Marie Guillot (9 September 1880, Damerey – 5 March 1934) was a teacher in Saône-et-Loire and a pioneer of trade unionism in primary education.
An anarcho-syndicalist, she was a member of the national leadership of the Confédération générale du travail unitaire (CGTU – General Confederation of Trade Unions) in 1922–1923.
To feed Marie and her sister, her mother left the Bresse countryside to work in the nearest town, Chalon-sur-Saône, where she found employment as a daily washerwoman.
Around 1910 she founded the Saône-et-Loire section of the Fédération des syndicats d'instituteurs (Federation of teachers unions), and assumed the secretariat in a hostile administrative environment.
[b] The harsh life of Guillot's parents, her own living conditions,[c] and harassment by the administrative hierarchy convinced her of the need for unions.
She was among the subscribers to the small journal La Vie ouvrière (Worker's Life) published by the Confédération générale du travail (CGT: General confederation of labor).
"[6] From 1910 Guillot participated in drafting and disseminating L'École émancipée (The emancipated school), a weekly educational magazine published by the National Federation of Unions of male and female teachers of France and the colonies.
L'École émancipée also allowed her to popularize her ideas, particularly over the difference between salary, rank and seniority between men and women in the educational system.
In August 1914 Marie Guillot wrote to Pierre Monatte: "What frightens me more than all the carnage is the wave of hatred that always rises higher, and deflects the energy of the workers from their goal.
She was comforted by Romain Rolland's Au-dessus de la mêlée (Above the fray – September 1914), by the attitude of Pierre Monatte with whom she corresponded throughout the war, and by the pronouncements of other teachers for peace.
Marie Guillot, leader of the revolutionary syndicalist committee of Saône-et-Loire was brought before a disciplinary council in January 1921.
She was dismissed on 25 April 1921 on the grounds that "acts of revolutionary propaganda carried out by Mlle Marie Guillot are incompatible with the functions of a public teacher.
Marie Guillot was elected by 24 votes against 19 for the outgoing secretary Jean-Marie Thomas, also a teacher, and the future socialist deputy of Chalon-sur-Saône between 1928 and 1940.
At the 15th Congress of the Federation of secular education, held in Paris from 18 to 20 August 1921, Marie Guillot was elected Secretary General.
The debate focused on accession to the Internationale syndicale rouge (ISR: Red International of Labor Unions), and on the greater or lesser degree of autonomy related to this organization.
Marie Guillot, as with the postman Joseph Lartigue, took an intermediate position in the continuum of revolutionary syndicalism, while recognizing the merits of the Soviet Revolution.
Initially unplanned, Marie Guillot owed her appointment to the confederal Bureau of the CGTU to the withdrawal of her colleague Louis Bouët.
After resigning from their responsibilities within the CGTU in July 1923, Marie Guillot and her comrades arranged an Extraordinary Congress in Bourges in November 1923.