The Solidaires or Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques (SUD) is a French group of

trade unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

Political position

They tend to favor progressive or even radical views and work with the

alter-globalization Alter-globalization (also known as alternative globalization or alter-mundialization—from the French alter- mondialisation—and overlapping with the global justice movement) is a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation and ...

anti-globalization The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist ...

movement. The Group of 10 and the SUD Unions are part of the

European Social Forum The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also known as the Global Justice Movement). In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but late ...

and the

World Social Forum The World Social Forum (WSF, pt, Fórum Social Mundial ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemon ...

. Most of the SUD trade-union practice a syndicalism of struggle (''syndicalisme de lutte''), like factions of the CGT, FO and the CNT. That places it in opposition to the reformist or negotiation unions: the CFDT,

Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens The French Confederation of Christian Workers (french: italic=no, Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens; CFTC) is one of the five major France, French confederation of trade unions, belonging to the Christian socialism, social C ...

(CFTC), CFE-CGC and Union nationale des syndicats autonomes (UNSA). Many members of SUD are also members of the

New Anticapitalist Party The New Anticapitalist Party (french: Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste , abbreviated NPA) is a far-left political party in France founded in February 2009. The party launched with 9,200 members and was intended to unify the fractured movements o ...

, but there are also communist, socialist, ecologist, and anarchist sympathizers within the union.

History

The Group of 10 was created in 1981 by autonomous unions, such as the SNUI, or the SNJ, organizing journalists. Most of these were unions who had refused to choose a side in the 1946 split between the reformist Workers' Force and the communist CGT. But several of those unions decided to join UNSA - an alliance of moderate Unions - in 1993, soon after Sud-PTT joined the Group of 10. The first SUD union was created in 1988 after a split within the CFDT. The CFDT expelled several unions from the health and the post and telecommunications federations located in the Paris region because they supported wildcat strikes self-organized by the workers. The expelled post and telecommunication unions decided to create a new federation, Sud-PTT, which got encouraging electoral results a few months later. SUD defends social movement unionism by working with several movements: illegal immigrants, unemployed people and so forth. The successes of SUD in La Poste and

France Télécom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

convinced other unions from the left wing of the CFDT to create similar unions in their professional sectors and several new SUD unions were formed following the mass public sector strikes of November and December 1995 and May and June 2003. SUD unions are now important in the health care sector, education, transportation (including the

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffic ...

and

Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global air ...

), cultural institutions such as the Louvre, as well as in some companies such as Michelin,

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded ...

, or even students with Solidaires étudiant-e-s, syndicat de luttes.

Professional Elections

Solidaires won 3.82% of the vote in the employee's college during the 2008 professional elections, its best result to date. It had won 1.51% in 2002.

External links

Official site of Solidaires

Official site of SUD-PTT

Official site of SUD-Éducation

Official site of SUD-Étudiant
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solidaires Unitaires Democratiques Trade unions in France National trade union centers of France 1981 establishments in France Trade unions established in 1981

Political position

History

Professional Elections

See also

External links