The Cooperative Movement

Beyond strikes and politics, workers built alternative institutions. Consumer cooperatives pooled resources for bulk purchasing, eliminating middleman profits. Producer cooperatives attempted worker control of production. The Bourses du Travail (labor exchanges) provided employment services, education, and meeting spaces outside state or employer control.

The Verrerie Ouvrière d'Albi exemplified cooperative ideals. After the Carmaux strike's failure, workers established their own glass factory. Despite enormous obstacles—capital shortage, supplier boycotts, distributor resistance—they survived through solidarity and sacrifice. Workers accepted minimal wages to accumulate collective capital.

Women created their own cooperatives. The Ruche Ouvrière (Workers' Beehive) began as seamstresses pooling resources for materials. It evolved into comprehensive mutual aid, providing unemployment insurance, medical care, and retirement benefits. "We cannot wait for men to include us," declared founder Marie-Louise Rochebillard. "We must create our own liberation."

The cooperative movement revealed working-class creativity beyond protest. Workers demonstrated management capability, financial acumen, and social innovation. Though most cooperatives eventually failed under capitalist pressure, they provided models for alternative organization and proved workers' capacity for self-governance.