Why persevere in arduous, unappreciated work? The plight of female nursing home workers
Marion PLAULT et Jingyue XING-BONGIOANNI
The employment conditions for nursing home staff are characterised by a number of unfavourable factors, including physically and psychologically demanding working conditions, low wages and a negative public perception. While the majority of scientific studies on the subject focus on difficulties in recruiting care staff, this article puts forward an alternative analytical perspective by addressing the following question: What factors influence the decision of female nursing home workers to remain in the sector?
Keywords: work, difficult work, lack of recognition, nursing home.
“Beyond our duties”: socio-educational support for the dogsbodies of the Department for Education in an impoverished area
Maeva DURAND
This article looks at the experiences, in terms of wages and employer relations, of the “dogsbodies” of the Department for Education, the menial functionaries of the education sector assisting disabled pupils (AESH), as well as educational assistants (AED), two heavily gendered and precarious groups. The professional tensions faced by these agents are indicative of the socio-territorial ambiguities faced by the educational establishment. The Department for Education are managing to take advantage of “care” work, in other words the free emotional investment of workers taking on more and more duties as a way of compensating for the lack of academic staff and other social assistance systems at a local level. A study of two middle schools in high-priority catchments, in a small town and an urban setting, show how interpersonal work allows deficiencies to be covered up in an impoverished area.
Keywords : education, gender, care work, territorial inequalities, social accompaniement
Becoming “permanent”: change and continuity in access to union career paths
Maxime LESCURIEUX
On the basis of a study carried out into union careers at the CFDT, this article sheds light on the existence of two access routes into the sphere of professional union organisers. The first tends to be taken by the relatively young and highly educated, giving rise to a union career starting at the top of the organisation. While this pathway is facilitated by equality measures, in particular between men and women, gender inequalities remain, particularly where longevity in post is concerned. Women certainly gain entry to the sphere more rapidly, but their longevity in post remains uncertain when compared with men. The second pathway is characterised more by starting at the bottom of the organisation. Older and working-class activists are over-represented in this pathway. The ability to relocate is a determining factor, but a discriminatory one in terms of gender.
Keywords : unionism, gender, biographical availability, voluntarist policies, biographical trajectories.
Voting in social and professional elections in Belgium and France: common underlying mechanisms?
Tristan HAUTE and Timoté HÉBERT
While Belgium and France are distinguished by very different industrial relations systems, this article highlights some similarities with respect to social and professional elections, which, mainly held within companies, partially determine the rights and organisational funding of unions. Indeed, the data from two post-election studies carried out in Belgium in 2014 and in France in 2024 show that employees’ participation is largely restricted by the characteristics of their workplace. However the social, and even political, characteristics of the employees play much more of a structuring role as regards effective participation and voting choices. This article sheds light on the electoral participation of employees observed in numerous countries, while underlining the need to avoid analysing professional ballots in the same way as political ballots.
Keywords: elections, unions, workplace participation, Belgium, France.