Founding a Cooperative Society to Save a Company: Trade Unionism and Worker’s Democracy

Sauver son entreprise en créant une société coopérative. Engagement syndical et participation ouvrière

Maxime Quijoux ()
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Maxime Quijoux: LISE - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire pour la sociologie économique - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM] - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: French industry is on a path of long-term decline, which was only exacerbated by the subprime crisis of 2008. Faced with company shutdowns and job losses, trade unions long favoured a supportive approach to business closures, even in the event of major conflicts. However, since the mid-2000s, a "new" form of mobilisation has emerged, in which business closures are resisted through employee takeover and the formation of Cooperative and Participatory Companies (SCOP). Drawing on the case of a printing plant taken over at the initiative of union representatives in a town in Île-de-France, this article aims to capture the logic of participation implemented there. As emergency solutions, these cooperatives are characterised less by formalised practices than by a set of methods and interactions governed by both trade union history and positions in the company. Worker participation is then revealed to be an issue of struggles over the what participation means. The question of power in the company thus has little to do with issues of company policy (organisation, strategies) but essentially crystallises around the materialistic dimensions of work (distribution of profits).

Keywords: Worker Participation; Cooperative; Trade Unionism; Workers Class; Factory; Participation; Coopérative; Syndicalisme; Classe ouvrière; Usine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-11-26
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Published in Sociologie du Travail, 2018, 60 (4), ⟨10.4000/sdt.8224⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04037935

DOI: 10.4000/sdt.8224

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