Les relations industrielles : un point de vue international

En abordant les relations industrielles d'un point de vue international, l'auteur traite d'abord de problèmes ayant trait aux relations professionnelles dans le cadre de l'entreprise et s'appuie ensuite sur l'expérience des pays industrialisés et plus spécifiquement des pays européens telle qu'elle ressort notamment de la deuxième session de la Conférence régionale européenne de VOIT.In view of the wide differences between industrial relations of the various countries of the world as well as between the political, economical and sociocultural factors which influence them, it might be thought that it is impossible to discern general trends from a comparative examination of industrial relations' phenomena and institutions.This negative reaction, while perfectly correct in many respects, would not however correspond to the whole truth. Almost no country today lives in isolation. Ideas have no frontiers, in so far, of course, that there is freedom of expression. The tripartite meetings convened by the ILO offer a unique opportunity of discovering common problems and trends and their conclusions, especially when they take the form of Conventions and Recommendations, represent an international consensus on important problems of social policy.Trends analysed in this article refer only to labour - management relations at the level of the undertaking and are mainly based on the experience of industrialised countries.THE EVOLUTION OF THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF LABOUR-MANAGEMENTRELATIONS AT THE LEVEL OF THE UNDERTAKINGSince the Second World War, three main trends have characterised this evolution. A first trend, under employers' influence, has placed the emphasis on the improvement of the social climate by stressing the common objectives which should be shared by all the members of an undertaking, and by seeking ways and means of enlisting the maximum contribution from each towards the common end. This search has been facilitated by advances in social sciences (studies on the motivations of the man at work) and in techniques of management (delegation of authority, management by objectives, etc..)A second trend, essentially of a political nature, encompasses the developments which have changed the basic structure of the undertaking (nationalisations and various forms of workers' participation in the managerial bodies of public or private undertakings). The third trend consists of all the measures which, mainly under trade union influence, are concerned with regulating the behaviour of managements (by law, collective agreements or as result of day-to-day trade union action) in such a way as to curtail their freedom of action by means of a whole series of procedures and institutions. These regulations have resulted in nothing less than a Bill of Rights for workers, which has gradually been evolved to safeguard them in their dealings with their employers.THE CONTEMPORARY TRENDSTowards greater security. In a world which is rapidly changing it is not surprising that the aspiration for security should have become prominent in the industrial relations field. Thus an aspiration towards greater employment and income security is to be noted in most countries. The principle that a worker should not be arbitrarily deprived of his employment has been firmly recognised at the international level, when, in 1963, the International Labour Conference adopted the Recommendation (No. 119) on Termination of Employment, which states that « termination of employment should not take place unless there is a valid reason for such termination ». This is a very important change in comparison with the old philosophy according to which, when a worker has been recruited by an employer under a contract of indeterminate duration, this contract may be rescinded at the will of either party provided a certain period of notice is given.While the recognition of the principle of the justification of termination of employment is essential to ensure the dignity of the worker in the employment relationship, there is nothing demagogic in it. The « valid reason » which may justify termination of employment, may be « based on the operational requirements of the undertaking, establishment or service ». Management therefore remains free to manage according to the best interest of the undertaking. As it is increasingly recognised that technical progress and economic growth need a greater mobility of workers than in the past, security is not therefore synonymous of stability. Certain jobs become reduntant or obsolete. A particular job cannot therefore be protected at all costs. In such situations the trend towards greater security will focus on the protection of the workers' income and on the measures to be taken to facilities his reemployment. While reduction of workforce may be justified as a factor of economic progress, the workers affected by such reductions cannot be left on their own. If society is to benefit from economic progress, it has also to support the social cost of such progress. This is the new principle of social justice which is now gaining acceptance.Towards greater participation. In 1966 the International Labour Conference adopted a Resolution noting that in various countries with different economic and social structures, efforts and experiments are being made to enable workers to participate in the decisions taken in their undertakings and requesting studies by the ILO on this subject. These studies, as well as various meetings organised by the ILO, have shown that while there cannot be an internationally agreed definition of the concept of « participation », workers are anxious to obtain a greater influence on the marking of the decisions which concern them, through methods as different as collective bargaining, joint consultation and communications, or workers' representation in the managerial boards. The concept of participation is likely to dominate the evolution of industrial relations in the next thirty years because the worker of today has new aspirations which are not satisfied by the present industrial organisation. He refuses to be manipulated like a tool or buffeted by forces or decisions over which he has no influence.Towards greater accountability. Twenty years ago it was still an accepted credo in many industrialised countries that the role of government in industrial relations was mainly a passive one: not to interfere in matters which were best left to the autonomous relations of the two industrial partners. When collective bargaining broke, government intervention had mainly an auxiliary character. It was to assist the parties to put the train back on its rails, and not to drive it or to regulate its speed. So long as industrial peace was not seriously threatened, the government was not primarily concerned with the outcome of collective bargaining. Today the parties to collective bargaining can no longer consider that this is their own affair only. Governments in pursuing their economic and social policies are anxious to see the concept of the public interest introduced into the bargaining process. The finding of appropriate solutions is however not easy. The great challenges of our days in the industrial relations field is to determine how the systems and practices should be adapted in order to permit the achievement of public goals without endangering basic human freedoms. The partners to collective bargaining will have more and more to be in a position to justify their behaviour in the light of the public interest.The need for training and education. The complexity and interdependance of problems raised by technological developments and the evolution of economic and social relations call for a tremendous increase in training and education, not only from a technical point of view but also with regard to economic and social knowledge. The International Labour Conference will consider next June the drafts of a convention and a recommendation on educational leave for workers and the Governing Body of the ILO has emphasised the social responsibility of managers as one of the key elements of the future activities of the ILO Management Development Programme. This is all the more necessary that young executives are sometimes challenging the objectives pursued by the companies in which they work

Efficient and Accurate Construction of Genetic Linkage Maps from the Minimum Spanning Tree of a Graph

Genetic linkage maps are cornerstones of a wide spectrum of biotechnology applications, including map-assisted breeding, association genetics, and map-assisted gene cloning. During the past several years, the adoption of high-throughput genotyping technologies has been paralleled by a substantial increase in the density and diversity of genetic markers. New genetic mapping algorithms are needed in order to efficiently process these large datasets and accurately construct high-density genetic maps. In this paper, we introduce a novel algorithm to order markers on a genetic linkage map. Our method is based on a simple yet fundamental mathematical property that we prove under rather general assumptions. The validity of this property allows one to determine efficiently the correct order of markers by computing the minimum spanning tree of an associated graph. Our empirical studies obtained on genotyping data for three mapping populations of barley (Hordeum vulgare), as well as extensive simulations on synthetic data, show that our algorithm consistently outperforms the best available methods in the literature, particularly when the input data are noisy or incomplete. The software implementing our algorithm is available in the public domain as a web tool under the name MSTmap

Gene Regulatory Network Reconstruction Using Bayesian Networks, the Dantzig Selector, the Lasso and Their Meta-Analysis

Modern technologies and especially next generation sequencing facilities are giving a cheaper access to genotype and genomic data measured on the same sample at once. This creates an ideal situation for multifactorial experiments designed to infer gene regulatory networks. The fifth “Dialogue for Reverse Engineering Assessments and Methods” (DREAM5) challenges are aimed at assessing methods and associated algorithms devoted to the inference of biological networks. Challenge 3 on “Systems Genetics” proposed to infer causal gene regulatory networks from different genetical genomics data sets. We investigated a wide panel of methods ranging from Bayesian networks to penalised linear regressions to analyse such data, and proposed a simple yet very powerful meta-analysis, which combines these inference methods. We present results of the Challenge as well as more in-depth analysis of predicted networks in terms of structure and reliability. The developed meta-analysis was ranked first among the teams participating in Challenge 3A. It paves the way for future extensions of our inference method and more accurate gene network estimates in the context of genetical genomics

A Large Maize (Zea mays L.) SNP Genotyping Array: Development and Germplasm Genotyping, and Genetic Mapping to Compare with the B73 Reference Genome

SNP genotyping arrays have been useful for many applications that require a large number of molecular markers such as high-density genetic mapping, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and genomic selection. We report the establishment of a large maize SNP array and its use for diversity analysis and high density linkage mapping. The markers, taken from more than 800,000 SNPs, were selected to be preferentially located in genes and evenly distributed across the genome. The array was tested with a set of maize germplasm including North American and European inbred lines, parent/F1 combinations, and distantly related teosinte material. A total of 49,585 markers, including 33,417 within 17,520 different genes and 16,168 outside genes, were of good quality for genotyping, with an average failure rate of 4% and rates up to 8% in specific germplasm. To demonstrate this array's use in genetic mapping and for the independent validation of the B73 sequence assembly, two intermated maize recombinant inbred line populations – IBM (B73×Mo17) and LHRF (F2×F252) – were genotyped to establish two high density linkage maps with 20,913 and 14,524 markers respectively. 172 mapped markers were absent in the current B73 assembly and their placement can be used for future improvements of the B73 reference sequence. Colinearity of the genetic and physical maps was mostly conserved with some exceptions that suggest errors in the B73 assembly. Five major regions containing non-colinearities were identified on chromosomes 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9, and are supported by both independent genetic maps. Four additional non-colinear regions were found on the LHRF map only; they may be due to a lower density of IBM markers in those regions or to true structural rearrangements between lines. Given the array's high quality, it will be a valuable resource for maize genetics and many aspects of maize breeding

Mapping quantitative trait loci (QTL) in sheep. I. A new male framework linkage map and QTL for growth rate and body weight

A male sheep linkage map comprising 191 microsatellites was generated from a single family of 510 Awassi-Merino backcross progeny. Except for ovine chromosomes 1, 2, 10 and 17, all other chromosomes yielded a LOD score difference greater than 3.0 between the best and second-best map order. The map is on average 11% longer than the Sheep Linkage Map v4.7 male-specific map. This map was employed in quantitative trait loci (QTL) analyses on body-weight and growth-rate traits between birth and 98 weeks of age. A custom maximum likelihood program was developed to map QTL in half-sib families for non-inbred strains (QTL-MLE) and is freely available on request. The new analysis package offers the advantage of enabling QTL × fixed effect interactions to be included in the model. Fifty-four putative QTL were identified on nine chromosomes. Significant QTL with sex-specific effects (i.e. QTL × sex interaction) in the range of 0.4 to 0.7 SD were found on ovine chromosomes 1, 3, 6, 11, 21, 23, 24 and 26

Advanced backcross QTL mapping of resistance to Fusarium head blight and plant morphological traits in a Triticum macha × T. aestivum population

While many reports on genetic analysis of Fusarium head blight (FHB) resistance in bread wheat have been published during the past decade, only limited information is available on FHB resistance derived from wheat relatives. In this contribution, we report on the genetic analysis of FHB resistance derived from Triticum macha (Georgian spelt wheat). As the origin of T. macha is in the Caucasian region, it is supposed that its FHB resistance differs from other well-investigated resistance sources. To introduce valuable alleles from the landrace T. macha into a modern genetic background, we adopted an advanced backcross QTL mapping scheme. A backcross-derived recombinant-inbred line population of 321 BC2F3 lines was developed from a cross of T. macha with the Austrian winter wheat cultivar Furore. The population was evaluated for Fusarium resistance in seven field experiments during four seasons using artificial inoculations. A total of 300 lines of the population were genetically fingerprinted using SSR and AFLP markers. The resulting linkage map covered 33 linkage groups with 560 markers. Five novel FHB-resistance QTL, all descending from T. macha, were found on four chromosomes (2A, 2B, 5A, 5B). Several QTL for morphological and developmental traits were mapped in the same population, which partly overlapped with FHB-resistance QTL. Only the 2BL FHB-resistance QTL co-located with a plant height QTL. The largest-effect FHB-resistance QTL in this population mapped at the spelt-type locus on chromosome 5A and was associated with the wild-type allele q, but it is unclear whether q has a pleiotropic effect on FHB resistance or is closely linked to a nearby resistance QTL

The Imprinted Gene DIO3 Is a Candidate Gene for Litter Size in Pigs

Genomic imprinting is an important epigenetic phenomenon, which on the phenotypic level can be detected by the difference between the two heterozygote classes of a gene. Imprinted genes are important in both the development of the placenta and the embryo, and we hypothesized that imprinted genes might be involved in female fertility traits. We therefore performed an association study for imprinted genes related to female fertility traits in two commercial pig populations. For this purpose, 309 SNPs in fifteen evolutionary conserved imprinted regions were genotyped on 689 and 1050 pigs from the two pig populations. A single SNP association study was used to detect additive, dominant and imprinting effects related to four reproduction traits; total number of piglets born, the number of piglets born alive, the total weight of the piglets born and the total weight of the piglets born alive. Several SNPs showed significant () additive and dominant effects and one SNP showed a significant imprinting effect. The SNP with a significant imprinting effect is closely linked to DIO3, a gene involved in thyroid metabolism. The imprinting effect of this SNP explained approximately 1.6% of the phenotypic variance, which corresponded to approximately 15.5% of the additive genetic variance. In the other population, the imprinting effect of this QTL was not significant (), but had a similar effect as in the first population. The results of this study indicate a possible association between the imprinted gene DIO3 and female fertility traits in pigs

Integrative mapping analysis of chicken microchromosome 16 organization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The chicken karyotype is composed of 39 chromosome pairs, of which 9 still remain totally absent from the current genome sequence assembly, despite international efforts towards complete coverage. Some others are only very partially sequenced, amongst which microchromosome 16 (GGA16), particularly under-represented, with only 433 kb assembled for a full estimated size of 9 to 11 Mb. Besides the obvious need of full genome coverage with genetic markers for QTL (Quantitative Trait Loci) mapping and major genes identification studies, there is a major interest in the detailed study of this chromosome because it carries the two genetically independent <it>MHC </it>complexes <it>B </it>and <it>Y</it>. In addition, GGA16 carries the ribosomal RNA (<it>rRNA</it>) genes cluster, also known as the <it>NOR </it>(nucleolus organizer region). The purpose of the present study is to construct and present high resolution integrated maps of GGA16 to refine its organization and improve its coverage with genetic markers.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed 79 STS (Sequence Tagged Site) markers to build a physical RH (radiation hybrid) map and 34 genetic markers to extend the genetic map of GGA16. We screened a BAC (Bacterial Artificial Chromosome) library with markers for the <it>MHC-B</it>, <it>MHC-Y </it>and <it>rRNA </it>complexes. Selected clones were used to perform high resolution FISH (Fluorescent <it>In Situ </it>Hybridization) mapping on giant meiotic lampbrush chromosomes, allowing meiotic mapping in addition to the confirmation of the order of the three clusters along the chromosome. A region with high recombination rates and containing PO41 repeated elements separates the two <it>MHC </it>complexes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The three complementary mapping strategies used refine greatly our knowledge of chicken microchromosome 16 organisation. The characterisation of the recombination hotspots separating the two <it>MHC </it>complexes demonstrates the presence of PO41 repetitive sequences both in tandem and inverted orientation. However, this region still needs to be studied in more detail.</p

Identification of stable QTLs for vegetative and reproductive traits in the microvine (Vitis vinifera L.) using the 18 K Infinium chip

UMR AGAP - équipe DAAV - Diversité, adaptation et amélioration de la vigne[b]Background[/b] [br/]The increasing temperature associated with climate change impacts grapevine phenology and development with critical effects on grape yield and composition. Plant breeding has the potential to deliver new cultivars with stable yield and quality under warmer climate conditions, but this requires the identification of stable genetic determinants. This study tested the potentialities of the microvine to boost genetics in grapevine. A mapping population of 129 microvines derived from Picovine x Ugni Blanc flb, was genotyped with the Illumina® 18 K SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) chip. Forty-three vegetative and reproductive traits were phenotyped outdoors over four cropping cycles, and a subset of 22 traits over two cropping cycles in growth rooms with two contrasted temperatures, in order to map stable QTLs (Quantitative Trait Loci). [br/][b]Results[/b] [br/]Ten stable QTLs for berry development and quality or leaf area were identified on the parental maps. A new major QTL explaining up to 44 % of total variance of berry weight was identified on chromosome 7 in Ugni Blanc flb, and co-localized with QTLs for seed number (up to 76 % total variance), major berry acids at green lag phase (up to 35 %), and other yield components (up to 25 %). In addition, a minor QTL for leaf area was found on chromosome 4 of the same parent. In contrast, only minor QTLs for berry acidity and leaf area could be found as moderately stable in Picovine. None of the transporters recently identified as mutated in low acidity apples or Cucurbits were included in the several hundreds of candidate genes underlying the above berry QTLs, which could be reduced to a few dozen candidate genes when a priori pertinent biological functions and organ specific expression were considered. [br/][b]Conclusions[/b] [br/]This study combining the use of microvine and a high throughput genotyping technology was innovative for grapevine genetics. It allowed the identification of 10 stable QTLs, including the first berry acidity QTLs reported so far in a Vitis vinifera intra-specific cross. Robustness of a set of QTLs was assessed with respect to temperature variatio