The Workers' Union

Flora Tristan (1803-44) was a leading nineteenth-century French social theorist and author who influenced the likes of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Five years before the publication of The Communist Manifesto, Tristan urged French workers to put aside occupational and social rivalries in order to unite nationwide. Exhorting the workers to act through union (rather than violence) in quest for a livable minimum wage and other benefits, The Workers\u2019 Union outlines the methods for organizing such a union, the goals of the union, and the reason women\u2019s rights must be emphasized in forming it. Among Tristan\u2019s pathbreaking proposals are plans to provide laborers\u2019 children with increased access to education, to supply safe havens for young people and sick and injured workers, and to approach manufacturers and financiers, including those among the nobility, in order to support such programs.