“Why are the workers working so hard? » With this very simple question posed in the introduction to his major work Produce consent (The City is Burning, 2015, published in the United States in 1979), the British sociologist Michael Burawoy overturned the tradition of organizational science which, from Taylor to the present day, asks instead why workers loaf, shy away, are not sufficiently “motivated”, “committed” or even “involved”, to use more current management terms.
The context
Thirty-eight million American workers left their jobs in 2021. This gave rise to the concept of the “great resignation”, which refers to post-pandemic employee disenchantment. Confinement and telework having “revealed”, by contrast, the mediocrity of working conditions, even its “loss of meaning”. The phenomenon does not spare France, with 400,000 resignations from permanent contracts in the third quarter of 2021. Companies and the public service are struggling to attract candidates. Is it, in a period of economic recovery, the banal rebalancing of a market hitherto favorable to employers? Or a veritable “crisis of consent”, explored by sociologists, managers, lawyers, doctors, economists and psychologists gathered at ESCP Business School on June 9 and 10 for a symposium entitled “Consent? Why, how and to what? »
However, the major international surveys on values, conducted since the 1980s, show that the French attach great importance to work as an activity that provides income and dignity. This is, for example, what could, in part, explain the massive rate of non-use of active solidarity income (RSA) activity, some people refusing to benefit from an “assistance” scheme to supplement their income while working. This has again been verified since the start of the health crisis in March 2020. The TraCov survey, conducted by the Department of Research, Studies and Statistics (Dares) of the Ministry of Labor , identified longer working hours and intensification of work.
Extended availability
For those who have been able to telecommute, this excess work is explained by the abolition of transport time and the deregulation of working hours at the cost, in particular for women, of a heavier work of articulation of social times in a context of unequal distribution of domestic and parental work. The least qualified workers, such as bicycle delivery men, often in a situation of underemployment on the border between unemployment and wage employment, have sought to compensate for the sudden reduction in their hours of paid work by extending their availability, to the detriment of their health and family life.
At the same time, still according to the TraCov survey, the meaning of work has progressed at the height of health constraints. In January 2021, nearly 20% of workers said they felt a greater sense of purpose or pride in their work, while 10% mentioned a weakening of these aspects. However, a year later, Dares recorded a significant increase in resignations and contractual terminations. One of the possible interpretations of this phenomenon would be, with the return of working relationships similar to those before the health crisis, the questioning by workers of the coherence between their goals and those of the organizations.
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