2024

Experimenting for Union Renewal: Challenges, Illustrations and Lessons

Mélanie Laroche (Université de Montréal) & Gregor Murray (Université de Montréal)

ETUI, 246 p. (ISBN : 978.2.87452.717.3)

[Livre en anglais] Trade unions across the globe face a range of disruptions that are destabilising traditional structures, practices and strategies. This book sets out a novel approach centred on experimentation in response to these disruptions. Drawing on in-depth analysis of cases of union innovation in a broad selection of countries and industries, a stellar cast of researchers report on and draw lessons from these renewal initiatives. Aggregating these experiments enables us to identify a number of rich, cross-disciplinary findings to support such initiatives.

Initial chapters set out the approach and provide an overview of the eighteen case studies. Subsequent sections group the cases thematically: contending with neoliberalism, the fissured gig economy, value chain initiatives between South and North, an expanding trade union agenda, pursuing innovations in union repertoires and methods, and developing new forms of inclusion and solidarity. The case studies cover a wide geographical spread, from emerging economies in Africa, Asia and Latin America, to cases in Europe, North America and Australia. To ensure accessibility for both trade unionists and researchers, and to facilitate cross-case comparisons, the case studies use a common template.

The final chapter draws out practical lessons in relation to the strategic capabilities required to engage in experimentation, the diversification and enlargement of union strategic repertoires, and the conditions of success for such experimentation. These cases of experimentation indicate that the fundamentals of union purpose and the promotion of better work remain as important as ever, but they are under challenge. The lens of experimentation offers a practical approach, exploring multiple dimensions of worker and union creativity and resilience with a view to stimulating, monitoring and further developing the processes of renewal under way.

La version numérique (PDF) de cet ouvrage est accessible gratuitement sur le site de l’ETUI.

2024

Not All Fun and Games. Videogame Labour, Project-based Workplaces, and the New Citizenship at Work

Marie-Josée Legault (Université TÉLUQ) & Johanna Weststar (Western University)

Concordia University Press, 408 p. (ISBN : 978.1.98811.149.0)

[Livre en anglais] Motivated by the goal of understanding the labour conditions of workers in the videogame industry and their participatory power to create decent work, Not All Fun and Games is a critical examination of a global entertainment juggernaut with revenues that top film, television, and music production combined. Jobs in the industry are heralded as the vanguard of the new economy, governments offer lucrative tax credits to lure game studios to their regions, and game developers often express commitment and passion for their work. Yet, the industry is also known for its toxic workplaces.

To understand these disparities and gain insight into twenty-first-century labour conditions, Marie-Josée Legault and Johanna Weststar have carried out a comprehensive mixed-methods study of the North American industry over the past fifteen years. They combine detailed survey data from thousands of game developers with over one hundred qualitative interviews to systematically reveal labour issues such as precarity, lack of workforce diversity, unpredictable schedules, unpaid overtime, low unionization rates, worker burnout, and significant pay inequality. 

Updating the theoretical concept of citizenship at work, the authors connect these labour issues to a fundamental lack of voice and representation in the workplace. They determine that videogame workers and others in contemporary project-based work environments lack agency in regulating their work and lack fundamental protections. Not All Fun and Games comprehensively documents conditions in the North American industry and highlights ways to counter workers’ lack of voice and representation in their workplaces to better create healthy, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. 

2024

Property, Power and Human Rights. Lived Universalism In and Through the Margins

Laura Dehaibi (Université Laval)

Edward Elgar Publishing, 282 p. (ISBN : 978.1.03531.390.7)

[Livre en anglais] Through deconstructing the right to property, this incisive book critically assesses the claim that international human rights law is universal. Laura Dehaibi presents an innovative bottom-up and dialogical approach to human rights, lived universalism, that draws on lived experience in the margins to give rights a subversive and emancipatory meaning.

2023

Hé patron! Pour une révolution dans l’entreprise

David Hackett, Miranda Richmond Mouillot, Isabelle Ferreras et Team Endicott

Seuil, 416 p. (EAN : 978.2.021469.530)

Vous travaillez pour quelqu’un ? Quelqu’un travaille pour vous ? Comment ça se passe au travail ? Dans la vie de tous les jours, nous sommes censés librement tout prendre en main : nos carrières, nos relations, notre alimentation, nos états d’âme et tant d’autres choses. Dans nos démocraties, menacées, nous avons cependant les moyens de peser sur nos destins, tant individuels que collectifs. Nous déposons des bulletins de vote dans les urnes, sollicitons nos mairies et nos écoles pour faire bouger les choses, signons des pétitions ou organisons des manifestations pour faire changer la loi, menons campagne pour nos élues et élus préférés. Bref, nous prétendons avoir quelque chose à dire sur le cadre de notre existence.

Pourtant, c’est une toute autre expérience dans le monde de l’entreprise. Les entreprises nous promettent du changement, de l’amélioration, du progrès… mais qui y détient le pouvoir de décider ? Que l’on travaille pour elles ou qu’elles travaillent pour nous, les entreprises – et plus précisément leurs dirigeants et leurs actionnaires – prennent des décisions qui nous touchent à chaque moment de notre vie… sans nous demander notre avis. Leur pouvoir est immense alors que notre statut de citoyen s’arrête aux portes de l’entreprise. Est-ce que cela nous convient vraiment ? Il est clair que non. Alors que faire ?

L’enjeu de ce livre est que la démocratie s’exerce bel et bien dans les entreprises. Cette BD idéaliste et remarquablement informée prend appui sur les réflexions collectives d’un groupe de chercheuses et de chercheurs issus des meilleures universités mondiales, ce qui lui confère toute sa solidité intellectuelle. Étudiant, militant, citoyen, entrepreneur, actionnaire ou manager – ou tout simplement lecteur ou lectrice intéressée par le monde de l’entreprise –, ce livre est pour vous !

2023

Les droits et libertés du salarié à travers le prisme de la relation d’emploi

Sébastien Parent (Université Laval)

Wilson & Lafleur, 482 p. (ISBN : 978.2.89689.627.1)

Le statut prééminent de la Charte québécoise devait permettre au salarié de faire pleinement usage de ses droits fondamentaux en milieu de travail. En raison de leur formulation en termes généraux et abstraits, l’application concrète des droits de la personne dans la relation d’emploi nécessite toutefois l’interprétation du juge. L’étude des décisions interprétant la liberté d’expression et le droit à la vie privée des salariés au cours de la dernière décennie révèle que les décideurs mobilisent les sources du droit du travail pour poser des conditions à l’exercice de ces garanties par le salarié et pour justifier de nombreuses restrictions imposées par l’employeur.

Cet ouvrage propose ainsi d’analyser l’effet réducteur considérable du droit commun régissant le contrat de travail, des lois de l’emploi, des clauses du contrat individuel ou collectif de travail, des règlements d’entreprise et des droits de direction sur la portée des droits et libertés en cause. Un tel renversement de la hiérarchie des normes entraîne inévitablement des conséquences importantes sur la cohérence du système juridique et pour la protection des salariés. Une démarche et des pistes de solution sont finalement proposées afin de favoriser l’épanouissement des droits de la personne au travail et la réconciliation des statuts de salarié et de personne humaine.

Sébastien Parent est professeur en droit du travail au Département des relations industrielles de l’Université Laval, cochercheur au Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail (CRIMT) et avocat, membre du Barreau du Québec. Il est docteur en droit, diplômé de la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Montréal. Sa thèse de doctorat présentée dans cet ouvrage a reçu la plus haute mention, étant qualifiée d’exceptionnelle par les membres du jury d’évaluation. Elle est également récipiendaire du prix Henri Capitant 2023 décerné à la meilleure thèse en droit privé au Québec.

2023

Trade Unions in the European Union. Picking up the pieces of the neoliberal challenge

Jeremy Waddington (Ed.), Torsten Müller (Ed.) & Kurt Vandaele (Ed.)

Peter Lang, Work and Society, Volume 86, 1184 p. (ISBN : 978.2.8757.4635.1)

[Livre en anglais] How do Trade unions have repeatedly been challenged by neoliberal programmes implemented within Member States of the European Union (EU) and at the European level.

The twentyseven country chapters at the core of this book chart the features of the neoliberal challenge in the EU Member States and the measures implemented by unions in their attempts to adapt to changed circumstances since 2000. It is clear that union activity, either independently or in conjunction with allies, will be at the centre of revitalization campaigns if the pieces left from the neoliberal challenges are to be picked up and wielded into a coherent response.

This book offers a comprehensive comparative overview of the development, structure, and policies of national trade union movements in the EU. It presents an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing these organizations and their strategic and policy responses from 2000 to 2020.

2022

Marketization. How Capitalist Exchange Disciplines Workers and Subverts Democracy

Ian Greer (ILR School, Cornell University) & Charles Umney (Leeds University)

Bloomsbury Publishing, 192 p. (ISBN : 978.1.9134.4146.3)

[Livre en anglais] How do markets function? Who creates, shapes and organizes them? And what do they mean for the relationship between labor and capital?

Marketization examines how the state and capital use markets to discipline the working class. Ian Greer and Charles Umney provide a comprehensive overview of the European political economy, from the European Commission to the workplace, to show how neoliberal principles translate into market mechanisms and reshape the lives of workers.

Drawing on dozens of conversations with policymakers, administrators, businesses, workers, and trade unionists across many European countries, Greer and Umney unpack marketization. They go beyond liberal theories that see markets as natural forms of economic organization and broad-brush left critiques of neoliberalism, looking behind the scenes in the current European political economy to examine the practicalities of how markets are created and manipulated by employers, policymakers and bureaucrats in pursuit of greater profitability. Far from leading to greater freedom, these processes often override the rights of individuals, degrade the status and security of workers, and undermine democratic accountability.

2022

La recherche empirique en droit : méthodes et pratiques

Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau (Université de Montréal), Emmanuelle Bernheim (UQAM)

Les Éditions Thémis, 336 p. (ISBN : 978.2.89400.413.5)

Livre disponible en libre accès

En sciences sociales et humaines, le recours à la recherche empirique et la recherche de terrain, que celles-ci soient de nature qualitative ou quantitative, va de soi. En science juridique, ces méthodes de recherche demeurent peu utilisées et leurs pratiques, peu documentée. Pourtant, pour rendre compte de l’articulation entre le droit et les activités sociales, la diversification des méthodes de recherche est un allié précieux, voire indispensable.

Or, les juristes souhaitant explorer de telles pratiques de recherche sont susceptible de fare face à plusieurs interrogations pratiques: Comment parvenir à élaborer une problématique de recherche dont le point de départ n’est pas nécessairement la norme juridique et son application par les autorités chargées de sa mise en œuvre? Comment recourir à certaines sources formelles du droit, comme la jurisprudence, autrement que dans une perspective exégétique? Pourquoi et dans quelles circonstances convient-il de recourir à une méthodologie qualitative ou quantitative ? À quelles fins et avec quels partenaires fait-on de le recherche empirique?

L’objectif de cet ouvrage est de rendre des défis, limites et potentialités de ces pratiques dans le champ juridique.

2022

D’invisibles à héroïnes : élever la voix des femmes pour un monde meilleur

Catherine Le Capitaine (Université Laval)

LES EDITIONS JFD, 182 p. (ISBN : 978.2.8979.9144.9)

Le tourbillon de la vie quotidienne vous submerge. La dernière fois où vous avez eu l’occasion de prendre soin de vous remonte à la nuit des temps. Le syndrome de l’imposteur vous hante. Vous connaissez la violence, le harcèlement ou les propos déplacés. Vous recevez un salaire moindre que votre collègue qui effectue le même travail que vous. Vos compétences ne sont pas reconnues à leur juste valeur même si vous empiétez sur vos heures de sommeil pour bien préparer vos dossiers.

Vous reconnaissez-vous dans l’une ou l’autre de ces situations ? Si oui, c’est sans doute parce que vous êtes une femme. Même si les femmes composent la moitié de l’humanité, elles sont nombreuses à être demeurées invisibles au fil de l’histoire. Prisonnières du chaos de la société masculinisée et sommées d’exceller dans toutes les sphères de leur vie, les femmes ont à traverser vents et marées pour réaliser leurs rêves et pour prendre leur place dans la société et au travail.

Je vous partage ce que j’aurais tant aimé savoir plus tôt dans ma vie, pour mieux me connaître en tant que femme. Naviguant entre les inégalités persistantes et les avancées remarquables, ce livre, accessible à toutes et à tous, vous transporte dans un voyage au coeur de multiples facettes du vécu des femmes dans la société, de la préhistoire à aujourd’hui. Le féminisme et ses alliés, les stéréotypes, la grossophobie, la place des femmes dans le monde du travail, la charge mentale, l’équilibre de vie entre la vie personnelle et la vie professionnelle, la violence et les féminicides, les femmes dans les milieux traditionnellement masculins, la conciliation travail-cycle menstruel, la ménopause, l’esclavage moderne, l’entrepreneuriat, l’intersectionnalité, le rire et l’intelligence spirituelle au féminin ne sont que quelques-uns des thèmes que je démystifie. L’unicité et la contribution de chaque femme sont mises à l’honneur, des sorcières aux fondatrices de notre nation, féministes, immigrantes, femmes autochtones, inventrices, travailleuses, entrepreneures, mères, proches aidantes et bien d’autres. Et si ces héroïnes de tous les jours portaient l’espoir d’une société meilleure ? Et si votre voix participait à redéfinir une société et des milieux de travail plus justes, plus humains, plus conscients et plus connectés avec la vie des femmes ?

Puisse ce livre inspirer les femmes à éveiller la puissance qui sommeille en elles pour changer le monde, jour après jour.

2022

Exit, Voice, and Solidarity. Contesting Precarity in the US and European Telecommunications Industries

Virginia Doellgast (Cornell University)

Oxford University Press, 304 p. (ISBN : 978.0.1976.5978.6)

[Livre en anglais] Downsizing, outsourcing, and intensifying performance management have become common features of corporate restructuring. They have also helped to drive up job insecurity and inequality. Under what conditions do companies take alternative approaches to restructuring that balance market demands for profits with social demands for high quality jobs? In Exit, Voice, and Solidarity, Doellgast compares strategies to reorganize service jobs in the US and European telecommunications industry. 

Market liberalization and shareholder pressure pushed employers to adopt often draconian cost cutting measures, while labor unions pushed back with creative collective bargaining and organizing campaigns. Their success depended on the intersection of three factors: constraints on employer exit, support for collective worker voice, and strategies of inclusive labor solidarity. Together, these proved to be crucial sources of worker power in fights to keep high quality jobs within core employers, while extending decent pay and conditions across increasingly complex networks of subsidiaries, subcontractors, temporary agencies. Based on the findings of ten case studies of incumbent telecom companies in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, UK, US, Czech Republic, and Poland, this book provides an original framework in restructuring strategies and outcomes.

2022

Trade Unions and Regions. Better Work, Experimentation, and Regional Governance

Christian Lévesque (HEC Montréal), Peter Fairbrother (University of Tasmania), Blandine Emilien (UQAM), María C. González (University of Oviedo), Lucie Morissette (FTQ/HEC Montréal) (Eds.)

Routledge, 226 p. (ISBN : 978.0.3673.7012.1)

[Livre en anglais] Trade Unions and Regions: Better Work, Experimentation, and Regional Governance is about the place of workers and their unions in the modern world. It addresses current challenges for unions working in regions and the experiments that may take place at this level of governance.

The book addresses pressing questions concerned with the conditions for better work and a humane society. The focus is on the capacities of unions to address questions relating to regional governance, in both supranational and sub-national regions. It examines workers and their unions in a variety of contexts: multinationals, industries, workplaces, and communities. The authors address the experiments that can be initiated by unions, governments, or employers and the ways in which collective organisations engage to address these matters in regional contexts. The analysis takes as a starting point the fracturing and divisions evident in various regions, in Australia, Canada, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and USA. The contributors propose novel analyses with lessons for unions. It should be of interest to union activists and leaders, political parties, governments, and those who make decisions in and about regions.

Researchers and students of labour markets, political mobilisation, and employment relations will take the analyses further.

2022

Canadian Labour Policy and Politics

John Peters (CRIMT-UdeM / BlueGreen Ideas / Carleton University), Don Wells (McMaster University)

UBC Press, 216 p. (ISBN : 978.0.7748.6605.7)

[Livre en anglais] Low-wage work and precarious employment are among the most urgent issues of our time. Canadian Labour Policy and Politics serves as essential reading for undergraduates who need to understand the politics of inequality in Canada’s labour market. This comprehensive textbook traces the rise of these pressing problems, reveals the resulting inequalities, and outlines the solutions for a sustainable future.

Written by leading experts and practitioners, the text demonstrates how and why laws and public policy – intended to protect workers – often leave workers vulnerable with little economic or social security. Based on up-to-date data and international comparisons, chapters provide readers with real-world examples and case studies of how globalization, labour laws, employment standards, COVID-19, and other challenges affect workers on and off the job.

Canadian Labour Policy and Politics also engages students in defining a far-reaching policy agenda for developing greater economic equality, political inclusiveness, and a green recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Accessible and clearly written, it is a must-read for students as well as researchers, practitioners, activists, and policymakers. Key features include chapter summaries and outlines, suggestions for further reading, and glossaries.

Students and scholars of Canadian politics and public policy, labour studies, political economy, and sociology will find this an invaluable addition to their bookshelves. The volume is a core text for second-, third-, and fourth-year level university labour and inequality courses. The fresh and insightful overview of Canada’s labour market and policies will also be essential reading for government policymakers, NGO representatives, union researchers and practitioners, and journalists.

2022

Jobs with Inequality: Financialization, Post-Democracy, and Labour Market Deregulation in Canada

John Peters (CRIMT-UdeM / BlueGreen Ideas / Carleton University)

Toronto University Press, 480 p. (ISBN : 978.1.4426.4619.3)

[Livre en anglais] Income inequality has skyrocketed in Canada over the past decades. The rich have become richer, while the average household income has deteriorated and job quality, plummeted. Common explanations for these trends point to globalization, technology, or other forces largely beyond our control. But as Jobs with Inequality shows, there is nothing inevitable about inequality.

Rather, runaway inequality is the result of politics and policies, and what governments have done to aid the rich and boost finance, and what has not done to uphold the interests of workers.

Drawing on new tax and income data, John Peters tells the story of how inequality is unfolding in Canada today by examining post-democracy, financialization, and labour market deregulation. Timely and novel, the book explains how and why business and government have rewritten the rules of the economy to the advantage of the few, and considers why progressive efforts to reverse these trends have so regularly run aground.

2022

Contemporary Employers’ Organizations. Adaptation and Resilience

John Peters (CRIMT-UdeM / BlueGreen Ideas / Carleton University)

Routledge, 296 p. (ISBN : 978.1.0031.0457.5)

[Livre en anglais] This book argues that employers’ organizations are resilient organizations that adapt to changing circumstances by developing new practices. Adaptation has been prompted by changing economic and social contexts, including state interventions and union activities. Contexts vary over time, across countries and world regions. The purpose of the book is to explore these variations and their impacts on employer organization.

The book covers the following themes across four book sections: theoretical perspectives on employer collective action; employers’ organizations in different types of capitalism; different types of employers’ organizations; and international and comparative employer interest representation. Theoretical explorations examining employer power, political preferences, meta-organizing, and ideological foundations are complemented by studies of employers’ organization in China, Denmark, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Canada, and the UK. Different types such as regional and international employers’ organizations are also examined. The book is one of the few edited volumes to examine employer collective action within work and employment, and is the first since 1984 to consider western and non-western contexts.

The book will be of interest to employment relations and sociology of work researchers, scholars, advanced students, and practitioners as it brings new perspectives to an understudied actor in employment relations: employers’ organizations.

2022

Democratize Work. The Case for Reorganizing the Economy

Isabelle Ferreras (UCLouvain), Julie Battilana (Harvard Business School), Dominique Méda (IRISSO, Université Paris-Dauphine)

The University of Chicago Press, 168 p. (ISBN : 978.0.2268.1962.4)

[Livre en anglais] An urgent and deeply resonant case for the power of workplace democracy to restore balance between economy and society.

What happens to a society—and a planet—when capitalism outgrows democracy? The tensions between democracy and capitalism are longstanding, and they have been laid bare by the social effects of COVID-19. The narrative of “essential workers” has provided thin cover for the fact that society’s lowest paid and least empowered continue to work risky jobs that keep our capitalism humming. Democracy has been subjugated by the demands of capitalism. For many, work has become unfair.

In Democratize Work, essays from a dozen social scientists—all women—articulate the perils and frustrations of our collective moment, while also framing the current crisis as an opportunity for renewal and transformation. Amid mounting inequalities tied to race, gender, and class—and with huge implications for the ecological fate of the planet—the authors detail how adjustments in how we organize work can lead to sweeping reconciliation. By treating workers as citizens, treating work as something other than an asset, and treating the planet as something to be cared for, a better way is attainable. Building on cross-disciplinary research, Democratize Work is both a rallying cry and an architecture for a sustainable economy that fits the democratic project of our societies.

Contributors include Alyssa Battistoni (Barnard College of Columbia University), Adelle Blackett (McGill University), Julia Cagé (Sciences Po), Neera Chandhoke (University of Delhi), Lisa Herzog (University of Groningen), Imge Kaya Sabanci (IE Business School), Sara Lafuente (European Trade Union Institute), Hélène Landemore (Yale University), Flávia Máximo (Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Brazil), and Pavlina R. Tcherneva (Levy Economics Institute of Bard College).

2021

A Modern Guide To Labour and the Platform Economy

Jan Drahokoupil (ETUI) & Kurt Vandaele (ETUI)

Edward Elgar Publishing, 384 p. (ISBN : 978.1.78897.509.4)

Providing an insightful analysis of the key issues and significant trends relating to labour within the platform economy, this Modern Guide considers the existing comparative evidence covering all world regions. It also provides an in-depth look at digital labour platforms in their historical, economic and geographical contexts.

Highlighting the diversity of experience of platform work, case studies illustrate how general trends play out, both in online and location-based labour platforms, across the globe. Chapters illustrate a need for a post-pandemic regulatory requirement of digital labour platforms at different policy levels, whilst providing a general overview of key topics. Interlinking contributions with a global scope and coverage identify the challenges faced and offer thoughtful regulatory solutions.

This engaging book will be an invaluable resource for academics of labour economics, legal and business studies and sociology. It will also benefit policy makers in social and political geography and political science looking for a deeper understanding of the topic.

2021

Revaluing Work(ers): Toward a Democratic and Sustainable Future

Tobias Schulze-Cleven (Rutgers University), Todd E. Vachon (Rutgers University) (Eds.)

Cornell University Press, 336 p. (ISBN : 978.0.9134.4722.2)

How can we build a future of work that meets pressing challenges and delivers for workers? Contemporary societies are beset by interrelated ecological, political, and economic crises, from climate change to democratic erosion and economic instability. Uncertainty abounds about the sustainability of democratic capitalism. Yet mainstream debates on the evolution of work tend to remain narrowly circumscribed, exhibiting both technological and market determinism.

This volume presents a labor studies perspective on the future of work, arguing that revaluing work—the efforts and contributions of workers—is crucial to realizing the promises of democracy and improving sustainability. It emphasizes that collective political action, and the collective agency of workers in particular, is central to driving this agenda forward. Moreover, it maintains that reproductive work—labor efforts from care to education that sustain the reproduction of society—can function as a crucible of innovation for the valuation and governance of work more broadly.

Contributors: Robert Bruno, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; J. Mijin Cha, Occidental College; Dorothy Sue Cobble, Rutgers University; Sheri Davis-Faulkner, Rutgers University; Victor G. Devinatz, Illinois State University; Alysa Hannon, Rutgers University; William A. Herbert, Hunter College; David C. Jacobs, American University; John McCarthy, Cornell University; Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University; Heather A. McKay, Rutgers University; Michael Merrill, Hudson County Central Labor Council; Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, Rutgers University; Saul A. Rubinstein, Rutgers University; Erica Smiley, Jobs With Justice; Marilyn Sneiderman, Rutgers University; Joseph van der Naald, City University of New York; Michell Van Noy, Rutgers University; Naomi R Williams, Rutgers University; Joel S. Yudken, High Road Strategies LLC; Elaine Zundl, Harvard Kennedy School

2021

Aux bons soins du capitalisme. Le coaching en entreprise

Scarlett Salman (IRISSO – Université Paris-Dauphine)

Presses de Sciences Po, 320 p. (ISBN : 978.272.46.3765.6)

Cette enquête au long cours sur le coaching, qui croise les témoignages de coachs, de DRH et de cadres, s’interroge sur le « nouvel esprit » d’un capitalisme qui tend à ériger l’individu, et même la personne, en projet. Au risque de décharger les entreprises de leurs responsabilités organisationnelles.

Des salariés heureux sont des salariés efficaces. Sur ce credo, toute une panoplie de discours et de pratiques se sont introduits dans les entreprises depuis une vingtaine d’années : conseils de psys aux managers et aux dirigeants, formations au « management bienveillant », apparition de Chief happiness officers, séances de méditation pour conjurer le stress au travail, etc.

Au coeur de cette évolution, une nouvelle activité suscite les vocations : le coaching. Ses interventions, orchestrées par des services RH convertis aux idées de développement personnel, restent entourées d’un certain mystère. Le coaching est-il le symbole d’un capitalisme à visage humain ou au contraire l’agent d’une injonction managériale au bien-être et à l’optimisation de soi ?

2021

Justice in the Workplace. Overcoming Ethical Dilemmas

Matthieu de Nanteuil (UCLouvain)

Edward Edgar Publishing, 224 p. (ISBN : 978.1.80037.3419)

Ce livre propose de réfléchir aux nouveaux défis de la justice sociale dans le monde du travail. S’inscrivant dans une perspective de long terme, il s’intéresse aux conflits de valeur (« dilemmes éthiques ») dans les organisations contemporaines. Il montre que ce n’est pas tant l’existence de conflits de valeur qui pose problème que l’absence de cadres de justice permettant aux acteurs de les surmonter, sans renoncer à leurs valeurs profondes.

Toutefois – et ceci est crucial – ces cadres de justice sont pluriels. A travers une série d’études de cas, l’auteur met ces cadres de justice à l’épreuve de la réalité du travail et montre qu’il n’y pas de réponse universelle. Original et engagé, ce livre intéressera les spécialistes de politique sociale ou d’éthique professionnelle, de sociologie du travail ou de théorie sociale, mais aussi toutes celles et tous ceux pour qui la dimension humaine du travail est essentielle (dirigeants et dirigeants, cadres, syndicalistes, spécialistes de GRH, travailleuses et travailleurs, etc.).

[Téléchargez le premier chapitre]

2021

Individualising Risk. Paid Care Work in the New Gig Economy

Fiona MacDonald (RMIT)

Palgrave Macmillan, 223 p. (ISBN : 978.981.33.6365.6)

This book investigates how paid care work and employment are being transformed by policies of social care individualisation in the context of new gig economies of care. Drawing on a case study of the creation of a new individualised care market under Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme the book provides important insights into possible futures for social care employment where care is treated as an individual consumer service. Bringing together sociological, political science and socio-legal approaches the book demonstrates how, in individualised care markets and with ineffective labour laws, risks of business and employment are devolved to frontline care workers. The book argues for an urgent re-evaluation of current policy approaches to care and for new regulatory approaches to protect workers in diverse forms of employment.

2021

Un regard contemporain sur les relations du travail dans les secteurs public et parapublic québécois

Jean-Noël Grenier (Université Laval), François Bolduc (Université Laval)

Presses de l’Université Laval, 128 p. (ISBN : 978.2.7637.3390.6)

Comment le régime de relations de travail facilite-t-il l’implantation d’un modèle de gestion et d’organisation du travail influencé par le courant du nouveau management public ?

Depuis une trentaine d’années, les services et les secteurs publics occidentaux sont l’objet de réformes inspirées par la nouvelle gestion publique. L’administration publique québécoise ne fait pas exception. Dans ce contexte, cet ouvrage cherche à saisir l’influence de la nouvelle gestion publique sur le régime de négociation collective propre au secteur public et parapublic québécois. Après une description des principales caractéristiques de ce régime, ainsi que des fondements de la nouvelle gestion publique, l’attention est portée sur la négociation collective dans les secteurs de la fonction publique, de la santé et des services sociaux et de l’éducation. L’analyse permet de réfléchir à l’influence du régime de négociation collective sur la capacité de l’État à imposer ses volontés en matière d’organisation du travail et de modes de gestion, et sur la capacité des organisations syndicales à y faire face.

2020

The Political Economy of Work in the Global South

Anita Hammer (University of Essex), Adam Fishwick (De Montfort University)

Red Globe Press, 306 p. (ISBN: 978.1.352.00976.7)

[Livre en anglais] Part of the Critical Perspectives on Work and Employment series, this edited collection brings together contributions from leading international scholars to initiate an important dialogue between labour process analysis and scholarship on work in the Global South. This book characterises the forms of work and labour process that characterise globalising capitalism today and addresses core analytical concerns within Labour Process Theory and research on work in the South. It explores how a wide range of production relations in the Global South, ranging from formal to informal employment and self-employment, are embedded in wider social relations of gender, caste, religion and ethnicity, and are related to wider patterns of commodification and resistance. Drawing on cutting-edge research, the book’s chapters consider a diverse range of working situations, covering migrant workers in the Middle East, commercial surrogacy work in India and cooperative garment workers in Argentina.

In offering a novel reading of the political economy of work in the Global South and shedding light on lesser-considered fields of work and worker organization, this volume will provide new insights for making sense of the changing world of work for students, scholars, labour activists and practitioners alike.

2020

Intelligence artificielle, gestion du personnel et droit du travail

Patrice Adam (Université de Lorraine), Martine Le Friant (Université d’Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse), Yasmine Tarasewicz (Avocate associée) (Eds.)

Dalloz, 252 p. (ISBN: 978.2.247.19608.1)

L’intelligence artificielle (IA) modifie, imprègne, modèle le monde. À cette révolution, l’entreprise n’échappe pas. Elle en est même l’un des principaux lieux. Et si l’IA s’intègre déjà, de différentes manières et à différents niveaux, dans le fonctionnement des organisations productives, elle est aussi facteur possible d’une transformation radicale de la gestion des «ressources humaines».L’avènement d’un manager numérique, à corps de big data et àtête d’algorithmes, suscite craintes et espoirs.

Pour certains, il annonce un monde où l’objectivité triomphera enfin de la subjectivité humaine et des biais cognitifs qui lui sont attachés, où le jeu de la rationalité évacuera les passions et les préjugés. D’autres font prophétie plus sombre : l’IA construira un monde où l’Homme (au travail) — déshumanisé — ne sera plus qu’un flux de données, une trace numérique, où la responsabilité et la liberté se dilueront dans le jeu d’algorithmes indéchiffrables.

À ces transformations, le droit (du travail) et les juristes ne peuvent rester étrangers. Elles doivent être pour eux objet d’études et d’analyses. Le présent ouvrage, fruit d’un projet collectif mené par l’Association Française de Droit du Travail et de la sécurité sociale (AFDT), entend apporter une contribution à cette indispensable réflexion.

2020

Shifting Solidarities. Trends and Developments in European Societies

Ine Van Hoyweghen (KU Leuven), Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), Gert Meyers (KU Leuven) (Eds.)

Palgrave Macmillan, 284 p. (ISBN: 978.3.030.44062.6)

[Livre en anglais] Shifting Solidarities offers a comprehensive analysis of solidarity at a time when major social transformations have penetrated the heart of European societies, disrupting markets and labour relations, transforming social practices, and affecting the moral infrastructure of European welfare states. Factors such as the economic crisis, migration, digitalisation, and climate change all contribute to a sense of emergency. This volume considers how, in times of crisis, there are calls for solidarity by various new social and political actors and movements.

The contributions present a broad array of empirical work and critical scholarship, zooming in on shifting solidarities in various domains of social life, including work, social policy, health care, religion, family, gender and migration. This compelling volume provides a unique resource for understanding solidarity in contemporary Europe, and will be a vital text for students and scholars across sociology, social policy, cultural studies, employment/labour markets and organisation studies, migration studies and European studies.

2020

Le manifeste travail. Démocratiser, démarchandiser, dépolluer

Isabelle Ferreras (TED-CriDIS-UCLouvain), Julie Battilana (Harvard University), Dominique Méda (IRISSO-Université Paris-Dauphine) (Eds.)

Le Seuil, 216 p. (ISBN: 978.2.02.147049.9)

Sous la direction d’Isabelle Ferreras, Julie Battilana et Dominique Méda. Avec Adelle Blackett, Julia Cagé, Neera Chandhoke, Imge Kaya-Sabanci, Lisa Herzog, Sara Lafuente, Hélène Landemore, Flavia Maximo et Pavlina R. Tcherneva.

Comment faire face à la crise que nous traversons ? Le système capitaliste néo-libéral fondé sur la seule recherche du profit ne fera que renforcer la concentration des richesses, aggraver les inégalités et détruire chaque jour un peu plus notre écosystème. Contre le statu quo, un collectif de femmes, chercheuses en sciences sociales issues de tous horizons, appelle à un nouveau partage du pouvoir au sein des entreprises, condition d’une véritable transition écologique.

Elles sont les auteures du Manifeste Travail, déjà traduit en 27 langues et qui est devenu en quelques semaines l’amorce d’un mouvement mondial. Leur projet ? Démocratiser l’entreprise, pour permettre aux travailleur·euse·s de participer aux décisions qui les concernent. Démarchandiser le travail, pour protéger certains secteurs des seules lois du marché, mais aussi garantir à chacun l’accès à un travail qui lui permette d’assurer sa dignité. Au moment où nous faisons face à la fois au risque pandémique, aux dérives populistes et à la menace d’un effondrement climatique, ces deux changements stratégiques permettront aussi d’agir collectivement pour dépolluer la planète et préserver les conditions de la vie sur terre.

Afin de poursuivre les échanges sur le Manifeste, nous avons réuni, les 17 et 18 novembre 2020, ses auteures et d’éminents représentants et spécialistes du monde du travail afin de discuter des priorités (actuelles et futures) qui découlent de la pandémie de Covid-19. Cette conversation sur Démocratiser le travail était une initiative du Partenariat du CRIMT sur l’expérimentation institutionnelle et l’amélioration du travail, du Karl Polanyi Institut, et de l’axe Industrie 4.0, travail et emploi de l’Observatoire international sur les impacts sociétaux de l’IA et du numérique. Les enregistrements de ces deux événements seront bientôt disponibles sur la Chaîne YouTube du CRIMT.

2020

Despotism on Demand. How Power Operates in the Flexible Workplace

Alex J. Wood (University of Bristol)

ILR Press, 192 p. (ISBN: 978.1.50174.888.2)

[Book in French] La rétroaction obtenue à la suite de la publication de l’ouvrage Les loyautés multiples (Nota bene, 2015), a incité les auteur·e·s à pousser davantage leur réflexion et à poser leur regard sur d’autres professions qui sont également aux prises avec cette source importante d’enjeux éthiques, mais jusqu’alors inexplorés sous cet angle. C’est ainsi qu’ils proposent un deuxième tome qui reprend la structure familière de l’ouvrage original, soit, dans un premier temps, la présentation de vignettes démontrant toute la richesse de cette thématique et, dans un deuxième temps, des chapitres d’approfondissement invitant à la réflexion et à l’exploration de potentielles pistes de solution.

2020

Les loyautés multiples. Mal-être au travail et enjeux éthiques tome2

Jennifer Centeno (Université Laval), Luc Bégin (Université Laval), Lyse Langlois (Université Laval) (Eds.)

Nota Bene, 234 p. (ISBN: 978.2.89518.728.8)

La rétroaction obtenue à la suite de la publication de l’ouvrage Les loyautés multiples (Nota bene, 2015), a incité les auteur·e·s à pousser davantage leur réflexion et à poser leur regard sur d’autres professions qui sont également aux prises avec cette source importante d’enjeux éthiques, mais jusqu’alors inexplorés sous cet angle. C’est ainsi qu’ils proposent un deuxième tome qui reprend la structure familière de l’ouvrage original, soit, dans un premier temps, la présentation de vignettes démontrant toute la richesse de cette thématique et, dans un deuxième temps, des chapitres d’approfondissement invitant à la réflexion et à l’exploration de potentielles pistes de solution.

2019

Les nouveaux travailleurs des applis

Sarah Abdelnour (IRISSO-Université Paris-Dauphine), Dominique Méda (IRISSO-Université Paris-Dauphine)

PUF, 120 p. (ISBN: 978.2.13.081523.5)

Deliveroo, Uber, Etsy, Foule Factory, etc. : autant d’applications et de plateformes en ligne qui prétendent bouleverser nos façons de consommer. Mais qu’en est-il de nos manières de travailler ?

Plus qu’une innovation technique, les plateformes numériques apparaissent comme le lieu d’une redéfinition des règles du jeu en matière d’emploi et de travail. Entre marchandisation des activités de loisir et gratuité du travail, le « capitalisme de plate­formes » participe de l’émergence de formes renouvelées, voire exacerbées, de sujétion des travailleurs. Loin des idéaux d’une prétendue « économie du partage », n’assiste-t-on pas au déploiement de nouvelles dynamiques du capitalisme avancé ?

À partir d’enquêtes sur les chauffeurs et livreurs, ou encore sur les chefs à domicile, cet ouvrage met au jour la tâcheronnisation des travailleurs et l’extension du domaine du travail, tout en analysant les résistances et les régulations de ces nouvelles activités.

2019

Everyday Transgressions. Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law

Adelle Blackett (LLDRL-McGill University)

Cornell University Press, 306 p. (ISBN: 978.1.50.171575.4)

[Livre en anglais] Adelle Blackett tells the story behind the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention No. 189, and its accompanying Recommendation No. 201 which in 2011 created the first comprehensive international standards to extend fundamental protections and rights to the millions of domestic workers laboring in other peoples’ homes throughout the world. As the principal legal architect, Blackett is able to take us behind the scenes to show us how Convention No. 189 transgresses the everyday law of the household workplace to embrace domestic workers’ human rights claim to be both workers like any other, and workers like no other. In doing so, she discusses the importance of understanding historical forms of invisibility, recognizes the influence of the domestic workers themselves, and weaves in poignant experiences, infusing the discussion of laws and standards with intimate examples and sophisticated analyses. Looking to the future, she ponders how international institutions such as the ILO will address labor market informality alongside national and regional law reform. Regardless of what comes next, Everyday Transgressions establishes that domestic workers’ victory is a victory for the ILO and for all those who struggle for an inclusive, transnational vision of labor law, rooted in social justice.

2019

Les patrons de la vertu : de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises au devoir de vigilance

Pauline Barraud de Lagerie (IRISSO-Université Paris-Dauphine)

Presses universitaires de Rennes, 218 p. (ISBN: 978.2.7535.7641.4)

La révolution opérée par la loi sur le devoir de vigilance (2017) n’est pas tant d’avoir établi une responsabilité des donneurs d’ordre, qui existait déjà sous d’autres formes, que d’en avoir fait une obligation légale. C’est ce que montre cet ouvrage en décrivant comment, depuis les années 1990, des mouvements militants ont d’abord poussé les entreprises à prendre des engagements volontaires pour améliorer les conditions de travail chez leurs fournisseurs, avant de remettre en question ces démarches d’autorégulation. En retraçant ainsi les origines de la loi sur le devoir de vigilance, l’ouvrage invite aussi à en interroger les promesses et à en suivre le devenir.

2019

Employment Relations in the 21st Century: Challenges for Theory and Research in a Changing World of Work

Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), Frank Hendrickx (KU Leuven)

Wolters Klüver, 449 p. (ISBN: 978.9.40.351764.3)

[Livre en anglais] Employment Relations in the 21st Century provides a full and integrated insight into labour law and industrial relations. It cannot be denied that in recent decades, for many, if not most people, work has become unstable and insecure, with serious risk and few benefits for workers. As this reality spills over into political and social life, it is crucial to interrogate the transformations affecting employment relations, shape research agendas, and influence the policies of national and international institutions. This implies to focus on transnational regulatory structures and new forms of social protection and representation for different typologies and forms of work as a way to avoid increasing inequalities across (and within) countries. This volume brings together thirty-nine scholars (both academics and experienced industrial relations actors) in the fields of employment relations and labour law in a forthright discussion of new approaches, theories, and methods aimed at ameliorating the world of work.

2019

The Realities and Futures of Work

David Peetz (WOW-Griffith University)

ANU Press, 405 p. (ISBN: 978.1.76.046310.6)

[Livre en anglais] What do we know about the current realities of work and its likely futures? What choices must we make and how will they affect those futures? Many books about the future of work start by talking about the latest technology, and focus on how technology is going to change the way we work. And there is no doubt that technology will have huge impacts. However, to really understand the direction in which work is going, and the impact that technology and other forces will have, we need to first understand where we are.

This book covers topics ranging from the ‘mega-drivers of change’ at work, power, globalisation and financialisation, to management, workers, digitalisation, the gig economy, gender, climate change, regulation and deregulation. In doing this, it refers to some of the great works of science fiction. It demolishes several myths, such as that the employment relationship is doomed, that we are all heading to becoming ‘freelancers’ or ‘gig workers’ one day, that most jobs will be destroyed by technological change, that the growth in jobs will mainly be in STEM fields, that we will no longer value collectivism as we will all be ‘individuals’, or that the death of unionism is inevitable.

The Realities and Futures of Work also rejects the idea of technological determinism—that whatever will be, will be, thanks to technological change—and so it refuses to accept that we simply need to prepare to adapt ourselves to the future by judicious training since there is nothing else we can do about it. Instead, this book provides a realistic basis for thinking about both the present and the future. It emphasises the choices we make, and the implications of those choices for the future of work.

Téléchargez ce livre en PDF (livre accès)

2019

The Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representation. Immigrants and Trade Unions in the European Context

Heather Connolly (Grenoble EM), Stefania Marino (WEI-University of Manchester), Miguel Martínez Lucio (WEI-University of Manchester)

Cornell University Press, 222 p. (ISBN: 978.1.50.173657.5)

[Livre en anglais] In The Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representation, Heather Connolly, Stefania Marino, and Miguel Martínez Lucio compare trade union responses to immigration and the related political and labour market developments in the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The labor movement is facing significant challenges as a result of such changes in the modern context. As such, the authors closely examine the idea of social inclusion and how trade unions are coping with and adapting to the need to support immigrant workers and develop various types of engagement and solidarity strategies in the European context.

Traversing the dramatically shifting immigration patterns since the 1970s, during which emerged a major crisis of capitalism, the labor market, and society, and the contingent rise of anti-immigration sentiment and new forms of xenophobia, the authors assess and map how trade unions have to varying degrees understood and framed these issues and immigrant labor. They show how institutional traditions, and the ways that trade unions historically react to social inclusion and equality, have played a part in shaping the nature of current initiatives. The Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representation concludes that we need to appreciate the complexity of trade-union traditions, established paths to renewal, and competing trajectories of solidarity. While trade union organizations remain wedded to specific trajectories, trade union renewal remains an innovative, if at times, problematic and complex set of choices and aspirations.

2019

The Life of an Academic Lawyer. Connecting the dots

Harry Arthurs (York University)

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 184 p. (ISBN: 978.0.77.355709.3)

[Livre en anglais] Harry W. Arthurs is a name held in high esteem by labour lawyers and academics throughout the world. Although many are familiar with Arthurs’s contributions and accomplishments, few are acquainted with the man himself, or how he came to be one of the most influential figures in Canadian law and legal education. In Connecting the Dots Arthurs recounts his adventures in academe and the people, principles, ideas, motivations, and circumstances that have shaped his thinking and his career. The memoir offers intimate recollections and observations, beginning with the celebrated ancestors who influenced Arthurs’s upbringing and education. It then sweeps through his career as an architect of important reforms in legal education and explores his research as a trailblazing commentator on the legal profession. Arthurs analyzes his experiences as a legal theorist and historian and his pivotal role as a discordant voice in debates over constitutional and administrative law. Along the way, he muses on the intellectual projects he embraced or set in motion, the institutional reforms he advocated, the public policies he recommended, and how they fared long term. Framed with commentary on the historical context that shaped each decade of his career and punctuated by moments of personal reflection, Connecting the Dots is a humorous, frank, and fearless account of the rise and fall of Canadian labour law from the man who was at the centre of it all.

2019

Droit des rapports collectifs du travail au Québec, 3e édition, volume 1 – Le régime général

Michel Coutu (Université de Montréal), Laurence Léa Fontaine (UQAM), Georges Marceau (Melançon, Marceau, Grenier et Scortino), Urwana Coiquaud (HEC Montréal), Julie Bourgault (UQO)

Éditions Yvon Blais, 1262 p. (ISBN: 978.2.89.730514.7)

Droit des rapports collectifs du travail au Québec se veut d’abord un manuel visant à combler les besoins d’apprentissage des étudiants en droit du travail et en relations industrielles, de même qu’un livre de référence destiné à servir les praticiens de ces deux disciplines. Mais il s’agit également d’une étude critique du droit des rapports collectifs du travail animée d’une double perspective théorique : mettre en lumière les carences de ce droit à l’heure de la mondialisation et de ses ratées économiques, financières et sociales; souligner les possibilités qu’offre aux acteurs la mobilisation des normes juridiques compte tenu du mouvement de constitutionnalisation du droit du travail. L’ouvrage, tout en donnant un exposé précis de l’état du droit en la matière, entend donc apporter une contribution originale à la réflexion critique sur les rapports collectifs du travail dont l’importance économique, sociale et politique, grandement mise à mal à l’échelle de l’Amérique du Nord, demeure pourtant significative en contexte québécois.

2018

Wildfire and Power: Policy and Practice

Peter Fairbrother (CPOW-RMIT), Meagan Tyler (CPOW-RMIT) (Eds.)

Routledge, 214 p. (ISBN: 978.1.13.837020.3)

[Livre en anglais] This book brings together perspectives from sociology, political science, gender studies, and history to produce new ways of analysing wildfire preparedness and policy in Australia. Drawing on data from hundreds of interviews with residents, volunteers and emergency services professionals living and working in wildfire-prone areas, the authors focus on issues of power and inequality, the contested nature of community and the relationship between citizens and the state.

The book questions not only existing policy approaches, but also the central concepts on which they are founded. In doing so, the aim is to create a more conceptually robust and academically contextualised discussion about the limitations of current wildfire policy approaches in Australia and to provide further evidence of the need for disaster studies to engage with a variety of social science approaches.

Wildfire and Power: Policy and Practice will be of most interest to higher degree by research students, other academics and policy makers examining the evolving patterns and politics of work, employment, management and industrial relations as well as those involved in emergency and disaster management service delivery. It would be most suited to academic and public libraries as well as organisations in the field of emergency and disaster management.

2018

Homeworking Women. A Gender Justice Perspective

Annie Delaney (CPOW-RMIT), Rosaria Burchielli (La Trobe University), Shelley Marshall (CPOW-RMIT), Jane Tate (Homeworkers Worldwide)

Routledge, 196 p. (ISBN: 978.1.78.353532.3)

[Livre en anglais] Homework; work that is categorised as informal employment, performed in the home, mainly for subcontractors and mostly undertaken by women. The inequities and injustices inherent in homework conditions maintain women’s weak bargaining position, preventing them from making any improvements to their lives via their work. The best way to tackle these issues is not to abolish, but to bring equality and justice to homework.

This book contributes a gender justice framework to analyse and confront the issues and problems of homework. The authors propose four justice dimensions – recognition, representation, rights and redistribution – to examine and analyse homework. This framework also takes into account the structures and processes of capitalism and the patriarchy, and the relations of domination that are widely held to be the major factors that determine homework injustice. The authors discuss strategies and approaches that have worked for homeworkers, highlighting why they worked and the features that were beneficial for them.

Homeworking Women will be of interest to individuals and organisations working with or for the collective benefit of homeworkers, academics and students interested in feminism, labour regulation, informal work, supply chains and social and political justice.

2018

Defying Expectations. The Case of UFCW Local 401

Jason Foster (Athabasca University)

AU PRESS, 204 p. (ISBN: 978.1.77.199199.5)

[Livre en anglais] In October 2005, Jason Foster, then a staff member of the Alberta Federation of Labour, was holding a picket line outside Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alberta with the members of local 401. It was a first contract strike. And although the employees of the meat-packing plant—many of whom were immigrants and refugees—had chosen an unlikely partner in the United Food and Commercial Workers local, the newly formed alliance allowed the workers to stand their ground for a three-week strike that ended in the defeat of the notoriously anti-union company, Tyson Foods.

It was but one example of a wide range of industries and occupations that local 401 organized over the last twenty years.

In this study of UFCW 401, Foster investigates a union that has had remarkable success organizing a group of workers that North American unions often struggle to reach: immigrants, women, and youth. By examining not only the actions and behaviour of the local’s leadership and its members but also the narrative that accompanied the renewal of the union, Foster shows that both were essential components to legitimizing the leadership’s exercise of power and its unconventional organizing forces.

Téléchargez ce livre en PDF [libre accès]

2018

Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada

Barry Eidlin (McGill University)

Cambridge University Press, 386 p. (ISBN: 978.1.31.622718.3)

[Livre en anglais] Why are unions weaker in the US than in Canada, two otherwise similar countries? This difference has shaped politics, policy, and levels of inequality. Conventional wisdom points to differences in political cultures, party systems, and labor laws. But Barry Eidlin’s systematic analysis of archival and statistical data shows the limits of conventional wisdom, and presents a novel explanation for the cross-border difference. He shows that it resulted from different ruling party responses to worker upsurge during the Great Depression and World War II. Paradoxically, US labor’s long-term decline resulted from what was initially a more pro-labor ruling party response, while Canadian labor’s relative long-term strength resulted from a more hostile ruling party response. These struggles embedded ‘the class idea’ more deeply in policies, institutions, and practices than in the US. In an age of growing economic inequality and broken systems of political representation, Eidlin’s analysis offers insight for those seeking to understand these trends, as well as those seeking to change them.

2018

Max Weber’s Interpretive Sociology of Law

Michel Coutu (Université de Montréal)

Routledge, 315 p. (ISBN: 978.0.36.734897.7)

[Livre en anglais] This book presents a clear and precise account of the structure and content of Max Weber’s sociology of law: situating its methodological and epistemological specificity in relation to other approaches to the sociology of law; as well as offering a critical evaluation of Weber’s usefulness for contemporary socio-legal research. The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the methodological foundations of Weber’s sociology of law. The second analyses the central theme of this sociology, the rationalisation of law, from the perspective of its internal logical coherence, its empirical validity, and finally its legitimacy. The third part questions the present-day relevance of the Weberian sociology of law for socio-legal research, notably with regard to legal pluralism. Max Weber, it is demonstrated, is not merely a ‘founding father’ of the sociology of law; rather, his methodology, concepts, and empirical analyses remain highly useful to the further development of work in this area.

2018

La légitimité du pouvoir dans l’entreprise : analyse critique de l’affaire Walmart de Jonquière

Charles Tremblay Potvin (Université Laval)

Éditions Yvon Blais, 315 p. (ISBN: 978.2.89.730283.2)

De tous les contrats qu’un sujet de droit est habilité à conclure dans une société dite de « libre marché », seul le contrat de travail postule que l’une des parties est subordonnée à l’autre. C’est ainsi que le 27 novembre 2009, le plus puissant employeur privé de la planète se voyait reconnaître par la Cour suprême du Canada la légitimité de son pouvoir de fermer l’un de ses établissements, sans égard à la protection offerte par le Code en faveur des salariés exerçant leur liberté syndicale.

Dix ans plus tard, quel bilan peut-on dresser de cette lutte syndicale ? La culture de gouvernance de l’entreprise Walmart, pourrait-on dire, n’est au fond qu’une illustration de la profonde transformation qu’a subie l’économie mondiale au cours des dernières décennies. Les principes qui sont au coeur du mode de régulation de notre système politique et économique méritent plus que jamais d’être analysés, remis en question et critiqués. Tel est l’objectif de cet ouvrage.

La première partie du volume définit l’entreprise et isole sa dimension politique en étudiant la spécificité du rapport salarial. La deuxième partie étudie la longue guérilla judiciaire entre les salariés et les dirigeants de Walmart qui a atteint un point culminant avec la fermeture de l’établissement de Jonquière le 29 avril 2005.

2018

Reconstructing Solidarity. Labour Unions, Precarious Work, and the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe

Virginia Doellgast (ILR School-Cornell University), Nathan Lillie (University of Jyvaskyla), Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven)

Oxford University Press, 288 p. (ISBN: 978.0.19.879184.3)

[Livre en anglais] Work is widely thought to have become more precarious. Many people feel that unions represent the interests of protected workers in good jobs at the expense of workers with insecure employment, low pay, and less generous benefits. Reconstructing Solidarity: Labour Unions, Precarious Work, and the Politics of Institutional Change in Europe argues the opposite: that unions try to represent precarious workers using a variety of creative campaigning and organizing tactics.

Where unions can limit employers’ ability to ‘exit’ labour market institutions and collective agreements, and build solidarity across different groups of workers, this results in a virtuous circle, establishing union control over the labour market. Where they fail to do so, it sets in motion a vicious circle of expanding precarity based on institutional evasion by employers. Ieconstructing Solidarity examines how unions build, or fail to build, inclusive worker solidarity to challenge this vicious circle and to re-regulate increasingly precarious jobs. Comparative case studies from fourteen European countries describe the struggles of workers and unions in industries such as local government, retail, music, metalworking, chemicals, meat packing, and logistics. Their findings argue against the thesis that unions act primarily to protect labour market insiders at the expense of outsiders.

2017

Trade Unions and Migrant Workers. New Contexts and Challenges in Europe

Stefania Marino (WEI-University of Manchester), Judith Roosblad (Inspectorate of Social Affairs and Employment, the Netherlands), Rinus Penninx (University of Amsterdam) (Eds.)

Edward Elger/ILERA, 424 p. (ISBN: 978.9.22.130433.3)

[Livre en anglais] This volume constitutes an extensive update of a previous comparative analysis – published by Rinus Penninx and Judith Roosblad in 2000 – that has become an important reference in the field. The book offers an overview of how trade unions manage issues of inclusion and solidarity in the current economic and political context, characterized by increasing challenges for labour organizations and rising hostility towards migrants.

he qualitative analysis of trade union strategies towards immigration and migrant workers is based on a common analytical framework centred on the idea of ‘dilemmas’ that trade unions have to face when dealing with immigration and migrant workers. This approach facilitates comparative analysis and distinguishes patterns of union policies and actions across three groups of countries, identifying some explanations for observed similarities and differences. In addition, the book also includes theoretical chapters by expert scholars from a range of disciplinary fields including industrial relations, migration studies and political economy.

Téléchargez le premier chapitre [libre accès]

2017

Informal Workers and Collective Action. A Global Perspective

Adrienne Eaton (SMLR-Rutgers University), Susan J. Schurman (SMLR-Rutgers University), Martha A. Chen (Harvard Kennedy School) (Eds.)

Cornell University Press, 296 p. (ISBN: 978.1.50.170557.1)

[Livre en anglais] Informal Workers and Collective Action features nine cases of collective action to improve the status and working conditions of informal workers. Adrienne E. Eaton, Susan J. Schurman, and Martha A. Chen set the stage by defining informal work and describing the types of organizations that represent the interests of informal workers and the lessons that may be learned from the examples presented in the book. Cases from a diverse set of countries—Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Liberia, South Africa, Tunisia, and Uruguay—focus on two broad types of informal workers: « waged » workers, including port workers, beer promoters, hospitality and retail workers, domestic workers, low-skilled public sector workers, and construction workers; and self-employed workers, including street vendors, waste recyclers, and minibus drivers. These cases demonstrate that workers and labor organizations around the world are rediscovering the lessons of early labor organizers on how to aggregate individuals’ sense of injustice into forms of collective action that achieve a level of power that can yield important changes in their work and lives. Informal Workers and Collective Action makes a strong argument that informal workers, their organizations, and their campaigns represent the leading edge of the most significant change in the global labor movement in more than a century

Téléchargez le premier chapitre [libre accès]

2017

Firms as Political Entities. Saving Democracy through Economic Bicameralism

Isabelle Ferreras (TED-CriDIS-UCLouvain)

Cambridge University Press, 226 p. (ISBN: 978.1.10.823549.5)

[Livre en anglais] When people go to work, they cease to be citizens. At their desks they are transformed into employees, subordinate to the hierarchy of the workplace. The degree of their sense of voicelessness may vary from employer to employer, but it is real and growing, inflamed by populist propaganda that ridicules democracy as weak and ineffective amid global capitalism. At the same time, corporations continue untouched and even unremarked as a major source of the problem. Relying on ‘economic bicameralism’ to consider firms as political entities, this book sheds new light on the institutions of industrial relations that have marked the twentieth century, and argues that it is time to recognize that firms are a peculiar institution that must be properly organized in order to unshackle workers’ motivation and creativity, and begin nurturing democracy again. For more information, please visit the accompanying website.

2017

La responsabilité sociale de l’entreprise, vecteur d’un droit de la mondialisation ?

Isabelle Daugareilh (COMPTRASEC-Université de Bordeaux) (Ed.)

Bruylant, 570 p. (ISBN: 978.2.39.013138.0)

Cet ouvrage propose, à partir d’études de terrain et de monographies, une analyse critique pluridisciplinaire, comparative et internationale de l’autorégulation de la globalisation de l’économie au nom de la RSE. Il défend l’idée que les Accords-cadres internationaux sont des normes établissant les règles du jeu d’une gouvernance mondiale au sein des entreprises transnationales, qu’ils sont, par leur enrichissement continu, l’esquisse d’un système de relations professionnelles globalisé. L’ouvrage met en évidence les failles et les limites des systèmes d’inspections privées mis en place par les entreprises transnationales. Il s’appuie sur la théorie de la capture et de la contre-capture pour mettre en perspective la tendance récente à légaliser des notions et des techniques nées ou portées par la RSE.

Partant de l’hypothèse d’une juridiscisation de la RSE, les auteurs démontrent que la RSE est bien le véhicule/vecteur d’un droit de la globalisation de l’économie qui se construit avec des acteurs multiples, sur des espaces encastrés, sur la base de droits et de valeurs consacrés au plan international et selon un mode de corégulation mais aussi sans doute de co-évaluation.

2017

Unions and the City. Negotiating Urban Change

Ian MacDonald (Université de Montréal) (Ed.)

Cornell University Press, 260 p. (ISBN: 978.1.50.170682.0)

[Livre en anglais] Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities, even after years of decline. Labor continues to play a vital role in mobilizing urban residents, shaping urban conflict, and crafting the policies and regulations that are transforming our urban spaces. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that address nonunion workers and the lives of union members beyond the workplace. If we are right to believe that the future of the labor movement is an urban one, union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike will require a fuller understanding of what impels unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what dilemmas structure the choices unions make, and what impact unions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members. Unions and the City serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. The book presents the findings of a collaborative project in which a team of labor researchers and labor geographers based in New York City and Toronto investigated how and why labor unions were becoming more involved in urban regulation and urban planning. The contributors assess the effectiveness of this involvement in terms of labor goals—such as protecting employment levels, retaining bargaining relationships with employers, and organizing new workforces—as well as broader social consequences of union strategies, such as expanding access to public services, improving employment equity, and making neighborhoods more affordable. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), this book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking and that they can have a significant impact on how cities are changing and on the experiences of urban residents.

2017

Women, Labor Segmentation and Regulation. Varieties of Gender Gaps

David Peetz (WOW-Griffith University), Georgina Murray (WOW-Griffith University) (Eds.)

Palgrave Macmillan, 271 p. (ISBN: 978.1.137.55495.6)

[Livre en anglais] This book re-shapes thinking on ‘gender gaps’—differences between men and women in their incomes, their employment and their conditions of work. It shows how the interaction between regulation distance and content, labor segmentation and norms helps us understand various aspects of gender gaps.

It brings together leading authors from industrial relations, sociology, politics, and feminist economics, who outline the roles the family, state public policy, trade unions and class play in creating gender gaps, and consider the lessons from international comparisons.  While many studies have focused on the role of society or organizations, this book also pays attention to the role of occupations in promoting and reinforcing gender gaps, discussing groups such as apparel outworkers, film and video workers, care workers, public-sector professionals like librarians, chief executives, academics, and coal miners.

This book will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers, academics and students interested in understanding why inequality between men and women persists today—and what might be done about it.

2017

La convention collective au Québec, 3e édition

Patrice Jalette (Université de Montréal), Mélanie Laroche (Université de Montréal), Gilles Trudeau (Université de Montréal)

Éditions Chenelière, 535 p. (ISBN : 978.2.765.05213.5)

Au Québec, les conditions de travail de 4 personnes sur 10 sont assujetties à une convention collective, instrument privilégié de régulation et de gestion conjointes du travail salarié. Le présent ouvrage analyse en profondeur le contenu typique d’une convention collective en examinant une à une les principales clauses qu’on peut y trouver. Chaque clause est décrite sous ses aspects principaux: son rôle, ses objectifs, le cadre juridique dans lequel elle s’inscrit, les diverses formes qu’elle revêt de même que les enjeux qu’elle soulève dans les milieux de travail et au-delà à la lumière des récentes transformations du monde du travail. De nombreux exemples tirés de conventions collectives en vigueur font le lien entre la théorie et la pratique.

Cet ouvrage est le fruit du travail de 13 auteurs spécialistes des relations du travail. Sous la direction de Patrice Jalette, Mélanie Laroche et Gilles Trudeau, les auteurs ont procédé à une mise à jour importante de l’ouvrage, avec l’objectif de refléter les clauses actuellement négociées par les syndicats et les employeurs québécois, l’évolution récente du droit et des institutions ainsi que les nouvelles réalités du travail en général. Cette troisième édition table sur des éléments inédits – de nouveaux chapitres, des statistiques fiables concernant l’ensemble des conventions collectives en vigueur au Québec, des questions de révision, des références additionnelles permettant d’approfondir la matière présentée – de même que sur les forces des éditions précédentes qui en ont fait l’ouvrage le plus complet sur la convention collective au Québec.

Référence incontournable en relations industrielles, La convention collective au Québec, 3e édition, s’adresse à un vaste public: les praticiens en relations de travail, avocats, gestionnaires des ressources humaines, conseillers et officiers syndicaux, chercheurs et professeurs s’intéressant aux relations de travail, à la gestion des ressources humaines et au droit du travail, ainsi que les étudiants des programmes universitaires en relations industrielles et en gestion des ressources humaines, dont les besoins particuliers ont été l’objet d’une attention spéciale notamment par l’inclusion d’objectifs pédagogiques clairs et de questions de révision utiles.