Manifesto of the Sixty
60인 선언
A manifesto written by the bronze chaser Henri Tolain, signed by sixty Paris workers and published in L'Opinion nationale on 17 February 1864. Arguing that the equality written into law did not exist in fact, it called for workers to put up their own candidates apart from the republicans and made seven demands, among them abolition of the law on combinations and trade-union chambers. It is regarded as the document that announced the French labour movement's independent entry into politics.
In depth
The workers' delegation that the government sent to the London International Exhibition in 1862 came back having seen the organisation and wages of British trade unions. Tolain, one of its members, wrote this manifesto at the home of the republican journalist Henri Lefort when he stood as a workers' candidate at a Paris by-election in February 1864; among the signatories were the bronze worker Camélinat and the trimmings maker Limousin. The manifesto asserted that the workers formed a distinct class.
Its seven demands were repeal of article 1781 of the Civil Code, which made the master's word decisive in wage disputes; abolition of the law on combinations; trade-union chambers; wider powers for mutual-aid societies; regulation of women's work; reform of apprenticeship; and free primary and vocational education. Tolain was defeated, but on 25 May that year the Ollivier law abolished the offence of combination and allowed strikes. Proudhon answered the manifesto with his last work, The Political Capacity of the Working Classes.