Eugen Schwiedland · 1896
Schwiedland’s article critiques the Lebon bill for permanent conciliation councils by distinguishing institutions whose functions the proposal confuses: industrial courts, conciliation councils, factory committees, and chambers of labour. His central argument is that effective mediation requires clearly defined responsibilities and representatives capable of securing acceptance of agreements. The opening questions whether the proposed institution deserves its name:
La loi du 27 décembre 1892, sur la conciliation et l'arbitrage en matière de différends collectifs entre patrons et ouvriers, sera peut-être complétée par une nouvelle loi, ayant la prétention de créer des conseils permanents de conciliation ¹.
English translation: The law of 27 December 1892, on conciliation and arbitration in matters of collective disputes between employers and workers, will perhaps be supplemented by a new law claiming to create permanent boards of conciliation ¹.
The conceptual foundation is a distinction between adjudicating existing rights and negotiating future working conditions. Schwiedland rejects the opposition between “individual” and “collective” disputes as an adequate guide to institutional competence. Several dismissed workers claiming contractual notice can present a collective legal dispute, whereas one worker demanding higher wages can raise an individual social dispute. What matters is the object of disagreement, not the number of participants.
En effet, toutes les grèves, qui sont du ressort de la conciliation sociale, se rapportent aux conditions futures du travail, tous les litiges juridiques aux conditions du travail dans le passé ou dans le présent.
English translation: Indeed, all strikes, which fall within the province of social conciliation, relate to the future conditions of labor, and all legal disputes to the conditions of labor in the past or in the present.
This distinction does not require absolute separation between the bodies handling the two kinds of conflict. Schwiedland acknowledges that institutions may combine functions:
Même en Angleterre, les comités mixtes permanents s'occupent, dans la plupart des cas, des différends juridiques comme des conflits sociaux.
English translation: Even in England, the permanent joint committees deal, in most cases, with legal disputes as well as with social conflicts.
English experience nevertheless shows why conciliation depends on more than legislative design. Strong employers’ associations and trade unions can assess the economic forces likely to determine a strike’s outcome and negotiate without first enduring its costs. Trusted representatives make agreement possible; arbitration offers a further resource when negotiation fails. Both permanent councils and bodies assembled for particular disputes depend on constituencies capable of sustaining their representatives’ commitments. Publicity supplies a weaker sanction where organization is lacking.
Schwiedland’s discussion of the French law of 27 December 1892 combines institutional description with caution about results. Conciliation and arbitration yielded relatively few settlements in 1893 and improved in 1894, but some agreements might have occurred without the legislation. His comparison challenges the assumption that importing an institutional form reproduces the social conditions underlying its effectiveness.
The article next separates factory committees from chambers of labour. Factory committees communicate grievances, explain managerial decisions, and assist with workplace rules within an enterprise. Regular contact may prevent conflict while leaving technical and commercial authority with the employer. Such committees can prepare the ground for broader representation and conciliation without being identical to either.
Chambers of labour pose a different problem. Schwiedland fears that heterogeneous, workers-only bodies could become centres of class politics rather than mechanisms for addressing specific industrial questions. He prefers worker sections within chambers of commerce and industry, where exchange with employers might encourage mutual understanding. His reformism thus supports worker organization while distrusting autonomous class politics.
The legislative genealogy gives substance to the title’s scepticism. Roche’s permanent arbitration councils, Mesureur’s chambers of labour, and deliberations within the Conseil supérieur du travail supplied competing models. Schwiedland argues that elements of the chamber scheme survived its rejection by reappearing under the label of permanent conciliation. The proposal consequently combined powers without establishing a coherent purpose.
The final assessment measures those powers against the bill’s stated aim. Councils might represent an establishment or occupational group, federate, examine working conditions, scrutinize regulations, and summon witnesses, yet their specifically conciliatory machinery largely repeated the arrangements of 1892. Administrative facilities and legal privileges could not create the authority required for agreement. Schwiedland instead assigns everyday prevention primarily to factory committees and the settlement of actual disputes to conciliation councils.
His concluding criticism extends to bourgeois interests, entrenched individualism, doctrinaire economics, and exclusively class-oriented socialism. The governing claim remains institutional and social: names and statutory powers cannot substitute for distinct responsibilities, credible representation, and organized parties capable of making negotiation effective.
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