If we no longer speak today, as in the 1990s, of “the end of work “, concern remains about the role that should be played in the creation of value, in the economy, in individual careers. The “Revalorizing work” file looks at different aspects of work, a support for rights, self-realization, a means of production, and an essential question for the social and economic balance of modern States.
In 1995, Dominique Méda, like Jeremy Rifkin, announced the end of the work. A cardinal value of Western societies born from industrialization, an ethic still dominant, work found itself called into question for reasons of principle (alienation), but also because it would have been condemned to disappear in an economic world obsessed with productivity, profit, automation. Eighteen years later, this scarcity has, it seems, only increased the value of work. It remains a support for rights, for self-realization, and a means of production all at once. It thus concentrates very contradictory expectations. The life of ideas proposes to examine these contradictions through the tape, and through comparison, with contributions devoted to France, Italy, China, and the United States.
The social and solidarity economy is one of the sectors which, although not very developed, has attempted to directly confront these contradictions: how to restore meaning to work, and a social value which is not simply negative (not being unemployed) ? But as Arianna Lovera’s study on solidarity finance shows, the viability of companies that rely on it requires trade-offs that do not only concern questions of principle. To reconcile work and ethics, you must, in concrete terms, first be able to survive economically. The effort to be undertaken is then to distinguish economic viability and profit. It is at the heart of the activity of the solidarity banks that it examines.
Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière’s article on women’s employment in Europe describes in detail the diversity of European situations concerning female employment rates (constantly increasing in recent decades) and policies favorable to the employment of women. women throughout the family life cycle.
Chloé Froissart (“ For a fair salary. The evolution of workers’ demands in China “) shows that the expectations of Chinese workers have evolved profoundly over the last fifteen years: their demands no longer stem from a simple awareness of the law but from conceptions of the value of work, of what is just and what is unjust, and of what are good working conditions. They have recently been based on a new awareness of the importance of their participation in the development and application of the rules that govern businesses.
The desire to give meaning to one’s work, and the difficulty of achieving it, will also be examined through the case of employees of traditional banks – a profession particularly subject to the demand for productivity, but also aware of the social effects of this productivity. , especially when it results in banking exclusion, which George Gloukoviezoff deals with (“ Banks facing their customers. Bank employees and banking inclusion “). Forced to use decision support tools based on scoring and of data miningremunerated according to the number of products that they have their clients subscribe to, agency employees are however not completely incapable of maintaining an advisory activity and allowing their clients in difficulty to remain in the banking system.
Dominique Méda, Laurence Roulleau-Berger and Robert Castel will return to the more general changes experienced by work over the last ten years in Europe but also in China – emphasizing how these questions are above all issues of power and struggle between companies , employees and States, at the global level: “ Work: values, expectations and frustrations “. Interview with Robert Castel, Dominique Méda, and Laurence Roulleau-Berger.
– Arianna Lovera, Solidarity finance », January 15, 2013.
– Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, “ Women’s employment in Europe », January 14, 2013.
– Chloé Froissart, “ For a fair salary. The evolution of workers’ demands in China », January 21, 2013.
– George Gloukoviezoff, “ Banks facing their customers. Bank employees and banking inclusion », January 28, 2013.