By John Kaspar,
The year 2009 was marked by a succession of conflicts that have hit companies even shocked public opinion by their silence (kidnappings, threats to blow up all or part of a plant, material deterioration, hunger strikes ...). We have them all in Memory: Caterpillar, Goodyear, Continental, Nortel, Molex New Fabris and others. Several observers have spoken rightly, French exception, at European level anyway. Trying to understand the reasons and identify courses of action to manage social conflict in a more positive and avoid forms that seem inconsistent with the requirements of a democratic society.
A new phenomenon?
avoid
But first false debates. Conflict in itself is nothing shocking. It is, in general, inherent in any system of organization necessarily logical crossed multiple perspectives and different interests. This is the case of the business and wider society. Compete in the enterprise of multiple logical (financial, economic, technical, legal, social, individual, institutional, commercial). It is a place of tension, conflict potential. Regulations are needed to strike the best balance point for its development of and sustainability. That is the issue of social dialogue in the business. Must still admit that this balance is as relevant as possible, all logic and find expression are taken into account in the decision process, the legitimacy of various actors to be recognized. In some cases, conflict is necessary. It may be helpful and supportive of positive developments. Only totalitarian societies, on behalf of an alleged ideal, giving the illusion of a peaceful society, but we know what conditions and at what price. Admittedly, the ideal society is but we must not ever make it fairer, more fraternal and solidarity. Never-ending process ...
The real question is, if social conflict can be avoided, how to manage in a win-win and if he has a form of radicalism undermining the integrity of persons or, as this was the case in some contexts, the working tool? Radicalization is not new. Social conflict in our country have often been marked by actions more or less violent or various forms of hard-line. This characteristic relations Social several reasons. The business world has always had difficulty accepting the legitimacy of trade unionism to be taken on key decisions of the company - a true unionism is rooted in long-time strategies based solely on the notion of balance of power. Moreover, the crumbling union results in a competition that does not promote the search for essential cooperation. Hence the decisive weight of the role of government in the production of social guarantees and the weakness of a culture of negotiation still to be built or strengthened.
Without going further, the conflicts of the 60 to 80, in mining, steel and textiles have seen their share of sequestrations, occupations, the destruction of headquarters and clashes a'vec forces an order. But unlike today, it was often entire profession mobilized to defend their survival, their jobs or the need of industrialization teriitoires marked by the weight of a single industry at the government's industrial policy or employers' associations, trade unions opposed other development policy areas.
Today they are businesses that are part of a group (often international) who are fighting alone, at least with little support from other group entities to which they belong. We are witnessing a process of fragmentation of struggles for the use of facilities must be reconfigured or removed from the card in the same part of a strategy group. Employees feel abandoned and are tempted to radicalize their expression and their initiatives to give their work a dramatic dimension that forces other actors, under the pressure of public opinion, to intervene (local authorities, elected officials, state). The same Fragmentation is also played as individuals. In some areas, where the company management and the social partners failed to provide concrete answers to the despair experienced by employees, they could no longer give meaning to their work, have been driven to suicide. This does not mean that the situation at work is the only reason for such extreme acts as suicide is often an alchemy that results from multiple factors.
But there is another significant change compared to previous periods. Given the impossibility of influencing the strategy economic debate with directions does pius on maintaining reinvestment. seeking alternative solutions or ways to make it socially acceptable occupational and geographical mobility: it focuses on the amount of severance pay (20,000, 30,000 and 50,000 €)!
Finally, unlike the years 60-80, where the decision-making powers were mainly on the national territory, this is not the case for the majority of companies that experienced a radicalization their dispute. Staff representatives are facing more and more to an audience without any real power and often no room for negotiation.
The reasons for this radicalization
employees justify their action by the feeling of having been deceived. Despite past efforts (succession of social plans, drastic cost reduction, increased working hours), the management has suddenly explain to staff representatives that all this was useless and must now close the site. The reaction is so virulent, "They took us for idiots, we have nothing to lose." The absence interlocutors employers have leeway to build responses into account the interests and expectations of staff, explains the tension. The strategic choices are made at group level: they do not escape only to staff representatives, but more and more to school principals manipulated by the Branch and confined to a role to perform tasks to justify decisions taken. Given this vacuum, it is no more spectacular than the action or the threat to blow e factory "to promote the intervention of a third party (often the state) that allows representatives staff to meet someone able to take a minimum of decisions, at least answer the legitimate questions of staff.
But other developments, more societal, are a breeding ground for the exacerbation of social conflict. The extravagant salaries of CEOs, athletes, men or women in media, outrageous bonuses received by certain employers or traders, top-hat in place, or sentences needlessly provocative ("now when there is a strike, nobody notices »)... all of which can push employees or staff representatives to forms of extreme actions. They become legitimate in their eyes, against the excesses of those who are experiencing, and to forget that the exercise of responsibility should the requirement for exemplary efforts in the economic realities imposed or Financial. Similarly, the role of the media is not innocent. Too often - especially TV and radio - they deal easier appearances and spectacular aspects of a situation such as the television news devote more likely four minutes sequestration frames officers or images of tanks and employees seem to want to explode, than to explain or account for the seriousness and importance of a negotiation which will safeguard jobs or imagine forms of industrial or vocational retraining.
Finally, one can not underestimate the influence of some really far-left splinter groups, real predators who infiltrate the unions, are the despair of employees, based on the absence of catalyst projects and the crumbling union in companies to encourage the use of acts of violence as the only way to get a result. Violence is then presented as the only alternative to show that we exist and we want to have control over events.
Another ambition
We are not immune from a burning social consequences of heavy economic, social and political risks of radicalization should not be taken lightly, nor by unions or by business managers. The issue of rising unemployment, various forms of exclusion, power purchase, e the outstanding work "and discrimination of any kind are the breeding ground of this tension in individual and collective behavior. There is a moment or unbearable can, for a growing number, justify violence.
is for all players, at least those who believe in the republican and democratic values, to show that other pathways are possible, that violence is not the best way to manage the necessary changes. These routes pass through the search for shared goals, strategies cooperation1 involvement of employees and citizens. They are also making the choice for businesses not to limit the visibility of their ambition to the financial dimension (to conquer new market share, improve costs, generate new goods or services). They give visibility to another ambition economic, social and societal.
Corporate governance
In a recent article 1, Klaus Schwab, founder and president of the World Economic Forum in Davos and wrote: "We have seen the company transform itself from an entity with a sense another goal for the purpose - to create together for the good of all of products and services - has substituted a goal: to achieve as quickly as possible and see a substantial profit once the security prices rise. (...) In this context, the company is no longer an organic community but a machine to produce profits in which everything that does not serve the best new goal - managers, employees, products, sites, etc.. - Become interchangeable. "(...) He added:" The crisis should be understood as a serious warning. It commits us to rethink the evolution of our value systems, our ethical standards and our mechanisms regulating economic, political and social. To consider only financial indicators - Scholarships up again, big quarterly profits for the banks and bonuses in the future - and act as if all this had been a bad dream, we wear a fatal blow to humanity. "(...) In the mouth of the organizer of the Davos meetings, these comments reflect a true insight and encouraging. It is urgent to return to fundamentals and leave the short-termism. The company could become a place of co-production of general interest and a tool, not a profit rate, but the creation of wealth contribute to human development. A place of cooperation and contracting between the various stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, local authorities in which the company develops and shareholders) These acts replace humans, its development, its ability to live in dignity has to undertake an activity, a form, a shelter has to heal, to build its own destiny and to participate in the construction of our common destiny to the rank of the purpose and put the economy and the financial status of resources. This means a review of forms of governance and management criteria - considering that the office is a component of business strategy and not simply a corollary of economic and financial choices. - Develop processes that allow employee representatives to intervene as early as possible on policy choices. This responsibility can not rest solely management teams, and even some shareholders. - Rethinking the composition and functioning of boards of directors and supervisory boards in the further opening to the diversity of stakeholders and forbidding all multiple directorship and function. Some business leaders are members of the CAC 40 3, 4 or 5 boards. It is grotesque. - Review training programs for managers, too often characterized by an insufficient consideration of the social sciences or issues of regulation and social dialogue. - Reconfigure and simplify employee representative bodies hanging into account company size, reduce the number of instances (often being treated, the same problems on several levels). I think, for example, the systematic creation of a single instance in firms with fewer than 250 employees and the elimination Group Committee for companies that have a European dimension, strengthening the role of EWCs. - Review policies pay of company executives, management teams and managers. Why the basic pay of these officers do they evolve more rapidly than those of their staff? And premiums and bonuses at a different pace than the sharing or participation? All variable elements of pay should they ignore the social and environmental performance (changing jobs, retained jobs, number of CDD processed in CDI, number of employees trained, progress in the field of professional equality, the fight against discrimination and employment of older workers).
Without fundamental changes in corporate governance, even if certain measures are largely symbolic, it will not restore the signs of hope in the efficacy of new economic and social practices and we will not rule out the risk a radicalization of social conflicts.
Questions unionism
But
unionism, too, is placed in front of his responsibilities. His ties with employees have gradually weakened due to the increasing institutionalization of social dialogue at the enterprise level as in branches of industry. Union activists sometimes spend more time in the meetings of bodies with their members and even more so with 1ES employees. They need to find the taste of the communication and investigation to better take into account the aspirations of employees without behaving like an enlightened vanguard, to become more involved in upstream and downstream of the negotiation process. Confederations have to question how they operate and the role of different structures, providing material support to militants but also intellectual enterprise. The relationship between the structures (local union, union, federation, unions (local, state or regional), confederation) can be built on cooperative relationships and skills and not on power relations. They also seek to open up to more vulnerable categories: temporary, low skilled, sub-contractors, women often underpaid, new businesses, immigrants, young ...
Similarly, if the union structures reinforce know - see the contribution of Guy Groux - their level of expertise (economic, issues of work organization, on technological developments and new expectations employees), the negotiation will not be seen by unionists as the lesser evil but as a goal of economic transformation, social and cultural. Two issues arise here: the international dimension and trade union unity. Through the European Confederation of Trade Unions and professional branches of the International Trade Union Confederation, unions increase their capacity for international action, for example to facilitate. mobilization of employees in the same group. But they can not always do the impasse of a deep reflection on the conditions needed to overcome the fragmentation of trade unions, trying to reconfigure the French syndicalism and initiate a process of reconstruction.
The radicalization of social conflicts is the weapon of the desperate, the weak, predators or ideologues. Reducing these risks requires challenged cultural, ideological, economic, social and political. Only such an effort will enable France to give content to social democracy sought by the Act of August 20, 2008 and foster a renewed social dialogue at the challenges and changes of today, taking into account the legitimate expectations of society.
1. Le Monde, January 5, 2010.
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