LIP (company) - End of The First Conflict

End of The First Conflict

Prime Minister Pierre Messmer wishfully declared on October 15, 1973: "LIP, c'est fini!" (LIP, it's over!). Behind the scenes, some progressive managers of the CNPF employers' union, including Antoine Riboud, CEO of BSN, Renaud Gillet, CEO of Rhône-Poulenc and José Bidegain, deputy president of the CNPF, tried to find a solution to the conflict. Finally, Claude Neuschwander, then number 2 at the Publicis advertising group and member of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU), agreed to become the factory's manager. LIP became a subsidiary of BSN, and Neuschwander managed to have Antoine Riboud bypass the regular control of weekly accounts.

Neuschwander advocated "the death of enterprise capitalism and the advent of finance capitalism". – or, in the words of L'Humanité, the transition from paternalistic capitalism, under Fred Lip, to modern finance capitalism

In the meanwhile, beside the PSU, all the far-left movements supported the LIP self-management experiment. LIP workers took part in the 1973-74 struggle in the Larzac against the extension of a military base (photos). However, tensions increased between the CFDT and the CGT unions.

The LIP delegation and the factory management signed the Dôle agreement on January 29, 1974. The Compagnie européenne d'horlogerie (European Clockwork Co.), directed by Claude Neuschwander, took control of LIP. Neuschwander had 850 former workers rehired in March, and the strike ended. By December 1974, the conflict appeared to be finished: the workers no longer ran the factory, and all of the employees were rehired.

However, in May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, representing free enterprise, had been elected President of France, with the support of Jacques Chirac. They opposed this union victory at a time when downsizing was happening all over France. The previous Minister of Industrial Development, Jean Charbonnel, testified that Giscard had declared: "LIP must be punished. Let them be unemployed and stay that way. Otherwise they will infect all of society." According to Charbonnel, the employers and Chirac's government had deliberately "assassinated LIP."

This was done by confronting the left-wing employer, Neuschwander, and the firm with unforeseen difficulties. Renault, a state enterprise, withdrew its commands, and the Ministry of Industry refused a promised fund. In contradiction to the Dôle agreement of January 1974, the trade court (tribunal de commerce) requested that LIP honor a debt of 6 million Francs owed by the former firm to providers.