REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM AND DIRECT ACTION

On an unseasonably cold May morning in 1903, in the sleepy village of Peyriac de Mer, ninety-five workers on one of the largest vineyards in the Narbonnais laid down their tools, walked out of the vines, and declared the formation of a labor union. Resisting their employer’s efforts to increase their working hours—but not their wages—they pointed out that he had made 200,000 francs on his last harvest, and refused to return to work until he had granted them a wage increase.¹ This uneventful and shortlived strike was the first in a long series of occasionally violent confrontations