The post-World War II French watch-casing community of Boimondau, founded in Valence in 1941 by Marcel Barbu, stands as a rare historical model of workplace democracy and common ownership. According to historians Guillaume Gourgues, Michel Lallement, and Éline Vivet-Maladry in their book L’émancipation par le travail published by Éditions de l’Atelier, the enterprise operated successfully between 1943 and 1953 by prioritizing labor over capital and experimenting intensively with worker self-management.
Origins and Ideology of the Boimondau Community
Operating during the fluid political landscape of wartime France, Marcel Barbu established Boimondau to manufacture waterproof watch cases primarily destined for Lip factories. According to Éditions de l’Atelier, the initiative later served as a logistical support base for the Vercors maquis during the Nazi occupation. Barbu, a devout Catholic, sought to eliminate workplace alienation by establishing a community governed by a formal “Rule.” This rule mandated common property ownership and internal democracy, requiring collective participation in decision-making and unanimous consent for major operational choices.
Balancing Taylorism and Social Innovation
Despite its anti-capitalist ethos, the factory embraced rigorous production standards during the post-war reconstruction era. According to the historical analysis by Gourgues, Lallement, and Vivet-Maladry, Marcel Barbu and his successor Marcel Mermoz introduced the Bedaux method in 1946, transforming Boimondau into a laboratory for intensive Taylorism. To offset this productivism, the enterprise developed a unique remuneration model that rewarded not only production efficiency but also extra-professional contributions to the community, including social groups and domestic work performed by women.
Decline, Normalization, and Post-War Legacy
As the post-war window for radical social experimentation closed, Boimondau transitioned into a Société Coopérative et Participative (SCOP) in 1952. According to the authors, the community eliminated the monetary valuation of “human value” in 1953, and the normalized cooperative was eventually liquidated in 1971. Political hurdles heavily contributed to this decline; Barbu’s efforts to pass national legislation regulating labor communities failed due to political friction with the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and a lack of support from the French Communist Party. Although referenced by prominent sociologists of work, Boimondau ultimately did not achieve the same lasting public recognition as the later Lip strikes of the 1970s, despite deploying much deeper autogestionary practices.
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