Martin Coupaye

Martin Coupaye, a trade unionist slater

Auguste Eugene Martin, known as Martin Coupaye (Coupaye was the name of his wife) was born with Fumay (the Ardennes) in 1866. Initially apprentice baker it works then with the salte quarry of the Mill Holy-Anne where it learns the alteration from the Schiste into Ardoise. Workman militant, it quickly takes the defense of the rights of the profession, little recognized, taking then the advice of Jean-Baptiste Clément, then appointed of the Ardennes.

The weakness of the trade unions slaters rests on their number: too much many and too specialized, each trade association has its own trade-union representatives, they are in impossibility of imposing a common speech. Martin Coupaye thus seeks to create a local trade union extremely. He reaches this primary goal on January 27th, 1902 with creation of the Employers' federation of the Workmen Slaters and Similar Parts . Their objective is to make recognize the slaters like minors, and not as of the carriers as defines it then the mining code, and to obtain with the profession the same rights as the coal minors: rights to the retirement and day's work limited to 8 a.m.

In 1903, the employers' federation joined the National federation of the Minors . One year later, Martin Coupaye meets his counterpart angevin, Ludovic Ménard . If this last completed a work equivalent to the of the Ardennes trade unionist, it posed the bases, in 1904; of a national movement with the foundation of the National federation of the Slaters . The trade union fumacian carried by Martin Coupaye, soon followed other of the Ardennes trade unions. In 1910, the National federation of the Slaters amalgamates with the National federation of the Minors, which becomes the National federation of the Workers of the Basement . Martin Coupaye and Ménard are indicated to represent the profession with the Minister for Labor, Viviani. The war stops the negotiations. The 8 hours day is obtained in 1919, the assimilation with the mode of retirement of the minors in 1920 after the threat of unlimited strikes.

Martin Coupaye dies in Fumay on February 26th, 1926.

A commemorative shelter was set up in its memory on a place of Fumay in 1963, the place of Auchel.

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