Fellow-Workers,

The Master Builders of Geneva have, after mature consideration, arrived at the conclusion that “the entire Freedom of
Labour”? is best calculated to promote the happiness of the
labouring poor. In order to secure this blessing to their
work-people, they resolved to carry into practice, on June I1th, a
trick of English invention, viz., the lock-out of upwards of 3,000
mechanics till then in their employ.

Trade Unionism being of recent growth in Switzerland, the
same master builders of Geneva used to indignantly denounce it as
an English importation. Two years ago, they taunted their men
with a lack of Patriotism for trying to transplant on Swiss soil such
an exotic plant as the limitation of the working day with fixed
rates of wages per hour. They never doubted but there must be
some keen mischief-mongers behind the scene, since their own
native workmen, if left to themselves, would naturally like nothing
better than drudging from twelve to fourteen hours a day for
whatever pay the master might find it in his heart to allow. The
deluded men, they publicly asserted, were acting under dictation
from London and Paris, much the same as Swiss diplomatists are
wont to obey the behests from St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris.
However, the men were not to be cajoled, taunted, or intimidated
into the persuasion that limiting the daily hours of toil to ten, and
fixing the rate of wages per hour was something derogatory to the

4 Here and below Marx describes the builders’ strike of 1868 according to
J. Ph. Becker’s book Die Internationale Arbeiter-Association und die Arbeitseinstellung in
Genf im Frühjahr 1868, Geneva, 1868, pp. 6, 7, 38 and 39.— Ed.

dignity of a Free Citizen, nor could they by any provocation ‘be
inveigled into acts of violence affording the masters a plausible
pretext for enforcing public repressive measures against the
unions.

At last, in May, 1868, M. Camperio, the then Minister of Justice
and Police, brought about an agreement that the hours of labour
should be nine a day in winter, and eleven a day in summer,
wages varying from forty-five to fifty centimes an hour. That
agreement was signed in the presence of the Minister by both
masters and men. In the spring of 1869 some masters refused to
pay more wages for a day’s labour of eleven hours, than they had
paid during winter for nine hours. The matter was again
compromised by making 45 centimes an hour, the uniform rate of
wages for artisans in the building trade. Although clearly
comprised in this settlement, the plasterers and painters had to toil
away on the old conditions because they were not then yet
sufficiently organised to enforce the new ones. On the 15th of
May last, they claimed to be put on a level with the other trades,
and on the flat refusal of the masters, struck work the following
week. On the 4th of June, the master builders resolved that if the
plasterers and’ painters did not return to work on the 9th, the
whole of the building operatives should be locked out on the I Ith.
This menace was carried into effect. Not satisfied with having
locked out the men, the masters publicly called upon the federal
government to forcibly dissolve the union* and expel the
foreigners from Switzerland.'”’ Their benevolent and truly liberal
attempts at restoring the freedom of labour, were, however,
baffled by a monster meeting, and a protest on the part of the Swiss
non-building operatives.'”*

The other Geneva trades have formed a committee to manage
the affairs for the men locked-out. Some house owners who had
contracted for new buildings with the master builders, considered
the contracts broken, and invited the men employed on them to
continue the work as if nothing had happened. This proposal was
at once accepted. Many single men are leaving Geneva as fast as
they can. Still there remain some 2,000 families deprived of their
usual means of subsistence.” The General Council of the International Working Men’s Association, therefore, calls upon all honest
working men and women, throughout the civilised world, to assist

a ‘The French text has: “International Association” .— Ed.

The Lock-out of the Building Trades at Geneva 139

both by moral and material means the Geneva building trades in
their just struggle against capitalist despotism.
By order of the Council,

B. Lucraft, Chairman
john Weston, Treasurer
George Eccarius, Gen. Sec.
256, High Holborn, London, W.C.,
July 5th, 1870