until 1880, when French metallurgy was in crisis, that the Comité des forges began to meet regularly. In 1886 it voted to undertake a program to regulate production and markets. Components included an allocation to each member of part of the domestic market, a uniform way to classify and price iron and steel, penalties for over-production and a fund to encourage exports. The Comité des Forges reorganized itself under the new law on syndicats in 1887, and gave itself a constitution. It was democratic in theory, but in practice the largest companies had control. The Board of Directors (Commission de direction) had wide powers and disposed of the sizeable central funds. In 1891 representatives of the Comité des forges gave full support for the risque professionnel principle under which the employers should pay for insurance of victims of workplace accidents, with benefit amounts to be defined by law. After the moderate Méline tariff of 1892 effectively shut out foreign competition from the French steel market, the Comité des forges evolved into an efficient moderate lobbying organization with full-time employees and direct access to senior civil servants and politicians. It participated in legislative decisions and in drafting bills. In 1896 Maurice (Henri?) Pinget was secretary of the Comité des forges and Baron René Reille, a Deputy, was President. Henri Schneider of Creusot was vice-president. After Reille's death in 1898 Robert de Wendel was elected president after some resistance. He owned properties in France and Lorraine, then part of Germany, and this raised some questions. Robert Pinot was appointed secretary general in 1904. The Comité des Forges had become dormant, but Pinot soon brought it back to being the leading heavy industry organization. From 1906 to 1910 the Comité des forges was active in shaping the laws that gave workers a weekly day of rest, ensuring the regulations recognized that workers had to operate blast furnaces that ran around the clock seven days a week. During debates over tariffs in 1909–10 Pinot argued for protection on the basis of the importance of the iron and steel industry to national defense and the difficulty it faced in competing with foreign firms that had lower costs and greater access to skilled labor. The Comité des forges included engineering firms that purchased steel and were not in favor of high duties, but Pinot managed to maintain solidarity through a complex system of cartels and syndicates.