Negotiations : A case where intellectuals invested with and by labor activists

Negotiations : a case where intellectuals invested with and by labor activists

This communication proposes to explore which intellectuals invest with and by labor activists about a particular and contemporary theme of management, object of various practices and representations : collective bargaining. To produce and conduct union training on negotiation, activists call and use works of intellectuals. After the Second War, particularly in United States, a current of sociology develops games theory to treat collective bargaining in industrial relations. Progressively, intellectuals develop models and suggest one best way to conduct negotiation : negotiation “win win”, presented as creator of social link between labor activists and employers in charge of negotiation. Models are diffused in Business Schools, Schools or Institutes of Management, but also in union trainings. In France, models are imported by Canadian and French sociologists and took up by consulting firms. More, some unions, in particular the CFDT [Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail], try to export these models of collective bargaining practices in developing countries (notably in Mexico). Who is invested by unions and why ? How do knowledges circulate between US and France, then between France and countries of South ? From interviews, research on archives and observations of union trainings, this proposal restitutes trajectories and careers of intellectuals invest with and by few unions to understand how references on such and such intellectual can impact union representations. With an historical approach of trainings and representations of collective bargaining in France and in developing countries since the 1980’s, we show that even if linkages between intellectuals and workers aren’t claimed, intellectual works impact representations and practices of union activists.