Speaking with One Voice : The Birth of the UPA and the (Re)Structuring of Craft Unionism in the Early 1970s

Résumé 0

The purpose of the article is to examine the conditions of the creation of a unified representative structure for the self-employed sector, namely the UPA, which is the third largest employers’ union in France. The emergence of such a structure owes less to a rational logic of opposition against the intrusion of the new anti-establishment associations than to the presence of a new, previously unoccupied niche on the market of representation, next to the small and medium-sized business associations. Thanks to the evolution of the structure of political opportunities, the organisation has managed to become a fully-fledged social partner. Such a recognition tends to favour a form of neo-corporatism in collective action, it also sheds light on the inherent ambivalence in the identity of artisanship, balanced as it is between independent work and small family firms, and it inevitably helps tilt the balance towards a more employer-oriented type of defence group.