Ordinary exemption working hours? Sociology of conflicts and negotiations around night and Sunday work

Thesis Defense of Pauline Grimaud (in french)

Ordinary exemption working hours? Sociology of conflicts and negotiations around night and Sunday work

Dir : Jérôme Pélisse

Jury :

Sophie BERNARD, Baptiste GIRAUD, Cécile GUILLAUME, Michel LALLEMENT, Jérôme PELISSE (Directeur de recherche), Jens THOEMMES.

Contact : Pauline Grimaud pauline.grimaud@sciencespo.fr

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the conflicts and negotiations surrounding Sunday and night work, which has concerned a growing number of employees in France since the 1980s.

Using the lens of sociological Marxism as formulated by M. Burawoy and E. O. Wright, the thesis shows the interest of articulating the notions of exploitation and commodification in order to understand the current evolution of the capital-labour relationship and of conflictuality at work. In this perspective, Sunday and night work hours are understood as exemption working hours, whose specificity is to be subject to legal norms, unlike other so-called atypical hours.

The first part proposes a socio-history of the regulation of daily rest at night and weekly rest on Sunday. Even though this legal norm was subject to numerous derogations from the outset, such exemptions have undergone a remarkable inflation over the last forty years, in a context of competing legal mobilizations by employer and union organizations.

The second part of the thesis studies exemption working hours as a major issue in industrial relations in the Parisian retail sector. In this sector, the extension of the potential working hours of employees has been accompanied by a deterioration of their employment conditions, giving rise to a long-lasting confrontation between the management of the large retailers and the unions, leading them to renew their action strategies.

Putting into perspective the specificity of trade, the third part of the thesis analyzes the exemption working hours from the point of view of compensation (in rest or in wages) associated with Sunday and night work. As they are becoming more and more a daily issue of negotiation within companies, these hours contribute to the individualization of remuneration, and more specifically, increase horizontal inequalities between employees, even within each of the socio-professional categories.

Keywords: night work, Sunday work, working hours, legal exemptions, collective bargaining, working conflict, remuneration.