[Comment le lean management peut produire de nouvelles contraintes pour les salariés : c’est ce que développe Jérôme Gautié, professeur à l’université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne, chercheur au centre d’économie de la Sorbonne et chercheur associé au Cepremap, dans une comparaison franco-suédoise du lean appliqué au secteur aéronautique. Ses recherches portent sur les transformations du travail et de l’emploi. Il a notamment coordonné (avec John Schmitt) Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World (New York, Russell Sage, 2010), issu d’une recherche internationale comparative sur l’Europe et les États-Unis, et publié Salaire minimum et emploi (Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2020). Il préside le conseil scientifique de Pôle emploi depuis 2013.]
When we compare them to their counterparts in European countries, it is striking to note that the French express much less general satisfaction with their working and employment conditions, and strong questions about the meaning of their work (see in particular the contributions to the project “What do we know about work?” by Maëlezig Bigi and Dominique Méda; by Christine Erhel, Mathilde Guergoat-Larivière, and Malo Mofakhami; as well as that of Thomas Coutrot and Coralie Perez).
The French are even the champions of salary dissatisfaction: among the workers questioned in 2015 in the European survey on working conditions, around 46% of French people said they disagreed with the statement: “I find that I am well paid for the efforts I make and the work I do,” the highest rate among the thirty-four countries covered by the survey, far ahead of the United Kingdom (30%, which corresponds to the European average), the Netherlands (29%), Sweden (28% ), Italy (27%), Germany (23%), or Denmark (22%).
Elements suggest that it is not so much the low salaries – in absolute or relative terms (compared to the most qualified) – which is denounced here, as the fact that the salary is not perceived as compensating for the poor conditions. of work and employment as they are felt. This makes it possible in particular to explain the apparent French paradox concerning low-wage employees: despite the minimum wage which guarantees them a relatively high absolute and relative salary (compared to more qualified employees), when we compare to other European countries and the United States. United, their salary dissatisfaction is particularly strong (Caroli and Gautié (dir), 2010).
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