On March 2, 1946, a short article published in the People, the organ of the CGT, announces the “return to the law of 40 hours”. The reestablishment of one of the Popular Front’s main conquests would have deserved more glory. But is it really that?
On closer inspection, the law of February 25, 1946 certainly refers to 40 hours, but restores, first, the increase in overtime: 25% until the 48th hour and 50% beyond. It also limits their number to 20 hours per week and makes them subject to the authorization of the labor inspectorate after consultation with the unions.
This is where the similarity with 1936 ends. At that time, the 40 hours were aimed at fighting unemployment. Ten years later, the country, bloodless, lacks the means to rebuild itself. In a context of “primitive reaccumulation” of capital, the reduction of working hours is not on the agenda. Already in March 1944, the CNR program said nothing about it. In July 1945, the States General of the French Renaissance, supposed to extend its ambitions, declared their “Commitment to the 40-hour week”, but hasten to bind “The progressive reduction of working hours” to the “Technical progress and (to) national needs”. For the time being, she advocates a return to the 1936 increases. The CGT itself is not asking for anything else.
Minister of Labor, Ambroise Croizat stands on this line, convinced that his project “Will promote the recovery of the country by stimulating the efforts of producers”. Do workers really have any choice but to ” roll up their sleeves “, while the purchasing power of hourly wages is a third below its 1938 level? Immediately, the new law leads to an increase of 15 to 20% of remuneration. In this, it allows Croizat to bypass the government’s choice of wage rigor.
France, however, leans to the left. More clearly than in 1936. After the elections of October 1945, the two “workers’ parties” have an absolute majority, with an advantage in the PCF – 159 deputies – which is ahead of the SFIO. Tripartism prevails, however, in the company of the centrist MRP, in the name of the sacred union required by reconstruction, especially after the departure of General de Gaulle in January. The anchoring on the left is nevertheless found in the realization, in seven months, of the main part of the economic and social reforms of the Liberation. They are the lasting counterpart of a daily life of hardship and effort. At the risk of disappointments which now stirs up Gaullist criticism and which is recorded in May by the rejection of the draft Constitution and, in June, by the retreat of the left in the following elections.
A stakeholder in the “battle for production”, the CGT struggles to contain the rise in workers’ discontent. Resolved to “Weigh without breaking”, it rules out recourse to strike action. In 1946, the socio-political balance of power was no longer assessed in the rough mode of open conflictuality, but on the more marked out, orderly and indirect terrain of the electoral audience, organized staff, responsibilities exercised in companies and institutions.
Text of circumstance as much as of compromise, the law of February 25, 1946 does not therefore have the character of clear conquest of the 40 hours set up as a standard on June 21, 1936, following an unprecedented social mobilization. The question of working time, the domain par excellence of employers’ counter-offensives, is one where the class confrontation has always been tough. The 40 hours will be no exception. From the outset, the employers then targeted overtime, demanding the simultaneous “relaxation” of their authorization, number and increase. In the spring of 1938, Daladier opened the first breaches in the arms factories before claiming “Put France back to work”. On November 12, 1938, while his Minister of Finance declared the end of “The week of both Sundays”, three decrees made it possible to work 50 hours per week, prohibiting the refusal of overtime, the increase of which, limited to 10%, did not begin until the 49th hour. After further degradations going as far as the taxation of compulsory overtime, the Vichy law of March 25, 1941 fixed the legal duration at 48 hours, with a maximum of 54 hours. Despite very contrasting situations from one company or branch to another, the average working time increased. In this regard, the law of February 25, 1946 did not reverse the trend, but increased the cost of overtime calculated with reference to the 40 hours, the effective return of which will still wait a long time.
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