Revendications, stratégie syndicale et organisation du travail dans l’entreprise

L'auteur étudie la stratégie élaborée par le syndicat pour obtenir une amélioration des conditions de travail des travailleurs.The purpose of the present article is to examine the strategy developed by unions to obtain improved working conditions for labour. The analysis is based on the relationship between the pressure tactics of a local union and the characteristics of work organization in a company. It pursues a double objective: first, to show that a union increases its demands at this level to gain advantages in areas traditionally excluded from the field of negotiations through the elaboration of demands legitimized by general consensus in industrial relations; and secondly to show that union action in a company is closely linked to the particularities of work organization in its various departments.DemandsInstead of putting the accent on demands according to their relations with a certain member of explanatory factors, analysis here consists of examining the significance of a particular type of demand in relation to other themes evoked, plus one explanatory factor: works organization.Union Action and Works OrganizationMore and more unions digress from their established policy of protecting employees against the negative effects of work organization. They will attempt, in future, to obtain direct control over work organization. In today's industrial relations system, this sort of control is not considered negotiable. As a result, certain unions will adopt the strategy of acting indirectly on work organization by formulating demands in terms generally admitted in industrial relations practice. Demands elaborated may, thus, correspond to a double objective and pursue interest both institutional and non-institutional in negotiation.Analysis of Local Union StrategyInitially union demands are classified in three categories: individual, semi-collective and collective. With this classification, the author reveals how basic principes of work organization helps explain that the union seeks to improve work content of employees' jobs in certain departments by formulating a traditional demand: increasing the value of the coefficients of classification. By means of this demand, the union seeks to improve the position of employees in relation to the salary scale, but also seeks to obtain modification of works content for some. This strategy is possible because of the fundamental principle establishing a link between coefficients of classification and content of specific tasks. Take, for example, the maintenance department. Repair tasks are classified according to both time and difficulty and are affected by various coefficients.Thus, the most complex tasks are affected by coefficients situated at the top of the scale, intermediate tasks by intermediate coefficients, and the easiest tasks by lesser coefficients. Employees are given the coefficient of the classification corresponding to the degree of difficulty of the tasks completed. Therefore, the employee who is continually assigned by his foreman to tasks of intermediate difficulty will be given an intermediate coefficient. The union, then, advances a number of individual demands in the department in question relative to increasing the value of coefficients. In the face of pressure tactics by employees in support of union demands, management often has a tendency to accept the union position. Such concessions, nevertheless, have consequences for the employee concerned through both salary in-crease and improvement in works content of his job. In fact, in order to respect the basic principle of works organization, management required the foreman to reestablish the correspondance between the level of difficulty of tasks and the coefficient by assigning him tasks equivalent to his new coefficient. The union, consequently, obtains satisfaction of its demands in a non-institutionalized area of what is negotiable by making demands which are considered admissible

La stratégie syndicale face aux groupes semi-autonomes de production : hypothèse pour l’analyse du cas Rushton

L'auteur vérifie, par l'analyse du cas Rushton, la validité de l'hypothèse que l'action syndicale est articulée autour d'une stratégie comportant trois dimensions complémentaires, la survie, la vigilance et le contrôle qui caractérisent, selon des agencements différents, toutes les phases de la stratégie

Modifications et stabilité du phosphore échangeable d'un ferralsol ingéré par un ver géophage

L'un des paramètres des cinétiques de dilution isotopique du phosphore est modifié par l'ingestion, du ferralsol étudié, par le ver géophage #Pontoscolex corethrurus (#Glossoscolecidae, #Oligochaeta$). La concentation d'ions phosphate de la solution du sol et le compartiment d'ions immédiatement échangeables associé au sol sont nettement augmentés. Divers mécanismes pouvant expliquer ces modifications sont discutés. La minéralisation du phosphore organique s'effectue au profit des formes les plus rapidement échangeables. (Résumé d'auteur

Splenic dendritic cells pulsed with Ixodes ricinus tick saliva prime naive CD4+T to induce Th2 cell differentiation in vitro and in vivo

Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in priming naive T cells. Using an in vitro priming system, we show that DCs incubated with Ixodes ricinus tick saliva initiate the Th2 differentiation of CD4+T cells. As determined with reverse transcription-PCR, the expression of IL-4 mRNA by these cells is higher than IFN-γ mRNA. Early endogenous production of IL-4 is thought to be important during the in vitro interaction of saliva-pulsed DCs with CD4+T cells. Its neutralization with specific mAbs inhibits the development of IL-4-secreting Th2 cells. Moreover, differentiated Th2 cells proliferate only when saliva-pulsed DCs and IL-1β are added together early in the primary culture. As demonstrated by FACS analysis, the treatment in vitro of saliva-pulsed DCs by IL-1β enhanced the expression of B7 and mainly CD40 co-stimulatory molecules, which provide sufficient signals to stimulate sensitized CD4+T cell proliferation. On the other hand, DCs treated with tick saliva only up-regulated mostly B7-2 co-stimulator expression and this was associated with differentiation of naive CD4+T cells into Th2 type of cells. The in vitro priming system is suitable to investigate the major elements implicated in the anti-tick immune response such as naive CD4+T cells, whole DCs population and tick saliva, and it can provide the possibility to delimit further the saliva molecules, the DC subsets and the type of host cells involved in the Th2 polarization. Corresponding in vivo experiments involving subcutaneous injection of tick saliva-pulsed DCs into BALB/c mice also elicited a Th2 immune response. Ex vivo cultures of draining lymph node T cells stimulated with tick saliva produced higher IL-4 : IFN-γ ratios compared with controls, confirming the relevance obtained in the in vitro priming model. These experiments demonstrate the importance of tick saliva in priming DCs to initiate a Th2-biased immune response in vitro and in viv