CGT

CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail). French trade union Founded in 1895, it adopted the syndicalist Charter of Amiens in 1906, which rejected affiliation to the current left-wing parties in order to seek class warfare through direct action. Its leadership became increasingly reformist, so that the frequent strikes it organized were mostly to achieve more immediate aims such as better pay and working conditions. This trend was reinforced in September 1921, when its more radical members split to form the Confédération Générale du Travail Unitaire (CGTU), thus reflecting the division in the political labour movement between Socialist Party and Communist Party in December 1920. It reunited again on the eve of the Popular Front government in 1936. The CGT emerged from World War II, during which many of its members were active in the Résistance, under the control of the Communist Party, from which the more moderate CGT-Force-Ouvrière split in 1948. Even though the CGT has remained the biggest French trade union with about one third of all trade union membership, its membership declined severely in the 1990s, from 1.8 million to 1.6 million (1992–7).

http://www.cgt.fr

trade unions