Union voucher at the sickbed of French unionism? The CFDT union confederation and the AXA experiment, 1981–1993

The Political Effects of Accounting Normalization on Trade Unions: An Analysis of Financial Transparency Reform in France

“…As we mentioned before, the turn to cost accounting, the voluntary move towards homogeneous presentation in union accounts, the networking of finance officers and the development of strong partnerships with external experts are part of a union strategy in which financial transparency is one dimension of a wider reform of industrial relations and trade union organizations in France. Following its ‘refocusing strategy’, it is guided by the project of depoliticizing industrial relations (Bourguignon and Floquet ), relying as little as possible on the state, and developing with employers, through firm‐based collective bargaining, a shared economic understanding of market constraints and opportunities. Conversely, accounting knowledge and management seemed far less advanced in the CGT and FO, both because of less centralized and managerialized internal structures, and because of a cultural distrust of the language of accounting.…”

“…This allows confederation officials to have a global overview of membership. Moreover, the CFDT leadership had been reflecting on financial matters since the 1980s as a way of questioning the meaning of union membership and the relationship between workers and unions, experimenting with new forms of financing such as the ‘union voucher’ (Bourguignon and Floquet ). Conversely, the CGT and FO's financial systems were as decentralized as their organizational structure.…”

“…) since the end of the 1970s, as the number of workers in unions has plummeted to around 8 per cent (Visser ). A public debate on the legitimate type of financing for trade unions has emerged since that time (Bourguignon and Floquet ). In a context of neoliberal restructuring of the state, and of employers’ offensive against the social pact concluded after the Second World War, trade unions’ heavy reliance on the state has been increasingly called into question, leading to the development of arguments in favour of the reform of union finances (Hadas‐Lebel ).…”