Abstract EN:

By reconstituting the history of a factory, through interviews included in the text, we show that the initial forms of investment in the factory personnel give structure to the firm's ulterior development. The firm develops through an interpersonal network, according to a village-based mode of production. The creation of collective worker organizations prolongs the development and complexification of the unit of production. The local union brings into the factory a new way of interpreting the ties between the boss and the workers and among workers, a new way of measuring and evaluating social ties : this is by reference to public opinion, to the search for and defense of everyone's common interest, and of the different forms of legal texts. This change has also found expression in the valorization of "equivalents" such as official degrees (which workers rarely have), in the accentuation of differences between workers who are close in other ways, and in the elimination of local workers' specific characteristic and of their demands. The process of "reducing" the trade union's collective work depends on this "denunciation". It is a rival trade union which denigrates the first union's efforts, by presenting them as a mere expression of particular interest. This process of "reduction" leads to a new definition of work : one see no longer in terms of villagebased forms of solidarity but rather in terms of the risk involved.