office, which began last Saturday, and out of small beginnings has grown till it has engaged the anxious attention of the French Government, is worth watching. It is only one of a long series of disputes between State employees and the Government which are bound to lead to a definition of the relations of the two parties. This does not exist at present. The workman of a French private employer is, quite rightly, free to use all the legitimate resources of his Trade-Union for collective bargaining or resistance ; but the employee of the State is hold to be in a peculiar position of trust almost analogous to that of an officer in the Army or Navy, and though he may belong to a syndicat. that syndicat is not officially recognised. Foreign observers of French life have remarked that nearly every other man in Franco seems to be a fonctionnaire of some kind. The pleasures of being "in office" are indeed sweet to a large number ef Frenchmen, and State employment is sought after because by it a man may mount to some position of small authority. There is no general ambition in English life which corresponds to this, unless it be true that nearly every well-sized man in the ranks of unskilled labour would like to be a policeman. The popularity and growth of State employment in France render it really desirable that the State and its employees of all grades should know exactly how they stand to one another. The French administrative theory that syndicats cannot fit jute the scheme of State responsibility may be right or wrong,—right or wrong, we mean, for France.
But one way or the other the long dispute should be set at rest, for it is the cause of almost continuous social disturbance. Here in Britain we have our own opinion on the subject. The British Government in the chief case in which it is an employer of labour on a large scale—the Post Office—has conceded to its employees the right, with certain restrictions, of being represented by a Union. We have no doubt that the concession was wise, for if combination is not allowed openly, it will be practised secretly, and that is worse. But in France, although more men are directly employed by the State than in Britain, the relations of the State and its employees have been conducted under makeshift arrangements which have no air of finality. Many times the question has been brought before the Chamber of Deputies; but the Deputies have shrunk from the delicate problem, and have referred to let the Minister of whatever Department was in revolt patch up the dispute as best he could without bringing any universal principle to the test.
The strike began in this way. Some men of the Post Office in Paris bad entered the Telegraph Department in order to make a demonstration against M. Simyttn, the Under-Secretary for Posts and Telegraphs. M. Simyan's administration has been unpopular, and grievances (about which we shall know more when M. Clemenceau has made a statement in the Chamber) are said to have been created by him unnecessarily. By way of sympa- thising with this outburst of their comrades of another department, the afternoon staff of telegraph operators left a large part of their work to be finished by the night staff of their own department. On Monday the day staff, who came in as the night staff went out, abused the latter for having done their work for them, and then began to repeat the demonstration of the Post Office men against M. Siinya.n.
There was so much shouting, we read, that some of the women clerks fainted. M. Simyan appeared with the smell but redoubtable and gallant Chief of the Police, M. Lepine, whose top-hat may always be seen like the visor of a mediaeval knight, bobbing about in the hottest of the fray whenever there is trouble in Paris, and the demonstrators were ordered to stay and work or to go. Nearly all preferred to stay, but they compro- mised on the point of work. They kept up the semblance of work, while. a large part of the work remained undone. On that morning the ringleaders of the Post Office demonstration were brought before the Correctional Tribunal, and seven of them were sentenced to seven days' imprisonment. The news of the sentence was spread abroad, and on Tuesday a general strike of both the postal and telegraph employees was declared. On Wednesday the strike was partial, but on Thursday it was absolute. The postal, telegraphic, and telephonic services broke down for all practieal purposes, and millions of letters were held up at the General Post Office. Such work as was done was the result of improvised and rather ineffectual arrangements. Some country towns reported that the postal and telegraphic employees were on strike there also. On Wednesday a deputation visited M. Clemenceau, and suggested that a Bill already before the Chamber for establishing a Supreme Council of Posts and Telegraphs should be hurried through. M. Clemenceau, characteristi- cally, would have nothing to say to that. No doubt he felt that he could not supersede or show Et want of confidence in one of his chief officers in the middle of an engagement. "Let order be restored first," he said in effect ; "then we will see about the Bill. If the employees wish to fight, the Government is ready. The challenge is accepted."
M. Clemenceau has successfully defied before now the threats of those who undertook to paralyse the com- mercial life of Paris. We suspect that the paralysis must always be of a brief, if not partial, kind. The stricken community would always have some use of its limbs. And no strike can continue long, or turn out profitably for the strikers, unless public sympathy is with it. The results of all labour disputes may seem to depend immediately on conferences between the two sides, but public opinion is always the ultimate arbiter. Now every strike which sacrifices the public to the cause of a section is bound to be without the first condition of success. That was why M. Clemenceau, like the man of experience and perception he is, laughed when the more revolutionary Socialists threatened to coerce the Government by pro- curing a strike in all the food industries, and thus starving Paris. In the same way, he knows the value of the present threats. The Government can get all the essential tele- graphic work done by military telegraphists ; and for the rest, M. Clemenceau would be quite content to let the strike go on till the opinions of an infuriated public had been brought to bear on the situation. The public, deprived for a few consecutive days of its letters and telegrams, would know exactly what degree of support to give to the strikers. If the leaders were safe from violence, they would be lucky. Although it is improb- able that the strike will last long, we do think the Chamber will be wise to consider all the questions of State employment. If M. Clemenceau establishes his case, as he says lie can, puts the present strikers in the wrong, and gets a large vote to support the Government and back M. Sinnyan, then be will be in a poeition to lay down rules for State employment that ought to prevail for some time to come. The employees will al ways be tempted to kick against the decrees of individual Ministers possessing only a delegated authority, but they will think it hardly worth while to kick so frequently against the judgment of Parliament. It is conceivable that if the syndicats were finally worsted in a struggle for recognition in Government Departments, the typical desire of the Frenchman to be a fonction- noire would become less pronounced. Formerly he did not dream of associating the rights of concerted action with the Civil servants of the Republic ; but now that the idea has been presented to him, he may consider life unen- durable without those rights. In any case, the State, as en employer, is bound to set some restrietions on the liberties of its employees. How odd that any one should seriously wish the State to be the sole employer ! Under the perfectly achieved Socialism there would be no choice of employers, and from the one employer there would be no appeal. The employee might complain till he was black in the face, but the State would remain judge of its own cause. Gibbon said that Rome in her decline made "the whole world but a safe and dreary prison-house for the Caesar's foes." And we suspect that if there were no employees but the employees of the State, the safety with which they were tied to their employer would only be matched by the dreariness of their outlook.
Previous page
