Claire Edey Gamassou^[1] and Arnaud Mias^[2]

Has the time come for a thorough recomposition of working conditions? The question may seem naive. Fifty years after the affirmation of a movement for the improvement of working conditions, and after more than two decades of scientific production and public debate on work-related suffering, psycho-social risks, quality of life and well-being at work, a certain weariness, or even defeatism, could set in before the apparent inability of organisations to provide workers with the resources to carry out enriching, useful, or high-quality work, or with which they can identify, etc. Admittedly, there have been many significant managerial and organisational changes since the 1980s —from quality circles and self-expression groups to lean management and project-based management principles—, often driven by a concern to give employees more initiative, responsibility, or voice. However, the effects of these transformations on work are more than ambivalent. Statistical surveys on working conditions carried out by the Directorate for Research, Studies and Statistics (DARES, Ministry of Labour) show that the intensification of work has increased significantly and that autonomy, despite a brief increase at the turn of the millennium, remains particularly low, especially compared to our European neighbours. And the hardships at work, which, as some believed, would disappear in a ‘post-industrial’ era, have not diminished. Of course, behind this general observation, we should highlight all the complexity and diversity of contemporary work situations. But, precisely, taking this diversity into account would clearly bring out the impressive inequalities in terms of work and occupational health in France.

The researcher’s work can be compared to that of the photographer who makes his own prints in a darkroom. Various factors contribute to a shot and determine what will be the photograph that everyone will see. It is the photographer’s choice of framing that decides what will be in the field or not, what will be sharp or blurred. When in January 2019 we launched a call for papers on occupational health, inviting researchers from different disciplines to focus on questions of temporalities and democracy, we could not imagine how much these subjects would be shaken up in society at the time of this publication. The health crisis and the measures taken to deal with it since spring 2020 highlight the role of social, spatial, and temporal boundaries in the organization of the economy and challenge the functioning of democratic regimes. Political decisions affect the visibility of the social body and its characteristics in the same way as the work of printing in darkrooms: the inequalities in working conditions and workers’ recognition were already on the film, they already had been captured by the shots of many research studies. But the rulers, by deciding to impose a certain developer or paper rather than another, can reinforce the contrasts, allowing a usually invisibilised though well-known reality to leap to the eye of the public. The extent of health, economic and social inequalities; the gaps between those who have a job and those who do not; between precarious and stable employment; between those who can continue to work remotely and those who must continue to be exposed to the circulation of the virus, particularly in the public services; the vital importance of caregiving professions or assistance relationships, but also of jobs that are often underestimated – maintenance workers, cashiers, garbage collectors, deliverymen –: all these realities are now blatantly apparent.

The picture is gloomy and the prospects for a far-reaching recomposition of working conditions seem meagre, or simply utopian. But utopias are never pure fiction. On the contrary, they inform us about the real state of a society and help us to ‘detach ourselves from the world as it is and as it is going’ (Lallement, 2012, p. 821). The accumulation of more or less successful experiences of work transformation in recent years should help to focus attention on what is essential: a real liberation of work which is not merely limited to giving employees the power to manage the vagaries of their activity, but which requires, in our view, a collective framework that enables to regularly deliberate on labour and its organisation, both with colleagues and the hierarchy, and even to intervene in the governance of organisations.

Lucid in the diagnosis of reality, ambitious in the affirmation of the desirable: this is the stance adopted by this collective book. It stems from the conviction that scientific rigour can be used to transform reality, without confusing the roles of each person, scholar, or practitioner. This view is undoubtedly also the one that has more generally characterised the experience of the Groupe d’études sur le travail et la santé au travail (Gestes), since its creation nearly ten years ago. Gestes is a French interdisciplinary research network devoted to work and occupational health. It currently brings together researchers from some 40 research laboratories and 15 different institutions. Since its creation in 2012, Gestes has organised regular scientific events (seminars, study days and international colloquia) designed to stimulate exchanges between disciplines and to report on the most recent research on topics of interest and concern to the actors of the world of work and occupational health. This dialogue between a wide range of occupational health actors and researchers from different disciplines has made it possible to take a fresh look at, among other things, the tools and sustainability of occupational health actions and, in this way, to draw up perspectives that are both interdisciplinary and interprofessional (Mias and Wolmark, 2018). Other initiatives aimed at developing science-society dialogue have also made it possible to diversify the forms of exchange and expression on work and, in particular, to shed light on young people’s representations of the world of work (Edey Gamassou and Prunier-Poulmaire, 2018).

The colloquium organised by Gestes on November 21st and 22nd, 2019 at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris-Nord brought together 70 speakers who recognised the need for a de-liberation of work, as well as the ambivalence and uncertainty surrounding such a project of economic and social transformation.

The present book brings together some of the contributions to this conference. It follows recent works that have sought to better understand the conditions to create spaces for discussing and deliberating on work in organisations primarily based on unilateral decisions and monologues through which managers intend to obtain support for their decisions (Bonnefond, 2019; Detchessahar, 2019). Likewise, some contributions assess mechanisms that aim to take real work into account, while others explore, more fundamentally, the possibilities for this de-liberation of work to permeate the overall functioning of organisations. In this respect, this volume echoes the transformative ambition of the appeal by Isabelle Ferreras, Dominique Méda, and Julie Battilana^[3], launched at the height of the COVID-19 health crisis, which was joined by nearly 7,000 researchers from all over the world. This call was consolidated a few months later with the publication of the Manifesto for Work. Democratising, demarketing, de-polluting (Ferreras, Battilana and Méda, 2020).

The first part of the book brings together six contributions that address the effects of new forms of organising work time (variable and flexible working hours, Sunday shifts, teleworking, etc.), particularly for women. Are atypical hours and time differentiation an emerging norm? What are their effects on health? To what extent is it a public health issue? Can it affect individuals differently depending on their position in the life cycle? What are the effects on work, its potential intensification, and forms of regulation? And on work collectives? The content of work is also important: its intensity —which weighs on recovery time, or durably on physical and mental weariness—, its quality, its dilemmas and ethical conflicts, etc. The content of work is also explored directly in the four chapters comprising the second part of the book. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are combined to highlight the links between employment conditions and working conditions. They show how employment status affects the boundary between work and non-work, while also highlighting the fragmentation of work collectives.

The other two parts of the book deal more directly with the experience of deliberation, or even democracy, in the workplace. The four chapters of the third part deal with forms of work organisation that are reputed to be more open to employee expression, including the most creative, like start-ups or cooperative and participative societies (SCOP). Their authors question the scope of these ‘alternative’ forms of organisation. To what extent can democratisation in companies lead (or not) to a better quality of life at work, promote health or reduce social tensions? What modes of regulation are being invented in these organisations? Without losing sight of these questions, the fourth part of the book, consisting of six chapters, shifts the focus from organisations to the managerial or legal mechanisms that are supposed to promote deliberation on work.

In conclusion, Thomas Coutrot outlines the prospects for a liberation of work that avoids the pitfalls of recent managerial attempts to deal with the contradictions and perils of contemporary capitalism.

Bibliography

Bonnefond J.-Y., 2019, Agir sur la qualité du travail. L’expérience de Renault-Flins, Toulouse, Érès.

Detchessahar M. (coord.), 2019, L’entreprise délibérée. Refonder le management par le dialogue, Bruyères-le-Châtel, Nouvelle Cité.

Edey Gamassou C. et Prunier-Poulmaire S. (coord.), 2018, Ecrivons le travail ! Lycéens et chercheurs : écritures croisées sur le travail, Toulouse, Octarès.

Ferreras I., Battilana J. et Méda D., 2020, Le Manifeste Travail. Démocratiser, démarchandiser, dépolluer, Paris, Le Seuil.

Lallement M., 2012, “Utopie”, in A. Bevort, A. Jobert, M. Lallement et A. Mias (dir.), Dictionnnaire du travail, Paris, PUF, 821-827.

Mias A. et Wolmark C. (coord.), 2018, Agir sur la santé au travail. Acteurs, dispositifs, outils et expertise autour des enjeux psychosociaux, Toulouse, Octarès.

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