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Between activists, we sometimes tell each other stories of union fights from the past. From now on, it is the history of the struggles, through the testimonies and documents of the past. The departmental union of the CGT decided to acquire a Institute of Social History, association that will watch over the heritage of local struggles.
« It’s not about looking back with nostalgia, nor to transpose struggles from yesterday to today, says Louis Avoine, president of the Institute. For us, it is a question of making known benchmarks allowing us to better understand the present and organize the future. »
“Young people, union members, activists, employees and, in general, the population need to know what the struggles of their elders have been, what the latter have brought about as an evolution, as acquired…”
General Secretary of the departmental union of the CGT, Nathalie Bazire explains, for example, that representatives of the Institute will be invited to the training sessions offered by the union to its new militants.
Associations of this kind already exist in the trade union federations. And this, at the national, regional and departmental level. 79 CGT social history institutes already exist in France.
Delve into the archives
In the Channel, among the objectives, the ambition is to bear witness to what the social history of the territory has been (on the major industrial challenges, but not only). Echoing the passage in 2019 in the Cotentin of the Bahri Yanbu, a Saudi ship which transported weapons, fueling demonstrations by trade unions and humanitarian associations, a first brochure was published on the role of the CGT just after the 1939-1945 war. .
Maurice Postaire, head of the CGT railwaymen and member of the PCF, was thus one of those who organized the protest against the landing at Cherbourg military equipment intended to rearm Germany in 1950. “We want to collect the memory of activists and employees, continues Louis Avoine. A call will be launched in this direction. »
An exhibition on May 68 had also been proposed in Cherbourg four years ago, for the 50th anniversary of the event. The ambition is to be able to organize regular conferences and debates to analyze the different periods of history and transmit the memory. New brochures will be published. Work is also underway to be able to tell the struggles at the CMN, from 1945 to the 2000s.
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