A right without a voice? The implementation conditions of direct and collective rights of expression
Camille DUPUY, Alexis LOUVION and Jules SIMHA
This article analyses, from a practical standpoint, the implementation of a right of direct (i.e. without intermediary) and collective expression for employees of a company. While this means of expression is approved by union organisations as part of “professional dialogue”, we examine how workers actually invoke it. The article is supported by a field survey carried out within three organisations with varied attributes in terms of size and sector, each having a detailed agreement enshrining this right. The analysis brings to light the varied uses of this measure by staff within an organisation and the conditions of possibility of this form of participation at work.
Keywords: direct and collective right of expression, employee, business-level agreement, professional dialogue, participation at work.
Paradoxes, contradictions and dilemmas of trade union development: the case of the CFDT (The French Democratic Confederation of Labour)
Kenshin NAKANO, Frédéric REY and Mariame TIGHANIMINE
A study carried out at the CFDT – the French Democratic Confederation of Labour – in 2022-2023 explores the idea of trade union development. Though considered by most of the organisation’s management as necessary to its survival, development seems to remain an ambiguous concept, debated and even sometimes contested in the field. In fact, the concept lends itself to a number of interprétations and appropriations. While some consider development to be a matter for specialists and experts, requiring specific methods, others see it as one component among many, included by definition in any trade union practice. But over and above these differences of opinion, it appears that the concept of development plays a role first and foremost in the union dynamic: it stimulates trade union innovation and reinforces collective ties.
Keywords: CFDT, French Democratic Confederation of Labour, trade union development, innovation, membership
From hyper-exploitation to the development of a power to act: the mobilisation and future of a collective of undocumented workers in the waste sector
Alexandra D’AGOSTINO and Jean-Paul CADET
This article analyses the experience of a collective of undocumented workers employed in the “waste” sector who have been confronted with forms of hyper-exploitation and systemic breaches of labour law. With the support of the CGT – the general confederation of labour – these workers have successfully organised to assert their rights and demand their regularisation. Through a research intervention carried out in 2023-2024 and founded on a collaborative analysis with members of the collective, the article retraces the stages and the ingredients of the mobilisation, its organisational and learning dynamics and the resources deployed, both trade-union and legal in nature. The article also examines the differentiated medium-term effects of the mobilisation.
Keywords: hyper-exploitation, undocumented workers, workers’ collective, CGT, general confederation of labour, waste sector, mobilisation.
Trade unionism through activism-driven production, improbable but not impossible
José SANDS and Emilie LANCIANO
Associations have historically been seen as spaces of activism. Yet they are also workplaces, often marked by tensions between militancy and waged employment. Through the case of an emerging trade union mobilization within an associative network, whose main activity is the financing and support of other organizations, our article highlights these tensions and questions the limited role given to formal and collective regulation of employment relations. We then seek to understand how trade union legitimacy can be constructed in this context, by analyzing the drivers, obstacles, and specific features of union establishment and action. We find that, in the name of the activism claimed by the organization, employers and employees invoke a form of exceptionalism with regard to labor
law and trade unionism.
Keywords: trade unionism, activism-driven production, non-profit sector, professional relations, labour law, trade union legitimacy.
Six profiles under a single banner. What activist principles and practices do teachers exhibit across the CGT?
David DESCAMPS and Agathe FOUDI
This article seeks to question the unity of teachers who are union members under the CGT – the General Confederation of Labour – by analysing their activist ideas and practices and looking for their determining factors. Based on a corpus of 552 cases, we reveal that while this population broadly shares certain ideas and practices associated with collective action, it is also divided by sufficiently marked differences to outline six distinct engagement profiles which we distinguish in terms of activist engagement and the social and professional attributes of their members. We go on to shed light on the factors involved in this variability.
Keywords: trade unionism, CGT, general confederation of labour, teacher, activist engagement.