Background
Bernard Thibault was born on January 2, 1959 in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, to a family hailing from the Morvan area.
Bernard Thibault was born on January 2, 1959 in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, to a family hailing from the Morvan area.
He represents the moderate wing of the Confédération générale du travail, as opposed to the more radical wing noted in Marseilles" trade union. At the age of 15, he entered the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français apprenticeship centre in Noisy-le-Security, which he left in 1976 with a qualification in general mechanics. He was then hired by the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français yard at Paris-la-Villette.
In 1977, he joined the Confédération générale du travail, and was put in charge of the union"s "Young workers commission".
In 1980, he became secretary of the union in his train yard, and was later elected secretary of the Confédération générale du travail for all rail workers of the Eastern Paris railroad network. During the strikes of Fall 1986, he provided the impetus for the start of the strikes and is credited with forwarding the principle of coordinated strikes, which the unions had until then been reluctant to adopt.
He promoted integrating non-unionist strikers into the decision process, which was largely left to general assemblies of workers at the local level (a practice that was repeated during the large 1995 strikes). He was at the time considered one of the main figures of the strike and a symbol of the renewal of the Confédération générale du travail. In 1987, he joined the French Communist Party and, shortly thereafter, the Confédération générale du travail federal office for rail workers.
In 1997, he was appointed to the confederal office.
During the 46th Congress of the Confédération générale du travail in January–February 1999, he succeeded Louis Viannet as the head of the confederation. He also resigned his national responsibilities in the Communist Party, to fight the idea that the unions were the force driving the party. Thanks to his comparatively young age, and to the economic recovery in France at the end of the 20th century, he managed to counter the sag in Confédération générale du travail members.
The internal tensions in the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail brought about by the Fillon retirement law prompted members to switch unions and reinforce the Confédération générale du travail. However, Thibault"s efforts to push the Confédération générale du travail toward a more reformist stance, as witnessed for instance during the strikes of November 2007, met with resistance within the leadership of the union, which for example did not give a voting directive to its members for the referendum on the European Constitution.