2023-06-15 08:47:22
At 95, Charles Piaget, the charismatic leader of the CFDT-Lip, remembers like yesterday the social movement he coordinated from April 1973 to March 1974 to oppose the dismantling and layoffs of the largest watch manufacturer in France, located in Besançon, in the Doubs. Strike, sequestration of administrators, factory occupation, relaunch of production, wild sales…
“It was rare for workers to organize themselves to produce and sell. It made a huge noise in the world…”, he remarks, with a mischievous eye, in front of the furnished library of his flower-decked house in Besançon. As the Trente Glorieuses passed away, all eyes were on these workers who refused to allow the multinational Ébauches SA, their new owner, to transform their factory into a workshop for the assembly of Swiss watches. And cut half of the 1,200 jobs.
Post-68 democratic aspirations
“We did not seek to do extraordinary thingseuphemizes the former workshop manager of Lip. We wanted to find solutions, but we were not heard. And since we were quite united and organized, that brought us there. » The self-management experiment that caused so much ink to flow was only a means ” very convenient “ of “continue the fight” in the ferment of the post-68 ideals of democratization of business carried by the CFDT and the Unified Socialist Party (PSU), then led by Michel Rocard.
At Lip, information and words circulated. Decisions were made in general assembly. This is where the workers launched: “We know how to produce, no bosses needed. »“Without the women, who are very numerous in production, the resumption of activity would not have been possible”admitted Charles Piaget (1).
A provisional self-organization
From the island of Marie-Galante (Guadeloupe) where she now lives at 89, Monique Piton (2), another figure in the movement, is more circumspect. “Women were treated well and spoke out in action committees. But we didn’t really listen to them. There was a start, but not really self-management. » And when the question of the distribution of proceeds from clandestine sales of watches arose, the criterion of hierarchical position took over.
“We speak of self-management when there is an autonomous and horizontal organizationnuance in turn Lucie Cros, author of a thesis on women workers and the social movement. However, at Lip, there was a trade union structure, with certainly pedagogy to raise women’s awareness and a democratic life within the movement. »
“Lip had a transitory experience of a self-managed company, says Camille Ternier, researcher at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po (Cevipof). There was a kind of ideal of horizontality of social relations with organizing leaders and not giving orders. But not, among employees, a real desire to resume production in the long term. »
“They demanded the appointment of an entrepreneur who would continue the activity with all the employees, based on the project drawn up by the Syndex firm, adviser to the unions”notes Guillaume Gourgues, lecturer in political science at Lyon 2 University.
A painful backlash
This is what Claude Neuschwander tried to set up in 1974, after months of negotiation. A former member of the CFDT and traveling companion of the PSU, he aspired to more balanced relations between management, shareholders and employees, in the tradition of social Catholicism.
In the book co-authored with him, titled Why did they kill Lip? (3), Guillaume Gourgues demonstrates, from archives, how the Lip conflict became a ” state matter “ and the reboot was “sabotaged”. “Arriving at the presidency in 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing worked, with the help of senior officials from Bercy, to ensure that this experience did not become a school, while mini-Lips were springing up everywhere. And it worked, since the factory closed in 1977.”
To his eyes, “to defuse the risk of worker protest”, the public authorities have put in place the administrative authorization for dismissal, a one-year indemnity at 90% of the salary in the event of dismissal and a law on workers’ cooperative production companies (scop). Fifty years later, 58,000 employees work in one of the 2,600 cooperatives. “Cooperatives are no less productive or efficient. They even survive recessions better because they manage to find solutions internally.”notes Camille Ternier, scop specialist.
A more participative management but without shared governance
Why don’t they develop more, when their operation seems to respond to contemporary aspirations for more democracy in business? “They suffer from a lack of equity and banks want to avoid taking too much risk, explains the researcher. The imagination is also marked by the personification of the entrepreneur. We do not value collective entrepreneurship. And when investors put money into a company, they like to have a say in the decisions. »
The liberated company, which has appeared in recent years, certainly advocates a more participative management with less hierarchy, but without shared governance. “We can have democracy in governance, without democracy in management. And vice versa. The combination of the two is an ideal that is found very little »emphasizes Camille Ternier.
The Besançon Watch Company (SMB), which took over the Lip brand in 2014, is launching an anniversary model on Thursday, June 15, featuring the slogan of the demonstration of June 15, 1973: “It’s possible: we manufacture, we sell, we pay ourselves! » A sign of the times, it intends to honor the belief in local production. And not the experience of self-management.
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