Comment décrire ce qu’on ne voit pas ? Le devoir d’hésitation des juges de proximité au travail

How to describe work when much of it cannot be observed? This study of the activities of magistrates in a “natural” situation used an ethnological approach to observe cases from registration to hearings. Special difficulties cropped up during one phase: how to observe the deliberation when the judges, after having heard the parties during the contradictory phase of a penal procedure, adjourn and, among themselves, debate the case, weighing the pros and cons, before delivering a decision? The literature usually considers this “duty to hesitate” as an essential phase. But the judges in this survey sat alone on the court. Hesitations and turnarounds might occur; but doubts, inevitably an essential part of their work, arose during a phase of deliberation with oneself that left little empirically observable evidence and did not necessarily leave memories that these judges could easily bring up. How, then, to describe the “duty of hesitation” when it evaporates as we try to observe it in actual fact? This survey's strategy for responding to this situation is presented.     

Les carrières de cadres au cœur des restructurations : la recomposition des effets de genre ? L’internationalisation d’un groupe français en Angleterre et en Hongrie

The effects of corporate restructuring on managerial careers have not often been analyzed, especially not from a gendered perspective. As two cases of mergers and acquisitions studied in England and Hungary show, new windows of opportunity might open for women's careers, but a reinforced model of “masculine-neutral” activity hardens the glass ceiling for those (in particular women) who are unable to comply with its expectations.     

Le bon,la brute et le migrant ? Le rôle négocié des acteurs religieux dans un dispositif policier d’enfermement des étrangers en Allemagne

Contrary to the French model, the German detention and deportation centre for irregular migrants that has been studied here does not allow for any third parties other than chaplains. However, their scope of action goes far beyond spiritual assistance and extends to the defence of detained aliens’ rights and political contestation of the confinement regime. The detention centre therefore brings together two professional groups, chaplains and police officers, whose goals are a priori irreconcilable. After explaining the origins of this unique juxtaposition, I will analyse here the impact of the presence of religious actors within the state confinement regime on the construction, by each group of actors, of its professional legitimacy and on the practices of assistance and control that go along with it.     

Qui recrute et comment ? L’expertise économique des professionnels de l’insertion des jeunes

How do job placement specialists acquire knowledge of the markets, and do they put it to use? At deliberative committee meetings on the funding of youth integration projects, we observed the construction of a shared representation of the workings of local-level job markets. Integration professionals develop their economic expertise primarily from two sources to which they are professionally close: the young jobseekers themselves and the vocational training professionals. The unequal distribution of economic expertise is intensified by structural differences in the capacity to put it to use for each of the deliberative stakeholders.     

Au-delà du conflit et de la négociation ?

Since the creation of Sociologie du travail, the importance and forms of conflicts and of negotiations have changed. Nor are the stakes still necessarily the same. Given the emergence of new players in public movements and of new strategies in social protest, it is worthwhile reviewing the ideas of “conflict” and “negotiation” in the light of the forms of circulation between different universes (government, labor unions, employer organizations, associations). Though a topic of debate, the law's place in labor relations has special importance with regard to these two ideas.     

Variétés de capitalisme ou entrepreneurs institutionnels? Une application aux cas de la sous‐traitance et de la formation de la main‐d'œuvre au Québec

Based on the theory of institutional entrepreneurs, this article examines the coexistence of different forms of governance within a given economic space. Since the approach based on models of capitalism does not make it possible to account for this institutional diversity on the same territory, a theoretical perspective centred on the innovative action of social actors has been used to explain such a phenomenon. Our demonstration is based on a comparative analysis of two recent cases of transformation of public labour policies in Quebec: outsourcing and labour force training. These two major contemporary employment relations issues which are part of the same environment, have brought into play the same social actors in very similar institutional frameworks and have nevertheless led to contrasting dynamics and results. The actor's autonomy, more than a model, allows us to understand the different institutional trajectories that have thus been adopted.     

La validation des acquis de l’expérience est-elle un moyen de reconnaissance du travail ?

Based on a survey conducted in 15 firms, associations or occupations where work-based experiences were being validated under the terms of a law that entered the French Labor Code in 2002, questions are raised about this process and its capacity for obtaining more recognition for the work done by wage-earners. After identifying four distinct employer rationales for implementing validation, the channels favoring the obtainment of such recognition are examined when this procedure is actually applied inside firms. Putting one's job into words is a powerful means for making it visible; and the opportunity to face colleagues is an occasion for reinforcing an occupational identity. Nonetheless, validation has little effect on pay, and what is being validated is often ambiguous. Employers’ and wage-earners’ contrasting views reveal how difficult it is to obtain recognition of the work performed. This process has opened the way to changing this in the framework of procedures negotiated, in particular, with labor unions.     

Les services à la personne,toujours dévalorisés? Analyse et classification dans une optique comparative

L'auteure compare la rémunération des travailleurs des services à la personne selon le prestige de la profession exercée dans différents pays (Canada, États‐Unis, Japon, République de Corée et Taïwan (Chine)), en s'appuyant sur des microdonnées de la Luxembourg Income Study. Elle classe ces professions selon leur degré de «fermeture sociale» et analyse la pénalité ou la prime salariale qui leur est associée dans chaque pays. Elle mesure aussi empiriquement les similarités et différences entre les États‐providence «libéraux» et ceux qui sont plutôt «développeurs productivistes», ainsi qu'au sein de ces régimes, confirmant la nette convergence internationale des services à la personne sous l'effet de la mondialisation.     

Mobiliser par l’affect : contraintes et ressources de l’encadrement intermédiaire de prestations de services peu qualifiés

Sociological studies have seldom raised questions about the concept of “distance” in managerial work. This article sheds light on the organizational determinants of a particular style of hierarchy, one which mobilizes subordinates by using affects and calls for strong investment in relationships. The relational and affective distance with subordinates proves to be a resource in contexts where management's work is subject to a dense set of constraints. The conditions are exposed under which this “relational work” becomes a burden and leads to standing aloof from subordinates, in particular by disparaging them. This analysis of middle management in the reception service industry in France is extended to other businesses providing relatively unskilled services. It shows how the provision of such services to firms favors the emergence of this style of staff relations.     

Déréglementation du marché du travail versus gains de productivité? Analyse des données de vingt pays de l'OCDE (1960–2004)

L'estimation économétrique montre que la modération salariale et la diminution de la part du travail dans le revenu national réduisent la croissance de la productivité du travail. Ainsi, les réformes du marché du travail dictées par l'offre contribuent à réduire les gains de productivité, ce qui ne peut s'expliquer par l'afflux de main‐d'?uvre faiblement productive, comme l'avance l'OCDE. En outre, déréglementation, licenciements facilités et rotation accélérée de la main‐d'?uvre freinent l'apprentissage et l'accumulation des connaissances dans les entreprises, ainsi que le modèle «routinier» d'innovation, dit «Schumpeter II». Enfin, la pertinence des lois de Baumol et Verdoorn est remise en question.     

Amalgame et construction de l'Autre. Amalgame envers les minorités nationales et les minorités immigrées

Is it legitimate to establish a similarity of situation between migrants, and their descendants, and national minorities in a national territory, whether ethnic, cultural or religious? Both populations seem to be perceived in a comparable way by the majorities in power though they themselves may be plural in their composition. Accordingly some nation states create categories among the population, while others consider the law as universal for all. However, similar attitudes towards the other are developing based on psychological traits and with a socio-economic basis more often than not for political reasons. The ‘amalgam’ towards the Other depends on the meeting spot where real and forged identities meet. In the field there also function various levels of increasing mutual corresponding exclusions/rejections. Political utilitarianism is most clever in exploiting ‘amalgam’ to meet its own rallying views, the most obvious aspect being religious, whether openly developed or not. In spite of the clear danger of connecting worldwide places, a transverse study would enable one to bring into perspective similar phenomena all the more within their linkages.     

L'Organisation internationale du Travail et le travail pénitentiaire: une invitation à changer de paradigme

Les auteurs reviennent sur la vision normative de l'OIT concernant le travail pénitentiaire, qu'ils jugent déconnectée de la réalité des prisons, où l'on constate un foisonnement de formes hybrides de travail des détenus, mêlant secteur public et secteur privé. Ils décrivent les controverses qui entourent la position de l'OIT, à l'heure où les États Membres pressent l'Organisation d'assouplir une vision dichotomique, toujours plus contestée. L'article montre les risques auxquels l'OIT s'expose si elle devait camper sur ses positions, mais aussi si elle adoptait la position défendue par certains de ses États Membres. Les auteurs proposent deux options permettant de dépasser ces positions antagonistes.     

La norme ISO 45001 et les controverses autour de la régulation transnationale privée de la sécurité et de la santé au travail

Les auteurs analysent la genèse de la norme ISO 45001 sur la sécurité et la santé au travail, une initiative de régulation transnationale privée. Ils décrivent les controverses qui ont surgi à cette occasion, en se fondant sur des entretiens avec des personnes associées à l'élaboration, l'approbation et la diffusion initiale du texte, ainsi que sur une analyse qualitative des documents internes au comité chargé de sa finalisation. À l'instar de normes précédentes sur l'environnement – ISO 14001 – et la responsabilité sociale des entreprises – ISO 26000 –, ce nouvel instrument suscite de vives préoccupations, car il traite de questions politiques, sociales et juridiques déterminantes.     

Le métier de conseiller d’insertion et de probation : dans les coulisses de l’État pénal ?

This study of the changing profession of “counselors of integration and probation” (conseillers d’insertion et de probation, Cip) proposes a sociology of occupational groups that takes into account both statutory and moral considerations. Turning social services in prisons into a “penitentiary service of integration and probation” has involved professionalization, “juridicization” (with a shift from social work to the field of law) as well as a switch from a “compassionate” toward a “repressive” pole of interventions. Based on a survey conducted in prison, this study of work situations and conflicts helps us formulate the problems of ruptures and continuities in relation to both these employees’ individual trajectories and the institutional framework of their actions. This case study of Cip, an occupational group seen herein as a litmus test of what the penal institution does to persons under a court order, enables us to imagine an ethnography of the “state in acts”.     

Le salaire de la sueur : un éclairage socio-historique sur la lutte anti-sweatshop

The social history of the fight against sweatshops sheds light on the current movement for corporate social responsibility. Assigning the head of a chain of subcontractors the responsibility for seeing to the well-being of those in the chain's last link is not contemporaneous with present-day globalization and North/South relations. Since the sweatshop system emerged during the 19th century, those who defend workers have pointed a finger at those who profit from exploiting labor even though they do not exercise direct coercion on workers. As this historical analysis emphasizes, the problem of poor working conditions found, in other contexts, solutions that (partially) avoided holding the principal to be liable; but what characterizes the fight against sweatshops in the context of globalization is its nearly exclusive focus on bringing pressure to bear on the principal at the head of the chain.     

Why were the 1980s “millenarian”? Style,repertoire, space and authority in South Africa’s black cities

This paper argues that some of the key determinants of the style and repertoire of the South African township revolts of the mid-eighties lie in the changing configurations of race, class and authority within townships over a long period of time. One major and pivotal change in these relationships is identified, and the paper employs ideal-typical constructions of the nature of townships in the two crucial eras concerned: what could broadly be described as the era of "welfare paternalism" and succeeding it after a period of complex change, the equally broadly characterized era of "racial modernism". Though both eras were racist, exploitative, and engendered class and community struggles they differed from one another in important stylistic and spatial ways. This paper suggests that the move from the one era to the other constitutes the move from a mode of "governability" to one of "ungovernability", and highlights the form, repertoire and style of rebellion.     

Les producteurs roumains de l’habillement à la recherche de clients : une analyse sociologique des rencontres d’affaires

This article analyzes business encounters in the garment industry of post-communist Romania. It shows how the structural uncertainty that characterizes the “transition” from a planned economy to a market economy forces the choice of Romanian manufacturers, particularly in terms of clientele. Thus, in the early 1990s, these actors were mostly caught up in figuring out their short-term profits, and their ability to get a firm foothold in the market was seriously challenged. However, many of the bifurcations experienced by individual manufacturers paradoxically participated in stabilizing (at least temporarily) a way of doing business in that industry: the “choice” of international outsourcing became the only possible reasonable choice during the “transition”.