Reforming arbitration class, gender and the conseil des prud'hommes in Tourcoing, 1848--1894

Created in 1806 by Napoleon, the conseil des prud'hommes were municipal labour arbitration boards established to settle workplace differences between workers and employers in the textile industry amicably and through conciliation. The northern French town of Tourcoing was a comparatively conservative city, where radical politics and confrontational labour relations found little support throughout the nineteenth century. Therefore, the arbitration boards known as the conseil des prud'hommes could be expected to have been a popular method of settling workplace conflicts. Initially, only employers could elect and be board members; reform in 1848 extended these rights to male workers. Other important changes occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century that could potentially affect labour relations: the legalization of strikes in 1864 and the legalization of unions two decades later. This thesis explores the impact these changes had on the use of Tourcoing's conseil des prud'hommes, as well as the outcome of cases brought to their attention between 1848 and 1894. It argues that, although the boards were underused in this period, the presence of workers on the boards was beneficial to Tourcoing's working class, particularly female and unskilled workers, who found themselves losing less and compromising more in order to settle their workplace disputes. However, the growing emphasis on compromise did not please employers who began to abandon the boards immediately after the 1848 reform. The influence of unions and socialist groups in the late 1880s and early 1890s reinforced this trend not only among employers, but also among female and unskilled workers who found the increasingly confrontational attitudes at the boards an obstacle to settling cases through conciliation. As a result, both of these groups of workers also began to turn their backs on the prud'hommes