France’s Largest Labor Union May Have Overplayed Its Hand
The French General Confederation of Labor (CGT) has mobilized its members in response to President François Hollande’s proposed reforms to loosen France’s labor laws, making the hiring and firing of employees easier and weakening union power. True to its roots in Marxist-Leninist principles, the CGT has organized strikes against this agenda, decrying Hollande and the French leadership as traitors to their leftist allegiance and inspiring smaller unions to lead protests regarding other, unrelated labor issues. It is argued that the CGT’s greatest fear regarding this legislation is the threat of moving bargaining from the sector level to the local level, stripping the union of its national clout. So far, the CGT’s methods have been successful in stripping the proposed law of many of its allegedly detrimental components.
See "France’s Largest Labor Union May Have Overplayed Its Hand", Celestine Bohlen, New York Times, June 13, 2016