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

trade unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

Political position

They tend to favor progressive or even radical views and work with the alter-globalization or anti-globalization movement. The Group of 10 and the SUD Unions are part of the European Social Forum and the World Social Forum. 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 (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 ( , 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 of the French radical Left, and attract new activ ...

, 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 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 (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

and

Air France Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...

), cultural institutions such as the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

, as well as in some companies such as

Michelin Michelin ( , ), in full ("General Company of the Michelin Enterprises P.L.S."), is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes '' région'' of France. It is the second largest t ...

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figure ...

, 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 Solidaires étudiant-e-s
{{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