Marie Guillot

Marie Guillot (9 September 1880 – 5 March 1934) was a teacher in Saône-et-Loire and a pioneer of trade unionism in primary education.
She associated the social emancipation that syndicalism would bring with the empowerment of women.
An anarcho-syndicalist, she was a member of the national leadership of the '' Confédération générale du travail unitaire'' (CGTU – General Confederation of Trade Unions) in 1922–1923. She was active in the struggle of the anarchists, who believed in a decentralized or federal organization of workers' syndicates, against the communists who believed in a central organization.

Early years

Marie Guillot was born in September 1880 at Damerey, in the Bresse region of the department of Saône-et-Loire, where her family was rooted.
For the rest of her life Marie Guillot kept strong ties to this area of southern Burgundy.
Her father, an agricultural day laborer, died when she was only three years old.
To feed Marie and her sister, her mother left the Bresse countryside to work in the nearest town, Chalon-sur-Saône, where she found employment as a daily washerwoman.
Marie was a good student at school, instructed by a lay teacher.
She gained the ''Brevet supérieur'', the qualification needed for minor public service.

In 1899 Marie Guillot became a primary school teacher, and was able to support her mother.
After several years as a substitute teacher, and positions in schools in Mâcon, the Autun region and Bresse, she gained tenure in a school in a small village in the Côte Chalonnaise.
She taught from 1904 to 1921.
She remained single, sharing her energies between teaching and trade union activities. Around 1910 she founded the Saône-et-Loire section of the ''Fédération des syndicats d'instituteurs'' (Federation of teachers unions), and assumed the secretariat in a hostile administrative environment.

Unionism

The harsh life of Guillot's parents, her own living conditions, and harassment by the administrative hierarchy convinced her of the need for unions.
These factors also made her an adherent of the Socialist Party, probably under the influence of another teacher from Saône-et-Loire, Théo Bretin.
She agreed with the anarcho-syndicalists that future society would be organized into syndicates.
She was among the subscribers to the small journal ''La Vie ouvrière'' (Worker's Life) published by the ''Confédération générale du travail'' (CGT: General confederation of labor). In 1913 she began a long-lasting correspondence with Pierre Monatte, the editor.
Some of her letters were published by Colette Chambelland and Jean Maitron in ''Syndicalisme révolutionnaire et Communisme.''
In July 1913 ''La Vie ouvrière'' published an article signed "Marie Guillot". She wrote as an experienced activist.

The CGT journal let Marie Guillot speak in its January 1913 issue under the transparent pseudonym "a subscriber from Saône-et-Loire."
She noted in a clear and direct style: "You are aware the lack of women in ''La Vie ouvrière''! Do you therefore expect to make a revolution or economic transformation without women? (...) Do you feel disdain for us? That would be very misguided. The feminist movement penetrates the masses more and more, and must be reckoned with."

Feminism

From 1910 Guillot participated in drafting and disseminating '' L'École émancipée'' (The emancipated school), a weekly educational magazine published by the National Federation of Unions of male and female teachers of France and the colonies. Four of her articles, written alone or with others, were published by this journal in 1911; five were published in 1912; six in 1913; seven between January and July 1914.
From April 1912 she took the pen name for this review of ''Tribune féministe''.

Marie Guillot saw the struggle by women for equality as having the same importance as her political and union engagements. From 1906 she directed the Association of Women of Saône-et-Loire to spread secularist ideas. She used the weekly ''The Saône-et-Loire Socialist'' to disseminate feminist demands. ''L'École émancipée'' also allowed her to popularize her ideas, particularly over the difference between salary, rank and seniority between men and women in the educational system.

Pacifism

After the outbreak of World War I (July 1914 – November 1918) the leaders of the ''Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière'' (SFIO: French section of the workers' international) and the CGT aligned with the militarism of the government, and the most committed syndicalists forgot the anti-war orders-of-day they had defended in Congress.
In August 1914 Marie Guillot wrote to Pierre Monatte: "What frightens me more than all the carnage is the wave of hatred that always rises higher, and deflects the energy of the workers from their goal.

During the years of conflict Guillot continued in the same stubborn way to express pacifist ideas wherever she could. She was comforted by Romain Rolland's ''Au-dessus de la mêlée'' (Above the fray – September 1914), by the attitude of Pierre Monatte with whom she corresponded throughout the war, and by the pronouncements of other teachers for peace.
She was questioned several times but was not arrested during the war.

National-level union leader

After the war Marie Guillot was active in union work. From 7 to 10 August 1919 she participated in Tours in the Congress of the National Federation of teachers unions.
From 15 to 21 September 1919, she participated in the 14th Congress of the CGT in Lyon, where she was among the "revolutionary" minority of syndicalists.
In January 1920, she was elected Secretary General of the Committee of revolutionary syndicalists of Education.
In August of the same year she participated at Bordeaux in the fourteenth congress of the Federation of teachers' unions.

Marie Guillot was one of 350 delegates representing 12,000 members divided into 68 unions.
However, the right to organize was still denied to civil servants, including teachers.
The secretary of the federation, Louis Bouët, lost his job on July 31. This was the third time in the history of the young teachers unionism that a federal secretary was revoked.
During the years 1919–1921, several education trade unionists also underwent investigation and sanction. Marie Guillot, leader of the revolutionary syndicalist committee of Saône-et-Loire was brought before a disciplinary council in January 1921. She was dismissed on 25 April 1921 on the grounds that "acts of revolutionary propaganda carried out by Mlle Marie Guillot are incompatible with the functions of a public teacher."

For good measure, the school of Saint-Martin-d'Auxy, emptied of its students by demographic decline and local intrigues, was closed. Guillot's friends from ''La Vie ouvrière'' provided editorial work to those who found themselves without pay. A solidarity subscription collected the equivalent of eight months of her teacher's salary. She donated a large part to her union to cover the cost of legal action. But her activism increased in her free time. In July 1921, the departmental CGT of Saône-et-Loire elected her Secretary General. The balance of power between the majority proponents of confederation and the revolutionary minority reversed for the first time in the department. Marie Guillot was elected by 24 votes against 19 for the outgoing secretary Jean-Marie Thomas, also a teacher, and the future socialist deputy of Chalon-sur-Saône between 1928 and 1940.

General Secretary of the Federation of Education

The 16th Congress of the CGT was held from 25 to 30 July 1921 in Lille. Marie Guillot was among the delegates who voted for the motions of the revolutionary syndicalists.
In the minority, they began to increase significantly in numbers. In September 1920 the 15th Congress in Orléans

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