# Quel dialogue social pour accompagner la transition écologique ?

Bernard Gazier, Frédéric Bruggeman

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écologique?. 2024. halshs-04490862

Quel dialogue social pour accompagner la transition

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# Transforming Social Dialogue to Foster the Ecological Bifurcation

Bernard Gazier, Frédéric Bruggeman

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Bernard Gazier, Frédéric Bruggeman. Transforming Social Dialogue to Foster the Ecological Bifurcation. 2024. halshs-04490862v3

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Submitted on 28 Jan 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
CES

Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne
UMR 8174

# Quel dialogue social pour accompagner la transition écologique ?

Bernard GAZIER, Frédéric BRUGGEMAN

2024.02
CES

Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne
UMR 8174

# Transforming Social Dialogue to Foster the Ecological Bifurcation

Bernard GAZIER, Frédéric BRUGGEMAN

2024.02RR

Version révisée
# Quel dialogue social pour accompagner la transition écologique ?

Bernard Gazier

Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne

gazier@univ-paris1.fr

Frédéric Bruggeman

Ex-expert auprès des comités d'entreprise

Février 2024
# Transforming Social Dialogue to Foster the Ecological Bifurcation

Bernard Gazier

Sorbonne Economics Centre

gazier@univ-paris1.fr

Frédéric Bruggeman

Former Works Council expert

December 2024

## Summary

### Transforming Social Dialogue to Foster the Ecological Bifurcation

This article explores the idea that a possible commitment to an ecological bifurcation requires the coupling of political democracy and social democracy. This recourse to social dialogue is doubly paradoxical. On the one hand, it is very unevenly developed, and on the whole, has been weakened since the 1970s. On the other hand, unions mainly voice the concerns of workers faced with the threat of job losses and impoverishment arising from both the manifestations of the ecological crisis and the measures designed to respond to it. However, the mobilisation of social democracy is essential if all stakeholders, and workers in particular, are to be involved. We set out to show that this requires a broadening and renewal of social dialogue.

The argument proceeds in four stages. First, we look back at current difficulties, to show that the aim is in fact to establish a new social contract to replace the one defined and implemented during the Fordist era. We then examine how ecological issues and players are currently being introduced into the existing social dialogue in France and Europe, and show that this process is not up to the challenge. Thirdly, a theoretical perspective is introduced which broadens the discussion by focusing on the “real freedom” of workers and the old and new forms of scarcity facing our societies. Finally, we return to the subject of social dialogue, examining the major transformations that are needed if the emancipation of workers and the ecological transition are to be mutually supportive.
# Résumé

## Quel dialogue social pour accompagner la transition écologique ?

Ce texte propose, à partir du cas français, d'esquisser ce que pourraient être, en termes d'acteurs, d'objets et de structures, les évolutions du dialogue social au service d'une bifurcation écologique. Il vise à combler l'absence de réflexion actuellement patente sur les liens entre l'organisation du marché du travail et les urgences de l'écologie, ces liens étant le plus souvent résumés par l'idée d'emplois « verts » ou « verdissants » et celle de la responsabilité sociale et environnementale des entreprises.

La réflexion procédera en trois étapes. Tout d'abord, en partant du dialogue social existant, nous examinerons et questionnerons brièvement les évolutions en cours (1). Ensuite nous introduirons une approche théorique normative : les « Marchés Transitionnels du Travail » (MTT), visant à construire des capacités collectives pro-actives de transition et d'action dans les champs du travail de de l'emploi (2). Enfin nous présenterons, en conséquence de cette approche, les changements d'objectifs et de leviers qui pourraient servir de base à un dialogue social renouvelé, concourant activement aux efforts des politiques publiques et aux initiatives citoyennes (3).

# Summary

## Managing the ecological transition : Which social dialogue could support it ?

This paper aims at sketching what should be, in terms of actors, objects and structures, the evolution of the existing social dialogue in order to contribute to triggering and managing the radical changes needed in the field of environment. Our elaboration takes place in a context of little, if any, existing reflection on the connection between the functioning of the labour markets and the urgent changes needed in production and consumption, beyond the so-called « green » or « greening » jobs and the idea of a corporate social and environmental responsibility.

We proceed in three steps. We start from the French situation and briefly asset recent changes (1), then introduce a normative theoretical perspective : the « Transitional Labour Markets » (TLM). Their aim is to build and structure collective capacities of transition and projects in the field of work and employment (2). Last, we discuss major changes in terms of coordination and bargaining targets and levers, in order to yield foundations to a renewed social dialogue, able to actively support public policy efforts and initiatives from the citizens (3).

**Keywords** : Social dialogue, Ecological transition, scarcity, labour market, quality of work.

**JEL codes** : J22, J24, J50, J62, J80
**Keywords**

Social dialogue, ecological transition, capabilities, Transitional Labour Markets

JEL: J22, J24, J50, J62, J80
# Quel dialogue social pour accompagner la transition écologique ?

B. Gazier et F. Bruggeman

## Introduction

Le temps passe et la crise écologique s'amplifie. Les « limites planétaires » (Rockström et al., 2009 ; Steffen et al., 2015) se rapprochent dangereusement, sont en cours de franchissement ou déjà franchies (Richardson et al. 2023). Son développement est de nature à saper les fondements mêmes de nos sociétés ce qui, potentiellement, en fait une crise majeure du mode de production (Boyer 2015).

Pour autant, il ne s'est pas encore, loin s'en faut, produit d'événements considérés et reconnu par tous comme constitutifs d'une crise majeure et il est peu probable qu'il s'en produise dans un futur proche. Il y a là une différence importante avec la période du « New Deal », durant laquelle une bifurcation maintenant ancienne, le fordisme, est née. On constate une forte hétérogénéité dans les réactions face à cette crise et au moins quatre programmes de travail et d'(in)action, très différents, sont à distinguer. Le *climato-scepticisme* s'est métamorphosé en une redoutable force d'inertie dominant encore un ensemble de décisions essentielles<fnref n="1" />. Le *cornucopianisme*, qui regarde la science comme une corne d'abondance dans laquelle puiser pour trouver des solutions aux problèmes actuels ou futurs, est porteur de projets à ce jour peu réalistes techniquement ou économiquement (géo-ingénierie, captation et séquestration du CO² de l'atmosphère, ...). Centré sur la décarbonation, le *verdissement de l'économie* propose de concevoir des produits et des procédés de production « verts » pour remplacer et faire évoluer ceux, « bruns », existant (Pisani-Ferry, Mahfouz, 2023). La *bifurcation écologique* enfin se propose de modifier en profondeur les organisations sociales, les modes de production et de consommation pour que les activités humaines s'inscrivent dans les limites planétaires. Il faut alors sortir de la croissance (Laurent 2019), développer une « économie désirable » (Veltz 2021) dont les linéaments sont perceptibles dans l'émergence d'une « économie anthropogénétique » (Boyer 2020).

Pour esquisser ce que pourraient être les transformations du marché du travail et un dialogue social accompagnant une transition écologique nous proposons de partir de la dernière option, celle de la bifurcation. Celle-ci est selon le GIEC, urgente (GIEC 2018).

L'enjeu est de réinventer un mode de développement visant à maintenir le niveau de bien être obtenu et à l'assurer à toutes et tous, substituant la recherche d'une meilleure qualité de vie à l'accumulation de biens et de monnaie, pour organiser une réduction maîtrisée des flux de matières et d'énergie. Dans cette perspective, une réorientation des efforts de R&D, des investissements massifs dans les infrastructures, notamment énergétiques et des transformations profondes des

<footnote n="1">1 Cf. par exemple, les travaux sur les « bombes carbones » (Kühne et al. 2022)</footnote>
# Transforming Social Dialogue to Foster the Ecological Bifurcation

## Introduction

Time is running out and the ecological crisis is getting worse. The “planetary boundaries” (Rockström *et al.*, 2009; Steffen *et al.*, 2015) are dangerously close, are being crossed or have already been crossed (Richardson *et al.*, 2023). The result is an existential threat, undermining the very foundations of our societies (Blanchard, Tirole, 2021).

While the reality of the crisis has been amply documented, public opinion does not yet perceive it as a general, open crisis, despite its increasingly serious manifestations. In tackling climate change, countries and players are currently divided on both the objectives and the means of achieving them. As pointed out by Combet and Pottier (2024), attempts to respond to the crisis are hampered by the many conflicts that are either revealed or created by the choices made or envisaged, choices that disadvantage certain groups and block the decision-making process itself. In many countries, for example, there is a populist anti-environmental alliance between the far right and a group of capital-holders whose profitability is based on the extraction or use of fossil fuels.

This article explores the idea that political democracy, which is in crisis in the face of this challenge and its urgency, must be coupled with the mobilisation and revitalisation of a second form of democratic life: a form of social democracy based on collective bargaining, whether conducted by the social partners among themselves, or with the State, or by other organisations representing collective interests such as consumer associations. This idea is admittedly paradoxical on two counts. First, social democracy, which varies greatly from country to country, is in generally poor shape in the 21st century, with trade unions in particular weakened in most countries. Second, unions relay the concerns of existing workers faced with the threat of impoverishment and job losses, concerns that are all the more legitimate given that many of the manifestations of the ecological crisis and many of the responses to it are at the expense of the poorest. They are therefore spontaneously more inclined to put the brakes on the process than to develop it.

Despite these obstacles, we are convinced that the ecological crisis cannot be tackled effectively without the support and active participation not only of citizens, but also of consumers, businesses and workers. In its most general definition, social dialogue is a particular form of democracy that constructs the general interest on the basis of a process of confrontation between interests previously constituted in “bodies” (Supiot 2010). It corresponds to a wide variety
modes de productions doivent s'articuler à une forme de sobriété collective, afin qu'aient lieu les changements des modes de vie permettant de respecter les limites planétaires.

Face à ce défi nous proposons, à partir du cas français, d'esquisser ce que pourraient être en termes d'acteurs, d'objets et de structures, les évolutions du dialogue social au service d'une bifurcation écologique. Nous procéderons en trois étapes. Tout d'abord, en partant du dialogue social existant, nous examinerons et questionnerons brièvement les évolutions en cours (1). Ensuite, nous introduirons une approche théorique normative : les Marchés Transitionnels du Travail (MTT), visant à construire des capacités pro-actives de transition et d'action dans les champs du travail et de l'emploi (2). Enfin nous présenterons, en conséquence de cette approche, les changements d'objectifs et de leviers qui pourraient servir de base à un dialogue social renouvelé, concourant activement aux efforts des politiques publiques et aux initiatives citoyennes (3).

# 1. Adapter le dialogue social au défi écologique : les évolutions en cours

Le dialogue social - forme particulière de démocratie se proposant de construire l'intérêt général à partir d'un processus de confrontation d'intérêts préalablement constitués en « corps » (Supiot 2010) – est au cœur de notre modèle social. Son importance devrait croître dans la perspective que nous explorons car bifurquer suppose de créer et entretenir des compromis politiques et sociaux ambitieux autour des changements à opérer. Ceux-ci se situent à la fois du côté de la demande (consommer, se nourrir, se loger, se déplacer) et du côté de l'offre (produire et travailler).

En partant des modalités de base du dialogue social (1.1), nous discuterons ce que pourrait ou devrait être un dialogue social accompagnant la bifurcation écologique au travers de deux questions principales : De nouveaux acteurs doivent-ils être introduits ? (1.2) Quelles conséquences sur son architecture et son contenu ? (1.3).

## 1.1 Le dialogue social existant et ses changements récents

Instauré autour des intérêts représentés des employeurs et des salariés, le dialogue social moderne s'est historiquement construit du côté de l'offre. Doté de mécanismes juridiques (les accords) autorisant les compromis élaborés lors de négociations à s'appliquer à l'échelon auquel ils sont signés (rétablissement, sociétés, groupes, branche, pays ou ensemble multinational), ce dialogue est, dans les limites définies par les législateurs (parlements), producteur de droit. L'intérêt des parties à négocier dépend des pouvoirs qui leurs sont octroyés, lesquels différent selon les traditions nationales et l'influence exercée par les partenaires sociaux.

On a pu rassembler l'essentiel de l'architecture actuelle du dialogue social au sein des pays de l'OCDE en quatre composantes (Gazier et Bruggeman, 2016a), chacune
of practices, including in the field of environmental protection and enhancement. Under certain conditions, social dialogue can help to objectify and formulate these interests in order to find compromises and thus, without taking the place of political democracy, help to make progress in resolving the decision-making problems identified above. The purpose of this article is to clarify these conditions, as well as the nature and implications of this potential contribution. The idea is to go beyond the numerous but inevitably partial local contributions, to support the search for coherence and overall dynamics.

We proceed in four stages. First, we look back at the current difficulties, showing that, given the scale of the changes required, nothing less than a new social contract needs to be established to provide security and free up the capacity for initiatives by workers and companies (Section I). The next section (II) highlights and questions the way in which ecology is currently being introduced into existing social dialogue in France and Europe. Section III then briefly presents a normative theoretical perspective that broadens the discussion and proposes to combat the new scar cities by relying on the “real freedom” of worker-consumers and the tools for controlling their trajectory. The fourth section (IV) then returns to social dialogue, examining what transformations are needed to provide mutual support for the emancipation of workers and the ecological bifurcation.

# 1. The Urgency and Obstacles of the Ecological Bifurcation

After a brief presentation of the main responses currently underway (1.1), we examine the hesitations of the world of work and link these to the long-term requirement of reinventing a new social contract (1.2). From this perspective, we will then examine the idea often put forward of “just transition” to identify its contributions, limits and conditions of use (1.3). We can then lay the foundations for the set of issues that will be explored in the remainder of this text, focusing on the link between the mobilisation of a renewed social dialogue and the emergence of profound transformations in the labour market (1.4).

## 1.1 The plethora of policy options to pursue major change

Political and strategic responses to the environmental crisis vary widely. There are at least four very different programmes of work and (in)action.

First, *climate scepticism* is evolving into *climate inertia*, a formidable force encouraging procrastination, which still dominates a number of essential decisions, as shown by the initiatives in favour of “carbon bombs” (Kühne et al. 2022).

Second, *cornucopianism*, which sees science as a cornucopia from which to draw solutions to current and future problems, is behind projects that are technically
d'entre elles étant susceptible d'une version « faible » et d'une version « forte » au
sens de l'intensité du pouvoir reconnu aux partenaires sociaux.

Tableau 1. Le dialogue social dans son noyau bilatéral de base :
Quatre composantes et trois versions

Composantes du dialogue social :
Version faible restreinte : (a + b)
Version forte : (A + B + C + D)
Version faible étendue : (a + b + c +
d)

1. a) Information

2. b) Négociation décentralisée

3. c) Participation à la gestion d'institutions sociales

4. d) Codétermination marginale

A) Concertation

B) Négociation centralisée

C) Responsabilité de la gestion d'institutions sociales

D) Codétermination étendue

La version faible restreinte est caractéristique des pays anglo-saxons ; la version forte est illustrée par les pays nordiques et continentaux européens, la France ayant développé la version faible étendue.

Hétérogène dans ses déclinaisons nationales, le dialogue social a connu deux grandes évolutions. Aux négociations sur les salaires, le temps de travail et la protection sociale, toujours dominantes, ont été adjointes celles concernant l'égalité professionnelles entre hommes et femmes, les questions de santé, de sécurité au travail et d'organisations du travail (Askenazy 2004) et les mobilités contraintes (restructurations). Parallèlement, une tendance à la généralisation des procédures d'information et de consultation s'est accompagnée d'un affaiblissement des formes de dialogue social qui produisent des accords ou des engagements portant sur le fond (Freyssinet 2017).

C'est dans ce contexte que l'écologie est entrée formellement dans le dialogue social français en 2021. La loi dite Climat et résilience a ajouté les « *conséquences environnementales des décisions de l'employeur* » à la liste des sujets sur lesquels le CSE<fnref n="2" /> doit être obligatoirement informé en vue d'une consultation et décliné les conséquences de cet ajout dans divers domaines<fnref n="3" />. Un ANI<fnref n="4" /> relatif à la transition écologique et au dialogue social a été signé en avril 2023. Il reprend le terme de « transition juste », affirme que les acteurs du dialogue social sont les seuls partenaires sociaux, et promeut, sans créer d'obligation, un ensemble de bonnes pratiques.

<footnote n="2">2 Comité Social et Économique, anciennement dénommé « comité d'entreprise »</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3 Cf. « Les clés du social » https://www.clesdusocial.com/loi-climat-l-environnement-devient-un-objet-de-dialogue-social</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4 Accord National Interprofessionnel</footnote>
and economically unrealistic (geo-engineering, capturing and sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, etc.).

Third, focusing on the climate aspect of the ecological crisis, the *greening of the
economy* proposes designing “green” (i.e. decarbonised) products and production
processes to replace and/or develop existing “brown” ones (Pisani-Ferry,
Mahfouz, 2023).

Lastly, the *ecological bifurcation* aims to bring about far-reaching changes to social organisations and modes of production and consumption, so that human activities can take place within planetary boundaries.

The first two programmes propose to prolong the current untenable trajectory: the first in the name of defending established interests, the second in the expectation of quasi-miraculous scientific solutions. The third programme is much more serious, and proposes, in the manner of Tomasi di Lampedusa in *The Leopard* (1958), to change everything (processes and products) so that nothing (neither social organisation nor the pursuit of growth) changes. Unfortunately, this programme requires material flows (for metals, for example, see Bihouix, Guillebon 2010) and, above all, energy consumption that are incompatible with ending the use of fossil fuels (Jancovici, Blain 2021), which is absolutely essential (IPCC 2018).

*An ecological bifurcation* is therefore necessary, and implies very profound changes: “getting out of growth” (Laurent 2019), to build a “desirable economy” (Veltz 2021), the outlines of which can be seen in the emergence of an “anthropogenetic economy” (Boyer 2020). In other words, a “redevelopment” (Greffe 1991) of the planet, within its ecological boundaries (Rayworth 2017). The challenge is therefore to reinvent a mode of development that is an alternative to Fordism (Boyer 1985), the social organisation that the industrial revolution eventually produced, and to its hijacking by neoliberalism (Djaïz 2019). In other words, the aim is to maintain and develop the quality of life that has been achieved and to ensure it for all, by organising a controlled reduction in the flow of materials and energy.

Numerous and diverse studies are exploring the concrete aspects of whole areas of
such a development, indicating, for example, that it is possible to develop other
transport systems, to make production processes greener by using technologies
that have already been mastered (The Shift Project 2022), and to reduce energy
consumption significantly (Négawatt 2022). Various levers for change are
emerging, in terms of investment, planning, intervention in the price system and
regulation, and are the subject of publications.

A massive investment effort (Pisani-Ferry, Mahfouz 2023, IPCC 2022) is necessary in any case. The uncertainties, as well as the level and continuity of the effort required, mean that direct political impetus is becoming an increasingly important priority, first and foremost at national level. This is condensed in the idea of ecological planning. This return to planning opens up a series of different debates concerning the modalities and support for planning, the conditions of its
## 1.2. De nouveaux acteurs ?

### Côté offre

Écologiser la production suppose de réintroduire le temps long dans les décisions d'investissement (publiques et privées) et d'introduire l'écologie dans les décisions économiques (et donc dans les lieux de production). Trois modalités d'actions existent a priori : l'incitation, la planification et la modification de la nature et de la mission des entreprises elles-mêmes.

La première repose sur un jeu de subventions et d'interdictions. La consultation susmentionnée du CSE est cohérente avec cette option, qui ne donne cependant pas l'impulsion nécessaire à ce qu'une bifurcation se matérialise.

La mise en place d'une planification écologique (en débat en France) pourrait créer les espaces de dialogue similaires aux commissions tripartites du Commissariat Général au Plan durant les « trente glorieuses ». Un dialogue de ce type, limité à l'industrie, se déroule d'ailleurs actuellement au sein du CNI<fnref n="5" />. La planification française était cependant appuyée sur un important ensemble d'entreprises nationalisées (Rivier, 1969) en l'absence duquel les capacités opérationnelles d'une planification écologique restent à construire.

Un changement de nature de l'entreprise elle-même consiste à hybrider la logique de maximisation du profit par la prise en compte d'un intérêt écologique, en utilisant différents outils non exclusifs les uns des autres (statut d'entreprise à mission, obligation de tenue d'une comptabilité carbone voire écologique, proportionnalité des droits de vote au temps de présence dans le capital, ...) et repose *in fine* sur une distinction, aujourd'hui négligée, entre propriété des actions et propriété de l'entreprise (Robé 2015). On sait que la modification du cadre institutionnel et des modèles économiques d'entreprises influe sur le pouvoir de négociation des représentant des salariés (Giraud et al. 2021).

Mais, au-delà, la question de fond soulevée ici est celle de la représentation de l'écologie dans le dialogue social et donc de sa constitution en tant que « corps ». Deux options existent : intégrer des représentants d'ONG aux différents niveaux du dialogue social existant<fnref n="6" /> ou confier aux organisations représentatives des salariés la mission de représenter l'écologie. Cette seconde option comporte un risque inévitable de conflit d'intérêts lorsqu'un arbitrage est, à court terme, à faire entre écologie et emploi ou revenus, et un « coût d'entrée » important en termes d'appropriation des sujets. Mais ce choix fait bénéficier l'écologie des moyens dont sont déjà dotés les partenaires sociaux et garantit la prise en compte de leurs intérêts immédiats dans d'éventuelles négociations.

Symétriquement, la désignation de représentants des ONG (préalablement constituées en collectif d'associations) revient à instituer des acteurs déjà organisés et au fait des dossiers, mais comporte un risque de manque de légitimité dans le champ social et, surtout, de fractionnement des champs de négociation entre « le social » et « l'écologique ».

<footnote n="5">5 Pour une présentation du Conseil National de l'Industrie, cf. https://www.conseil-national-industrie.gouv.fr/</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6 Option écartée en France en 2007 par les partenaires sociaux</footnote>
democratic nature (Veltz op. cit.), the link to be found between planning and the market, as well as between public and private financing (Durand and Keucheyan 2024). These debates also relate to interventions in the pricing system itself (whether it be the progressive pricing of fluids (water, energy, etc.)), the price of carbon emitted (set at $120 per metric ton in Sweden in 2022),<fnref n="1" /> or the price of avoided carbon. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, financing change itself is being addressed and what should be included within it (Coupey-Soubeyran, Kalinowski 2023).

Finally, in addition to changes in products and production processes (changes in the energy used by production processes, an end to programmed obsolescence, the development of repairability of objects – and more generally of products’ after-life cycle – and of eco-design or even bio-mimicry, etc.), it is important that production units, both public and private, incorporate the primacy of non-economic objectives into their decisions. It has long been known that indicators construct reality as much as they inform it, and influence management as much as they enable it (Berry 1983; Moisdon 1997). This is because an indicator brings into existence in numerical form what was previously expressed only in words (Desrosière, Kott, 2005). In this case, it is a question of modifying and enriching information chains (existing accounts) and creating new ones: carbon and material accounts, for example, to commit public policies and company management to ecological redevelopment. Here again, a great deal of work has been done, for example on carbon accounting (The shifters 2019; ADEME 2022) or on the implementation of socio-environmental accounting (DFCG 2021).

## 1.2 The difficult birth of a new social contract

At present, there is however no model for such a bifurcation, and no narrative either (Latour and Schutz 2022). The urgency of the changes, constantly reaffirmed by the scientific community (IPCC 2022), the enumeration of the immense dangers to come from the ecological crisis, including the clear perception of its first manifestations, create anxiety, but struggle to produce effects. The question of how to proceed is therefore particularly tricky. Over and above the many uncertainties already mentioned, the process to be undertaken is eminently political and has led to numerous conflicts between priorities and between social groups, as illustrated by France's *Gilets Jaunes* (Yellow Vests) movement in 2018-2020, and the sudden electoral success of the BBB<fnref n="2" /> in the Netherlands, among others. Yet nothing such a “new social contract” (Combet and Pottier, 2024) has emerged in the face of the inertia of established interests.

<footnote n="1">¹ *Alternative économique*, August 2022.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² The BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) was founded in 2019 as a result of farmers’ protests against a plan to halve CO2 emissions from agriculture, which was to lead to a 30% reduction in livestock numbers. It won 19% of the vote in the 2023 provincial elections.</footnote>
Quelle que soit l'hypothèse choisie, cette incarnation est difficile à imaginer opérationnellement sans modification de la nature de l'entreprise (cf. supra), fondant les possibilités de négocier et elle pose la question de la coordination entre Organisations Syndicales et ONG.

La création récente de deux alliances réunissant des organisations syndicales (y compris agricoles) et les principales ONG<fnref n="7" /> intervenant à la fois dans le champ de l'écologie et dans ceux de la consommation, de l'alimentation, du logement, de la santé, ... va dans ce sens tout en constituant une tentative plus vaste de mise en dialogue et en réseau des intérêts concernés par une bifurcation écologique.

## Côté demande

Depuis plusieurs décennies de nombreuses associations (de consommateurs, de locataires, d'usagers ...), font vivre une forme de dialogue social non considéré comme tel, mais qui vient compléter le dialogue social côté demande. En France, dans la santé et les transports, ces associations se sont fédérées dans « France Assos Santé » (avec 20 000 représentants des usagers)<fnref n="8" /> et La Fédération Nationale des Associations d'Usagers des Transports (Fnaut)<fnref n="9" />. Dans les autres champs (logements, alimentation, consommation générale), des associations nationales existent, qui ne sont pas (encore ?) fédérées.

Toutes ces organisations sont des associations de consommateurs<fnref n="10" />, agrées par l'État pour représenter des usagers de biens ou services. Elles ont donc une mission « amont » d'information indépendante des offreurs et « aval » de défense des consommateurs en cas de contestation ou litige, mais aussi de représentation des consommateurs dans les instances de décisions de l'État (Roux, Nabec 2016). Un dialogue existe donc, structurellement beaucoup plus faible que celui existant du côté de l'offre, car uniquement doté de structure d'information et de consultation. Son financement repose sur les cotisations et des subventions de l'État, le temps passé en représentation n'étant sauf exception pas pris en charge et le dialogue se déroulant avec la sphère publique quasi exclusivement.

L'action de groupe, introduite, de façon restrictive en France en 2014 (et objet d'une directive européenne en 2023) est l'un des moyens de renforcer ce dialogue, mais son bilan est, à ce jour, décevant (Gosselin, Vichnievsky 2021). Une autre piste possible, non exclusive mais de plus grande ampleur, est de doter ces organisations des pouvoirs leur permettant de négocier.

## 1.3. De nouvelles structures et de nouveaux contenus ?

Selon les hypothèses et cas de figure formulés ci-dessus, l'impact de la transition écologique sur les composantes résumées dans le tableau 1 est variable. On peut retenir les points suivants :

<footnote n="7">7 Le Pacte pour le pouvoir de vivre en mars 2019 et Plus Jamais ça – Alliance écologique et sociale en janvier 2020. Cf. : https://www.pactedupouvoirdevivre.fr/engagez-vous et https://alliance-ecologique-sociale.org/</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8 Cf. https://www.france-assos-sante.org/presentation/qui-sommes-nous/</footnote>

<footnote n="9">9 Cf. https://www.fnaut.fr/</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10 Certaines ayant été fondées par des Organisations Syndicales.</footnote>
Synthesising an international comparative overview of the positions adopted by trade unions, Coutrot and Nizzoli (2024) show that the strategic uncertainties at the origin of the four work programmes presented in 1.1 are found in almost complete parallel in the range of positions taken by trade unions with regard to ecological challenges. They propose to distinguish four options currently defended to varying degrees by trade unions around the world: denial, braking, commitment to the green economy and the quest for “environmental justice”. Denial corresponds to climate scepticism, braking is in line with hopes placed in science, while greening is identified as such. Finally, the idea of environmental justice, which calls for profound changes in lifestyles, is linked to the idea of bifurcation. These trade union positions are rooted in concrete approaches and concerns, such as defending threatened jobs or combating health risks.

The options thus singled out are narrower than the initial range of possibilities, in particular with the braking option, which restricts actions to being defensive or even blocking out short-horizon progress. The above-mentioned authors take a closer look at the determinants of these options by presenting, as it were upstream of these possible choices, a fundamental alternative for workers and their representatives: either we stay within the framework of existing production, even if it means trying to change it. Or we take it upon ourselves to break out of this “spiral”, which not only disrupts supply chains, products and jobs, but also lifestyles and consumption patterns. In this case, the entire “production-reproduction” cycle is affected.

For workers, this means not only risking losing their jobs and facing difficult retraining, but also jeopardising some of the most emblematic workers' achievements associated with their autonomy, such as car ownership for all.

The comparison suggested above with the historical experience of Fordism as a social contract is enlightening in two ways. On the one hand, it highlights the scale of what is at stake, and enables us to identify its central dimensions. On the other hand, it shows how unlikely it is that a solution can be directly deliberated and implemented, in the face of historical processes marked by trial and error.

Without going into the debates it may have generated, let's recall the principle of the "Fordist loop", associating mass production, industrial productivity gains, as well as the sharing of these gains through industry-level collective bargaining and rising living standards for workers (Aglietta 1969). This process was closely linked to the advent of very large firms, the introduction of a financial and banking system that encouraged long-term investment, state policies to support demand and the guarantees provided by a developed social protection system. All these transformations could be understood as forming a system, albeit with wide variations in the different national versions.

This “growth horizon”, which was supposed to benefit everyone and especially workers, also presupposed the establishment of a standard of working-class consumption (Aglietta 1969 op. cit.): on the basis of the American experience of mobilising an immigrant workforce in the first half of the 20th century, which was therefore capable of changing its way of life, the various components of mass
A minima un élargissement des expertises est nécessaire pour que le dialogue social accompagne l'organisation conjointe des changements des modes de vie, de l'emploi et du travail. C'est ici le niveau 1 qui est concerné, mais dans l'hypothèse d'un changement de nature des entreprises, le niveau 4 le serait aussi.

En termes de contenu, ce qui devrait être nouveau c'est le caractère systématique et systémique des négociations (niveau 2) à mener autour de la santé au travail, de l'inflexion des modes de vie et de consommation, de la gestion des temps de vie, de la gestion concertée des mobilités personnelles et professionnelles, de l'accès des parties à l'expertise environnementale, etc. Systématique car l'ensemble des champs devront être abordés et traités, et systémique car ils devront l'être en cohérence avec des changements d'organisation de la production et de comportements, et avec les limites planétaires et l'amélioration de la qualité de la vie.

Cette perspective peut amener à généraliser un type particulier de structure. En cas d'accord lors de négociation sur les rémunérations ou le temps de travail, celui-ci marque la fin du processus et sa mise en œuvre est rapide. A l'inverse, un accord visant à modifier des conditions de travail ou à faciliter des mobilités marque le début d'un processus dont la mise en œuvre doit être suivie pour lever les éventuels obstacles, vérifier que les objectifs peuvent être atteints et enquêter auprès des bénéficiaires pour en vérifier les effets réels. En d'autres termes, l'accord devient alors un plan d'action nécessitant un pilotage pour sa mise en œuvre.

Devraient donc se multiplier des structures d'accompagnement telles que celles déjà expérimentées lors des restructurations et qui pourront prendre deux formes. De simples commissions de suivi consultatives dans la version faible du dialogue social, des commissions de pilotage paritaires de la mise en œuvre de l'accord négocié, dans la version forte.

Un dernier niveau de dialogue social doit enfin être mentionné : le niveau territorial (DST) Les travaux sur ce dialogue ont montré qu'il constituait une diversification des espaces de négociation et de dialogue social en Europe (Jobert 2008) et ont souligné l'hétérogénéité et les limites des pratiques actuelles (Gazier et Bruggeman 2016b). La plupart du temps sans pouvoir normatif, élaboré par des acteurs sans compétences clairement reconnues, le rôle que pourrait jouer le niveau territorial tend progressivement à être réévalué et renouvelé. A ce jour, peu d'expériences concrètes ont été observées en France.

Cette rapide revue des évolutions en cours et possibles du dialogue social amène au constat que c'est par un renforcement de ce qui existe déjà en grande partie, que tend à se constituer un dialogue social d'accompagnement d'une bifurcation écologique. On voit mal comment de tels changements, principalement incrémentaux et adaptatifs, pourraient susciter non seulement l'adhésion des travailleurs, des entreprises et des communautés concernées, mais encore leur participation active.
consumption were imposed, via, for example, suburban housing, household appliances and automobiles.

However, it would be wrong to see Fordism's emergence and spread as the result of deliberate political decisions. Whether we are talking about Roosevelt's New Deal, the measures taken under France's Front Populaire (pre-World War II) or Labour's policies in the United Kingdom (post-war), each laid some of the foundations of Fordism without constructing the whole, and it is well known that Fordism only asserted itself after 1945 and the establishment of new international relations and a new growth regime. The trial and error of the 1930s ended up, twenty years later and after the World War II, with a coherence that was, admittedly, relative, but which had not been fully set out or sought as such.

As we know, it is this coherence which, after having asserted itself, has largely unravelled, first with the advent of neoliberalism (Djaïz op.cit.), and then with the current ecological crisis. In particular, the horizon of the mass consumption of disposable goods and indefinite growth has become not only undesirable but quite simply impossible.

Here we again find the diagnosis put forward by Combet and Pottier (2024), namely that the challenge is to reinvent the social contract. This must express and consolidate a new compromise between labour and capital that respects the constraints of life on earth and accepts the boundaries of the planet.

## 1.3 The idea of a “just transition”: its relevance, limits and conditions of use

The idea of a “just transition” has rapidly come to the fore, indicating the primary quality expected of any ecological bifurcation and of any action undertaken to this end. This concept needs to be questioned and clarified.

As early as the 1990s, North American trade unionists established the principle of “No jobs on a dead planet” (notably Tony Mazzocchi in the USA (Leopold 2007) and Brian Kohler in Canada (Kohler 1998)). They coined the term “just transition”, applied to workers affected by retraining for ecological reasons (closure of polluting factories, etc.), to show that joint action was needed to protect the environment and the workers concerned.

Since then, the idea of a “just transition”, while not always clearly defined, has been widely taken up, broadened and developed in two main directions. On the one hand, the work of the ILO (Rosenberg 2010 and ILO 2018) took up the initial problem and sought to generalise it to all workers and all social groups affected by the climate and environmental challenges. On the other hand, public policy strategists, for example in the European Union, are seeking to link a social dimension of Europe to ecological and economic issues. The term “just transition” is now part of the vocabulary of European institutions (see, for example, European Commission 2021), but we are a long way from a clear link between the two meanings, beyond the idea that “no one should be left by the wayside”. This is
## 2. Transitions justes, « Marchés Transitionnels du Travail » (MTT), capacités individuelles et collectives

Une expression s'est rapidement imposée pour indiquer la qualité première attendue de toute bifurcation écologique : « transition juste ». Cette notion doit être interrogée et précisée (2.1). Nous présenterons ensuite une approche combinant les « Marchés Transitionnels du Travail » (MTT) et les « capabilités », susceptible de constituer la boussole des évolutions à venir du dialogue social et plus largement du marché du travail (2.2). Enfin, parce qu'elle présuppose une organisation collective de la sobriété, la bifurcation écologique peut apparaître comme punitive. L'objectif normatif pourrait bien être inverse : une lutte contre les formes modernes de la rareté, liant bien-être et émancipation (2.3).

### 2.1 Des « transitions justes » ?

Dès les années 1990, des syndicalistes nord-américains, ont posé le principe « No jobs on a dead planet » : Tony Mazzocchi aux E.U. (Leopold 2007) et Brian Kohler au Canada (Kohler 1998). Ils ont proposé l'idée de « transition juste », appliquée aux travailleurs victimes de reconversions pour raisons écologiques (usines polluantes, etc.) pour montrer qu'il fallait agir conjointement pour la protection de l'environnement et celle des travailleurs concernés.

Depuis lors ce concept de « transition juste », pas toujours clairement défini et très défensif, a été amplement repris, élargi et décliné dans deux directions principales. D'un côté les travaux du BIT (Rosenberg 2010 et ILO 2018) reprenant la problématique initiale, cherchent à la généraliser à tous les travailleurs et tous les groupes sociaux concernés par les défis climatiques et environnementaux. De l'autre, les stratèges des politiques publiques, par exemple dans le cadre de l'Union Européenne, cherchent à lier au volet écologique et économique un volet social. Le terme de « transition juste » fait désormais partie du vocabulaire des institutions européennes (voir par exemple European Commission 2021), mais on est loin d'un lien articulé entre les deux acceptions.

L'ouvrage récent d'Eloi Laurent, présenté comme un « manuel des transitions justes » (Laurent 2023), approfondit le concept en développant trois dimensions constitutives de la transition juste : « de reconnaissance », « distributive », « procédurale ». La première désigne « les inégalités d'exposition, de sensibilité et d'accès », soit l'inégale répartition de la qualité de l'environnement entre les individus et les groupes. La seconde caractérise les effets des politiques environnementales selon la catégorie sociale, par exemple les effets différentiels d'une taxe carbone. Enfin la troisième dimension porte sur l'inégalité dans la participation aux politiques publiques environnementales.

L'auteur applique ces trois composantes à ce que nous avons appelé le côté de la demande (santé, ville durable, ...). Appliquons-les aux enjeux du travail et de l'emploi : Les emplois polluants et dangereux relèvent de la première, les restructurations de la seconde et la capacité d'expression de la troisième. Il convient
how Askenazy and Didry (2023) see “just transition” as being a “mainstream concept”, recycling the idea of “flexicurity”.

There is an interference of vocabulary here between the “professional transitions” that could be forced on workers who are victims of unwanted job losses or reorganisations, and the process of “ecological transition” towards a planet with a preserved environment. Is this justice at all levels, or simply an attempt to use social measures to supplement unpopular decisions that often target the least well-off?

A recent book by Eloi Laurent, presented by its author as a "Handbook of just transitions" (Laurent 2023), provides operational content to the concept by developing three constituent dimensions of just transition: *recognition, distributive and procedural*. The first refers to "inequalities of exposure, sensitivity and access", i.e. the unequal distribution of environmental quality between individuals and groups. The second characterises the differentiated effects of environmental policies according to social category, for example the unequal effects of a carbon tax. Finally, the third dimension concerns inequality in participation in public environmental policies.

The author mainly applies these three components to what we might call the demand side (health, sustainable cities, etc.) and neglects the point of view of workers and social partners, although he does mention them when tracing the genesis of the term just transition. It is, however, easy to apply this term and these categories to supply-side issues, and in particular to work and employment: the questioning of polluting and dangerous jobs comes under the first *recognition* form of just transition; restructuring comes under the second *distributive* dimension; and finally, workers' ability to express themselves is at the heart of the third *procedural* dimension.

There is therefore no a priori obstacle to the use of the idea of “just transition” in the context of the problem we are exploring. But is it the most relevant expression, and if so, under what conditions can it be used?

Latour and Schultz (2022), ironically but also elliptically, denounce the term as a “charming euphemism”,<fnref n="3" /> meaning that it has a falsely reassuring aspect, leading to unduly restricting the scale of the problem (what about production and jobs that are not under threat?) and then minimising the efforts that need to be made.

It is useful here to recall the central contribution of the term “transition” and to discuss its three main limitations.

On the input side, a dynamic and temporally situated vision comes to the fore, as does the search for support, compensation and the organisation of collective and individual trajectories. So we avoid a static vision, by going beyond a one-off cost-benefit comparison and looking for ways forward, which widens the range of choices.

<footnote n="3">³ "The charming euphemism of 'transition' disguises, as poorly as possible, what is in fact a violent reversal" (Latour and Schultz 2022 p. 31).</footnote>
dès lors de s'intéresser de manière plus large à l'organisation sociale du travail, de l'emploi, des mobilités et des carrières afin de donner un contenu mieux fondé à l'idée de « transition juste ».

## 2.2 Gérer les transitions personnelles et professionnelles de manière systématique et négociée

Il est possible de penser la répartition des activités de travail et le marché du travail au sein de la société comme un mixte de transitions et de positions, qu'il s'agit de comprendre et de gérer. Une série de travaux depuis les années 1990 ont exploré cette voie : les « Marchés Transitionnels du Travail » (MTT ; Schmid et Gazier 2002, Schmid 2017). Cette approche a été articulée d'emblée aux analyses et prescriptions en termes de « capabilités » (Sen 2000). Selon une synthèse récente effectuée dans le cadre du BIT (Delautre et al 2021), sont identifiés trois critères principaux permettant d'orienter les décisions collectives en matière de travail, d'emploi et de protection sociale : un travail décent et faisant sens ; un niveau de vie garantissant la satisfaction des besoins matériels (« freedom from want » : se libérer du besoin) ; et la liberté d'effectuer ses propres choix sur le marché du travail et dans sa vie personnelle, qui devient un but en soi (« freedom to act » : liberté d'agir).

Une représentation dynamique du marché du travail est au départ des MTT, qui considèrent l'ensemble des positions et travaux, rémunérés ou non, au cours des séquences de vie personnelle et professionnelle : formation initiale, travail domestique, bénévole, rémunéré, chômage, retraite... Les « transitions » sont alors les passages d'une position à l'autre, plus ou moins rapides, plus ou moins efficaces et plus ou moins organisés par des institutions. L'idée de « marché transitionnel » loin de désigner un processus permanent et individuel d'ajustement des offres et des demandes, désigne les procédures périodiques d'affectation et de rémunération des personnes à telle ou telle position temporaire ou durable. Elle se comprend en complémentarité avec l'idée de « marché interne » (Doeringer et Piore 1971) théorisant l'organisation des carrières au sein d'entreprises ayant choisi de stabiliser leur main-d'œuvre : les MTT d'une part en représentent la contrepartie externe relevant de la responsabilité des acteurs régulant le marché du travail et la protection sociale, et d'autre part en accentuent le contenu dynamique par l'ouverture sur la variété des carrières en interne.

Parmi les quatre principes gouvernant les transitions souhaitables (Schmid et Gazier op. cit.), on trouve tout d'abord l'« empowerment » au sens de Sen. Chaque transition doit permettre aux personnes qui s'engagent d'accroître leurs marges de manœuvre : les opportunités à leur disposition ainsi que leur capacité de décision autonome. Les trois autres principes sont : la solidarité avec les autres groupes professionnels et sociaux (autrement dit : pas de transitions « riches » pour les riches et de transitions « pauvres » pour les pauvres) ; la recherche de l'efficacité via la gestion spécialisée de transitions spécifiques à tel ou tel groupe dans telle ou telle situation, via le cofinancement et la renégociation périodique ; enfin, la gestion décentralisée par projets.

Les droits « transitionnels » dont il convient d'équiper » les personnes complètent les droits sociaux par la technique des « droits de tirage sociaux » (Supiot 1999) et
Certain usages, which claim to circumvent reticence, may in fact feed a defensive bias. The idea of transition implies movement between two states, whether this movement is deliberate or not. When applied to ecological transformations, it can be formulated without the second state, the arrival situation, being clearly specified. Faced with the unknown, how can partners be mobilised proactively?

Secondly, recourse to the idea of transition outside a precise theoretical or empirical framework tends to privilege the short term over the long term (the start of the path envisaged) and makes it difficult to look at the conditions for the emergence of long-term coherence.

Finally, and this is a trivial but crucial observation, workers are also consumers. There is therefore a need for a cross-cutting approach that goes beyond the separate treatment of each dimension: employment and professional transitions on the one hand, and lifestyle on the other. Of course, there can be no question of closely linking the two fields, which obviously have their own logic. Yet there is a common ground: the necessary autonomy that must be guaranteed to everyone in their personal and professional choices. We return to this point later (Sections 3 and 4).

It is therefore important to use the notion of just transition with circumspection in the context of a well-defined problem and to ensure that the pro-active, cross-functional and long-term orientations are not only present but also come to the fore.

## 1.4 Equipping social dialogue and the labour market simultaneously for the ecological transition

We can now return to the central thesis of this text, which focuses on and questions the useful and even necessary contribution of social democracy to complement and support the impetus of political democracy.

So why and how can social dialogue contribute to this? First of all, let's look at the reasons for taking an interest in what may seem to be nothing more than a defunct relic of a distant past.

The first is historical, looking back at the conditions and effects of its emergence: the institutionalisation of social dialogue in the 1930s (at the time, mainly around working time, the creation of a minimum wage, the legalisation of trade unions and collective bargaining) was one of the pillars of this first "Fordist" bifurcation mentioned above. This gradually enabled a democratic way out of the deleterious economic and social consequences of the 1929 crisis (Lehndorff 2020). Social dialogue is therefore associated with the search for a consensus or a far-reaching economic and social compromise.

The second has to do with the intrinsic characteristics of social dialogue: this process of confronting interests previously constituted as a "bodies" can be broken down, in economic terms, into several stages. First of all, the needs and
permettent ainsi de rééquilibrer leur pouvoir de négociation sur le marché du travail.

Une telle perspective se donne ainsi pour tâche d'affronter la variété des risques sur le marché du travail et autour de lui : risques liés à l'exercice et à l'intensité du travail, à la précarité de l'emploi, à la variabilité des temps... tous risques dont l'intensification et la multiplication apparaissent aujourd'hui comme tendance et comme menace accrues dans le cadre de la bifurcation écologique.

## 2.3 Anciennes et nouvelles raretés, entre urgence et interactions

A ce stade il est utile de revenir à un fil de réflexion plus ancien, en remontant aux diverses manières de concevoir la rareté, dont le constat initial est à l'origine même de l'économie à la fin du 18e siècle, cf. notamment les représentations en termes d'état stationnaire chez Malthus et Ricardo. En reprenant une des intuitions majeures de Michel Foucault (Foucault 1966) et en schématisant à outrance, nous sommes passés, avec l'enrichissement des sociétés au cours du 19e et du 20e siècles, de la « conscience de la rareté » à la « rareté de la conscience ».

Ce renversement peut s'observer et se décliner dans trois domaines successivement abordés par les économistes au cours du 20e siècle, logeant la rareté dans les manques de la subjectivité individuelle et non plus seulement dans les manques objectifs face à l'avarice supposée de la nature (Gazier 2003).

D'abord la rareté du temps, face à l'accroissement des richesses : la durée de vie n'augmente guère, particulièrement la durée de vie en bonne santé ; ensuite celle de l'attention : face à l'accroissement des informations disponibles, le défi cognitif de leur traitement par tout un chacun est démultiplié ; finalement celle de la liberté : L'auteur pertinent sur ce dernier point est A. Sen (op. cit.). Notamment son étude et sa dénonciation des « préférences adaptatives » (face à des contraintes fortes, les acteurs modifient leurs préférences et renoncent à leurs aspirations initiales) permettent de montrer que le libre choix n'est pas une donnée de fait mais un construit social complexe à entretenir en permanence.

Ce jeu qui va des raretés objectives aux raretés subjectives se « boucle » alors sur des raretés objectives aggravées, car elles se renforcent les unes les autres : les personnes les plus pauvres étant souvent les moins capables de prendre des décisions pertinentes à long terme, ce qui contribue à les enfermer dans leur pauvreté.

La brusque accélération du défi écologique vient intensifier cet enjeu des raretés, désormais pour l'ensemble des groupes sociaux : les différentes formes de rareté durcissent leurs interactions dans la dégradation de la situation planétaire et contribuent à bloquer notre capacité actuelle à en prendre la mesure et à la contrer.

Trois priorités avaient été identifiées dès les premières formulations des MTT : construire des consensus à partir d'expertises partagées dans le cadre de processus d'information qui aient un véritable caractère de concertation ; penser et outiller, et notamment au sein de l'entreprise, la gestion de toutes les transitions, personnelles et professionnelles ; donner une légitimité renforcée à l'expérimentation notamment locale et une priorité à l'exploration de solutions réversibles.
values/preferences/priorities of the groups concerned (workers and companies in the central version) are developed, and then they converge by being spelt out in terms of demands and compared with other situations, whether similar or different. Finally, they are put to the test in power struggles leading to negotiations, resulting in them being ranked and/or linked. Taking account of companies as structured collective players (either as such, or grouped into branches or cross-industries) vis-à-vis workers and their representatives is obviously crucial in the search for compromises that are not only accepted but also implemented.

Social dialogue is thus a tool that can potentially be mobilised in the search for compromises to accompany an ecological bifurcation and help overcome the conflicts it confronts or generates.

Two challenges therefore emerge: not only to revitalise social dialogue, but also to expand it. Revitalising it because, as we have noted, social dialogue is currently depreciated, often disparate and sometimes marginalised or even non-existent. It also needs to be broadened in order to take into account the urgency of the ecological bifurcation, while participants and other issues need to be introduced in addition to the social partners.

The combination of these two challenges increases the difficulty of tackling them, and seems to presuppose a long-term vision and a capacity for organisation that are beyond the reach of the players in social dialogue, all the more so as it involves challenging and changing preferences and priorities that have long been stabilised around the idea of rising living standards, access to mass consumption and sustainable employment. The politically controversial theme of “punitive ecology” illustrates the repellent potential of discussions and even policies conducted without a clear perspective not only of providing workers with security, but also of taking their needs, aspirations and initiatives into account.

Faced with a process that can only go through a long phase of trial and error, there is however no shortage of support, and many initiatives are already underway, often focusing on local self-organisation. To unlock their potential and encourage them to converge, the approach envisaged here is that we need to build on people's growing aspirations for autonomy, and move beyond the previous compromise based mainly on securing salaried workers in productive structures, to extend it to all positions inside and outside the workplace.

From this perspective, the link between social dialogue and recent practices and innovations in the collective organisation of the labour market comes to the fore. As the central institution of our societies, the labour market, in its broadest sense, is the dominant process for allocating places within society. Whether we are talking about employees or the self-employed, long-term or temporary employment contracts, the labour market's set of rules and practices, together with social protection, largely determine access to employment and income, and therefore to security and autonomy.
Ces trois priorités conduisent désormais à construire des bases de stabilisation, plus vastes et plus complexes que les garanties autrefois offertes par la grande entreprise industrielle, qui soient cohérentes avec une bifurcation écologique. Nommément : une protection sociale et des protections de l'emploi combinant leur rôle défensif avec un rôle *pro-actif* en faveur de la prise de risque et de la qualité de la vie, ce qui ne peut se faire, notamment pour les plus vulnérables, que dans le cadre de mobilisations et de garanties collectives. L'élargissement des options disponibles et la restauration d'un horizon long deviennent ainsi des prérequis pour l'organisation des négociations collectives et des politiques publiques, et des conditions nécessaires pour accompagner efficacement les bifurcations des choix de production et de consommation en cours ou à venir.

### 3 Vers un dialogue social liant bifurcation et émancipation

On sait maintenant que la perspective d'une croissance indéfinie est non viable. Il est nécessaire de redéfinir le contrat social, et de rechercher de nouvelles garanties pour les populations de travailleurs, salariés ou non, et leurs familles, qu'on peut résumer par l'idée d'un nouveau plein emploi (3.1). Il en résulte des politiques et des négociations visant à découpler plein emploi et croissance (3.2). Une telle perspective conduit à mettre en avant sur le marché du travail un levier d'ajustement appelé à devenir dominant, la qualité (3.3). Il est enfin possible de revenir sur le rôle du dialogue social territorial (3.4).

#### 3.1 Élargir et renouveler l'idée de plein emploi

L'idée traditionnelle du plein emploi a beaucoup évolué au cours du XXe siècle, passant du modèle industrielo-masculin à un impératif d'égalité de genre. Elle doit être aujourd'hui non seulement élargie mais profondément renouvelée. Élargie d'abord à de nouvelles positions reconnues comme telles parce qu'utiles à la société et à son développement : l'éducation des enfants, les soins apportés aux ascendants, la formation tout au long de la vie. Élargie ensuite à une progression du temps libre sous la double forme d'une réduction du temps de travail permettant de concilier vie personnelle et vie professionnelle, et, sur le temps long, d'un droit reconnu à des congés sabbatiques pour réaliser ses projets. Élargie enfin à une rémunération de ces positions à peu près équivalente à celle qui est assurée par le travail, salarié ou non, au sein de l'emploi.

En conséquence le plein emploi ne peut se définir comme une situation dans laquelle chacune et chacun aurait accès à un emploi quel qu'il soit. Il doit s'apprécier en dynamique, tout au long de la vie, en termes de séquences volontaires, négociées, et financées, de périodes de formation, de travail (au sens restreint actuel) dont il faut établir la qualité, de travail domestique équitablement partagé et financé, de travail bénévole et de temps choisis de vie. Le bénévolat occupe ici une place particulière. Utile à la société, il doit rester gratuit pour rester lui-même, mais il doit, bénéficier d'encouragements (par exemple sous forme de droits à des périodes régulières d'activité bénévoles et d'accès aux formations utiles).
In some respects, this link is a blind spot in current debates. The most widespread representations of the ecological transition largely overlook the consequences in terms of employment and the labour market of the new society to be built. They usually confine themselves to identifying and counting “green jobs” and rarely venture beyond the need for a massive training and retraining effort (for an overview of work of this type in France and the difficulties to which it leads, see the summary by Baghioni and Moncel 2022).

In contrast to such denials, the rest of this text aims to build on the demand for workers' autonomy to give substance to the prospect of social dialogue to support ecological bifurcation.

## 2. Adapting Social Dialogue to the Ecological Challenge: from Practices to Questions

By requiring each country to describe and communicate its climate actions from 2020 onwards, the Paris Agreement (2015) launched a process that is struggling to produce concrete results: for example, global greenhouse gas emissions were still rising sharply in 2023.<fnref n="4" /> However, it is leading governments to formalise plans that, if implemented, would inevitably have a major impact on economies and labour markets. At the European level, the Commission quickly embarked on a process of analysing a future “green deal”, and declarations, agreements as well as legislative amendments have emerged at both the Union and national level. We first present the core, structure and diversity of existing social dialogue and the current arrangements for introducing environmental considerations into it (2.1). We then return to the link between social democracy and social dialogue before looking at the developments and changes that would enable it to support an ecological transition effectively and in all its dimensions (2.2).

### 2.1 Existing social dialogue and its recent adaptations to the ecological challenge

For recollection, modern social dialogue, which became widespread in developed countries in the aftermath of World War II, was established around the represented interests of employers and employees. It had powerful legal mechanisms (agreements), authorising, within the limits defined by national

<footnote n="4">⁴ Global CO2 emissions have risen by 410 million tons, or +1.1% in 2023 compared with 2022. Source: International Energy Agency (https://www.iea.org/news/major-growth-of-clean-energy-limited-the-rise-in-global-emissions-in-2023)</footnote>
Dans ce nouveau marché du travail, les critères d'autonomie et de progression sont redéfinis très au-delà du couple traditionnel : nombre d'heures et niveau de rémunération. L'ampleur des enjeux de cet élargissement doit être soulignée. La cohérence du régime d'accumulation « fordien » consistait à mettre en regard et en cohérence une dynamique de production et de consommation de masse, l'ensemble servant de base au contrat social. Nous sommes désormais à la recherche d'un compromis « post-fordien » dans lequel les perspectives d'accroissement indéfini de la consommation sont remplacées par un progrès multidimensionnel de la qualité de vie.

## 3.2 Un partage intertemporel et négocié du temps de travail

Le découplage d'avec la croissance peut alors être formulé en termes d'une politique de partage intertemporel et négocié du temps de travail (Bruggeman et Gazier 2022). Sans revenir sur un débat qui a porté sur de nombreuses initiatives en France (avec les lois sur les 35 heures) et a fait couler beaucoup d'encre, on peut s'en tenir à quelques observations.

Le contrôle collectif négocié et proactif sur les marchés du travail exploite la possibilité de créer des passerelles : des positions transitoires permettant pour certaines d'entre elles de gérer les excédents mais aussi les pénuries de travailleurs-euses. C'est ainsi, pour prendre un exemple bien connu, que la « job rotation » : remplacement des travailleurs durant leurs congés par d'autres préalablement formés, a été expérimentée deux fois à grande échelle au Danemark (de 1995 à 2000 et de 2010 à 2015). Elle a rempli deux fonctions, l'une étant de favoriser la reconversion et l'intégration de travailleurs sans gêner le fonctionnement des entreprises, et l'autre étant de créer un appel d'air sur un marché du travail subissant un niveau trop élevé de chômage. (Gazier et Bruggeman 2018). Dans une perspective d'amélioration qualitative ce dispositif peut être étendu pour favoriser formations et congés parentaux longs.

Le lien à de nouveaux modes de vie plus sobres peut être ainsi directement posé et exploré, et ses dimensions d'égalité et notamment d'égalité de genre tout autant que de protection de la planète passent au premier plan.

Cet horizon négocié, égalitaire et réversible est susceptible d'accueillir plusieurs versions concernant la croissance, qu'il s'agisse de la ralentir, de l'immobiliser, de la transformer qualitativement ou de l'inverser. Il est probable que selon les ressources des territoires et des communautés les choix pourront différer. Une gestion collective des transitions et positions personnelles et professionnelles selon le programme de recherche et d'action des « Marchés transitionnels du Travail » permet d'orienter et d'outiller ces choix collectifs et les expérimentations en la matière.
legislators (parliaments), the application of compromises reached during negotiations between employers or their representative organisations and those representing employees, at the level at which such agreements were signed (establishments, companies, company groups, branches, countries or in multinational company groups). The interest of the parties in negotiating depended on the balance established and maintained (or not) by the powers granted to them and the dynamics of their confrontations. These powers varied according to national traditions and the influence exercised by the social partners in each country.

Most of the current architecture of social dialogue in the OECD countries can be broken down into four components (Gazier and Boylaud 2015; Gazier and Bruggeman, 2016a), each of which is susceptible to a “weak” and a “strong” version, in terms of the importance of the prerogatives accorded to the social partners.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Social dialogue in its basic bilateral core: four components and three versions</caption><thead><tr><th>Components of social dialogue:</th><th>Strong version: (A + B + C + D)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Restricted weak version: (a + b)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Extended weak version: (a + b + c + d)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>1. a) Information</td><td>A) Consultation</td></tr><tr><td>2. b) Decentralised negotiation (company level)</td><td>B) Centralised negotiation (industry and cross-industry levels)</td></tr><tr><td>3. c) Participation in the management of social institutions</td><td>C) Responsibility for managing social institutions</td></tr><tr><td>4. d) Marginal co-determination</td><td>D) Extended co-determination</td></tr></tbody></table>

The restricted weak version is characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon countries; the strong version is illustrated by the Nordic and continental European countries, with France having developed an extended weak version.

Social dialogue at the national level is heterogeneous, but it has undergone two major changes. Negotiations on wages, working time and social protection, which are still the dominant issues, have been supplemented by those on gender equality, health and safety at work, work organisation, continuing training and forced mobility (restructuring). At the same time, a trend towards the generalisation of information and consultation procedures has gone hand in hand with a weakening of the forms of social dialogue that produce substantive agreements or commitments (Freyssinet 2017). In other words, social dialogue has expanded and weakened at the same time, while retaining economic growth as its horizon and driver. A well-known institutional change in France underlines this intimate link between real social dialogue and growth: the Guaranteed Minimum
### 3.3 Des ajustements via la négociation collective, la qualité des emplois et des travailleurs

Les ajustements sur le marché du travail mettent en jeu traditionnellement les prix et les quantités (effectifs et durée du travail), soit l'interaction des variations des salaires (plus ou moins flexibles) et des ouvertures et fermetures de postes de travail, soit directement décidées par les entreprises, soit résultant d'interventions publiques visant à faciliter les licenciements ou à écarter directement telle ou telle population du marché, cf. les préretraites.

Connue depuis longtemps, la critique de ces ajustements (Agell 1999) a consisté à remarquer en prenant l'exemple des restructurations que les travailleurs concernés étaient injustement pénalisés par des baisses de salaires ou des licenciements, cependant que les entreprises susceptibles de les réembaucher étaient inefficacement pénalisées par la nécessité d'attirer des candidats au moyen de hausses de salaires. Les choix effectués notamment par les promoteurs du « modèle suédois » depuis les années 1960 (modèle précurseur de ce qui a été proposé par les MTT) ont consisté à refuser d'enclencher le jeu sur les salaires et à socialiser, négocier et subventionner les mobilités – reconversions.

Cette stratégie se trouve d'ores et déjà mise en œuvre dans l'un des trois grands modèles constatés de gestion collective des restructurations (Gazier et Bruggeman (dir.) 2008), promu dans les sociétés nordiques : celui qui met l'accent sur les mobilités organisées et les efforts de formation/reclassement. On peut la systématiser en parlant d'un modèle d'ajustement par les qualités et par la négociation collective. Qualités du travailleur d'abord, avec ses compétences et ses capacités d'adaptation – reconversion. Qualité du travail et de l'emploi ensuite : On rejoint ici les travaux qui depuis les années 2000 ont visé à en mesurer les multiples dimensions (Erhel et Guergoat – Larivière 2016). Faire de la qualité du travail et de l'emploi un levier dominant d'ajustement sur le marché du travail permet de mettre en cohérence opérationnelle l'horizon renouvelé du plein – emploi et le refus de l'écologie « punitive », en faisant passer au premier plan les aspirations des travailleurs et de leurs familles. Cela permet aussi aux entreprises de procéder plus aisément aux ajustements qu'elles ont besoin de réaliser et de disposer des compétences utiles à l'amélioration des procédés et des produits.

Les ajustements sur le marché du travail privilégient alors la dimension collective et négociée, ce qui n'exclut pas des ajustements de salaires et d'effectifs mais les contrôle et les combine aux ajustements de qualité. Ceux-ci prenant plus de temps que les quantités et les prix pour être effectifs et produire leurs effets, il en résulte un rôle accru de l'anticipation à long terme.

Au niveau de l'entreprise (cf. Tableau 1, niveau 2), il convient d'instaurer un dialogue sur l'affectation des gains de productivité. Il s'agirait d'affecter ceux-ci à la qualité, à la fois qualité de la production, mais aussi qualité de vie des salariés : réduction du temps de travail comme on l'a vu plus haut, mais aussi meilleur contrôle de l'intensité et des rythmes de travail, meilleure articulation entre vie professionnelle et personnelle, etc. La société de consommation responsable de la crise écologique a privilégié la quantité (notamment sous forme de salaires et de production de masse) et il s'agit de faire évoluer l'arbitrage quantité – qualité, ce qui
Interprofessional Wage (SMIG, *Salaire Minimum Interprofessionnel Garanti*), introduced in 1950, was subsequently renamed the Minimum Interprofessional Growth Wage (SMIC, *Salaire Minimum Interprofessionnel de Croissance*).

Finally, we should mention Territorial Social Dialogue (TSD), which is most often conducted between local players such as regions, municipalities, decentralised levels of government and local representatives of the social partners. Research on this dialogue has shown that it represents a diversification of the spaces for negotiation and social dialogue in Europe (Jobert 2008) and has highlighted the heterogeneity and limitations of current practices (Gazier and Bruggeman 2016b). It involves a multiplicity of partners in addition to the social partners, but most of the time it has no normative power and is drawn up by players with no clearly recognised legal capacities.

It is in this context that ecology is beginning to enter formally into social dialogue at the European or national level. At the European level, the launch of the European Green Deal in December 2019 was preceded by a statement from the executive committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)<fnref n="5" /> and the employers' association (Business Europe).<fnref n="6" /> Numerous other, sometimes joint, statements followed, stressing on the trade union side, the importance of worker participation and demanding that a fair transition strategy be put in place; and on the employers' side, that success in this area depended on the competitiveness of profitable companies capable of providing the technological solutions required.

In the social dialogue databases of the European Commission and the ETUI,<fnref n="7" /> only 46 agreements concerned sustainable development over the period 1990 - 2021, and none of them were binding. The only noticeable acceleration in the number of agreements signed was at the end of the period: almost a quarter were signed between 2019 and 2021 (Uncular 2023). “Green collective bargaining” was the subject of an opinion by the European EESC (CESE 2023), but its exploratory nature indicates that it is still a long way off.

In France, a country with a dual system of employee representation (Works Councils<fnref n="8" /> on the one hand, for information and consultation, and trade unions on the other, for negotiation), the so-called Law on Climate and Resilience of 2021 added the “*environmental consequences of the employer's decisions*” to the list of subjects on which the CSE<fnref n="9" /> must be informed, in view of consultation, and set out the consequences of this in various areas.<fnref n="10" /> A National Interprofessional

<footnote n="5">⁵ https://www.etuc.org/system/files/document/file2019-10/ETUC%20adopted%20position%20for%20an%20inclusive%20European%20Green%20Deal%20%20EN.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ https://www.businesseurope.eu/publications/eu-green-deal-must-be-built-economic-foundations</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ European Trade Union Institute</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Name changed to Social and Economic Committee (CSE, *Comité Social et Économique*) on 1 January 2020</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ See footnote 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ See “Les clés du social”, https://www.clesdusocial.com/loi-climat-l-environnement-devient-un-objet-de-dialogue-social</footnote>
suppose, entre autres, un dialogue structuré entre l'entreprise employeuse et ses salariés.

En élargissant la perspective, l'horizon « capacitant » (Sen op. cit.) dans l'entreprise dépasse l'adaptation des compétences aux besoins d'un poste pour promouvoir l'adaptation aux besoins plus larges de l'entreprise et des travailleurs. Apprentissages et management participatif entrent ici en interaction pour définir une « organisation capacitante » développant la dimension émancipatrice et collective de l'employabilité (Zimmermann 2021). On peut relier ces traits et ces exigences aux débats et pratiques sur la codétermination dans ses différentes versions (Clerc et Favereau 2020) : associer les travailleurs aux décisions qui les concernent permet de rendre l'entreprise plus légitime et la répartition des pouvoirs en son sein plus équilibrée.

Il s'agit aussi désormais, en prenant appui sur l'expertise des partenaires sociaux et des organisations écologiques, d'ouvrir les délibérations et les décisions sur les caractéristiques environnementales des produits et sur la manière de les produire, et donc sur les modes de vie, à de nouveaux acteurs (cf. partie 1) prenant directement en charge les nouvelles priorités. En quelque sorte, organiser l'émergence d'une entreprise « réflexive », prenant en compte systémiquement les conséquences écologiques de ses choix.

## 3.4 Vers un rôle renouvelé du dialogue social territorial

Nous avons souligné les faiblesses du DST. Il remplit pourtant de multiples rôles, qui vont de l'intégration des acteurs (salariés comme employeurs) marginalisés, à la gestion de services sociaux, en passant par les restructurations et l'articulation des horaires entre services publics et entreprises. Simultanément, les divers territoires (Régions, Communautés de Communes et d'Agglomération notamment) sont pertinents s'il s'agit d'identifier et d'affronter les conséquences concrètes collectives des défis en cours : climat, biodiversité, pollution... et ceux-ci révèlent de très forts besoins de coordination et d'articulation aux décisions proprement politiques. Un renouvellement du DST est donc nécessaire, qui passerait par la reconnaissance d'un pouvoir de décision, au-delà de la production d'expertise et de la formulation de recommandations. C'est sans doute un des points sur lesquels un vrai changement pourrait se manifester.

Cette approche, déjà envisagée sous la forme de « covenants » (engagements multi-acteurs) dans la perspective des MTT (Schmid 2015), appelle de nouveaux « contrats sociaux territorialisés » (Stiegler et al. p. 100) dans lesquels les associations de défense de l'environnement devraient combiner leurs efforts avec les différentes communautés territoriales dont les régions, les municipalités et les partenaires sociaux. Avec la mise en réseaux tant à l'échelle nationale qu'internationale, ces territoires « réticulaires » auraient pour tâche de faire émerger une série de « coalitions des communs » (Duverger 2021).
Agreement (ANI)<fnref n="11" /> on ecological transition and social dialogue was signed in April 2023. It uses the term “just transition”, states that the only actors in social dialogue are the social partners, and promotes a set of good practices, without creating any obligation. In Sweden, a country with a single channel for employee representation, two national cross-industry agreements were signed in 2022 by the Swedish confederation of companies (Svenskt Näringsliv), the PTK and LO. Established with a view to facilitating and managing a green transition, they mainly provide: i) significant training rights<fnref n="12" /> for employees; ii) greater support for transitions from one job to another – including opening up joint “Job Security Foundations” (see Bergström and Diedrich 2008) to employees not covered by a collective agreement; and iii) extend the rights of temporary workers. In 2024 in Spain, a draft law on sustainable mobility<fnref n="13" /> makes it compulsory for companies to submit a plan for carbon-free mobility measures for negotiation.

There are a handful of company agreements in France, mainly concerning support for low-carbon mobility or profit-sharing agreements linked to the reduction of certain types of consumption. However, it would seem that at company level, agreements – when they exist – mainly concern the consequences of greening on business and employment, in other words, restructuring. This is the case with ENEL in Italy (Rugiero 2019), Renault and Stellantis in France, and Volkswagen Germany, for example. It should be noted, however, that within countries, the prospect of greening is tending to develop a dialogue at industry or even sector level (for example, in Germany, France and Italy, see Bombardieri 2024).

This very brief overview confirms that a start has been made on integrating environmental issues into social dialogue. Unsurprisingly, this is taking place in accordance with each national tradition: through a law on information and consultation of the CSE in France, where it depends on strong State intervention (Rehfeldt, Vincent 2023); or through cross-industry collective bargaining in Sweden, where social dialogue is strong and the autonomy of the social partners is recognised. Yet agreements are still very rare, regardless of the level at which they are discussed and signed. Logically, these may be concerned with the results of a transition and therefore include “ecological clauses”, or they may focus on the way in which the process is managed (Henrich Böll Stiftung 2024).<fnref n="14" /> The latter theme is largely dominant, via the management of restructuring.

The prominence and importance of this theme in a context where discussions about *green deals* are gaining momentum is easily explained. Of the three work

<footnote n="11">¹¹ *Accord National Interprofessionnel*.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² Public transition study aid for a period of 44 weeks (two semesters) full-time, which can be extended to 66 weeks (3 semesters), replaces 80% of monthly income up to €2,500 (i.e. maximum compensation of around €2,000), to which a loan of up to €1,170 per month can be added. In the case of part-time study, the duration is extended. A specific mechanism allows these thresholds to be increased to €3,000 and 65% of €6,500 respectively.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ It has also been criticised by environmental and trade union organisations for its lack of ambition when it comes to decarbonising road transport.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ Available here: https://eu.boell.org/en/2024/04/16/trade-unions-collective-bargaining-green-transition</footnote>
# 4 Conclusion

## Sommes-nous dans l'utopie ?

Nous avons exploré l'idée qu'en liant dialogue social et émergence d'un nouveau modèle social, on peut tenter de systématiser ce qui en l'état rassemble, en France notamment mais aussi ailleurs en Europe des pratiques disparates et des changements incrémentaux.

La perspective tracée dans nos parties 2 et 3 est d'ores et déjà explorée par les acteurs politiques et sociaux, sans que sa cohérence en soit exploitée. Les réalisations concrètes les plus marquantes sont associées à l'existence et l'action de partenaires sociaux forts tels qu'on les observe dans l'Europe du Nord ou l'Europe continentale. Le dialogue social français, caractérisé par la faiblesse relative des partenaires sociaux et l'importance redistributive et réglementaire de l'État, est cependant dans une position intermédiaire non dépourvue d'atouts : il est notamment mieux équipé et plus ambitieux que celui qui caractérise les pays anglo-saxons, limités comme on l'a vu aux consultations et à la négociation décentralisée au niveau des entreprises.

Ce sont probablement des chocs et des crises qui pourront faire bouger les lignes et permettre de mobiliser, en lieu et place d'ajustements autoritaires et si les appuis politiques sont obtenus (comme lors du « New Deal »), les ressources d'un approfondissement de la démocratie : une démocratie d'appropriation (Rosanvallon 2020) à la construction de laquelle le dialogue social est essentiel, parce qu'il donne aux individus dont les intérêts sont en cause la possibilité de se constituer en collectifs capables de négocier. En retour ces négociations, en articulation avec l'approfondissement de la démocratie, contribueront à construire concrètement la transition écologique.
programmes which currently dominate, *climato-inertia* and *cornucopianism* have no particular effect on the dynamics of social dialogue. By proposing to decarbonise products and production capacity in order to establish green growth, *greening* implies upheaval in the production system and extensive restructuring. As we have seen, it is in the face of this restructuring that the notion of “just transition” has been developed (see para 1.3), and the Swedish agreement mentioned above is consistent with this perspective. From this point of view, one might think that countries (such as France or the United Kingdom, for example) which have not succeeded in building an effective system for anticipating and supporting restructuring are likely to face greater resistance, unless they take advantage of the Scandinavian or Germanic experiences, despite difficulties in doing so (Méda, Lefebvre 2006, Gazier and Bruggeman (dir) 2008).

If the hypothesis that today's challenge is to decarbonise the economy in order to establish green growth were realistic, the preceding lines could serve as a conclusion to this article. But it is not, and today there is no credible hope of an ecological bifurcation that does not include an element of sobriety and therefore changes not only in production techniques and products, but also in lifestyles and consumption patterns. We therefore need to look beyond the current constellation of practices and adaptations to examine what structural transformations in social dialogue would be necessary to support an ecological bifurcation.

## 2.2 The kinds of social dialogue needed to support ecological bifurcation

To address this issue, let us return very briefly to the relationship between democracy, social democracy and social dialogue.

In everyday language, social democracy and social dialogue are practically synonymous, but it is the former that designates in general what the latter actually is, as a historically situated expression. In contrast to holistic societies, democracies are constructs in which societies are the means and individuals the end (Dumont 1966). These individuals are abstract, characterised by their common humanity (or citizenship), which confers on them the same rights, that are defended by the society within which the role of the state is strictly limited to defending these rights. In such a universe, only two categories of limits can be imposed on individuals: that of not harming others and those that they impose on themselves by contract. Through a long process, social democracy has added to the tandem of the abstract individual and liberalism the tandem of the situated individual and interventionism. This has enriched classical democracy by taking into account the social and geographical reality of citizens and implementing the means intended to achieve real equality, through solidarity (Polaina 2021). This influence of the social sphere on democracy has been accompanied by a movement to make the social sphere democratic, by applying the principles of political democracy (votes and elections) to social relationships once these have been legally recognised. It is this recognition of the existence of a law of social relations that serves as the
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foundation for social dialogue, and this dialogue is based on two elements: the
recognition by the State of interest groups (the “bodies” already mentioned in the
introduction) and of their normative power (Polaina *op. cit.*).

In view of the environmental challenges and the current context of globalisation, the task is to gain a better understanding of the interests at stake and how it can be organised. This raises three main questions.

For social dialogue to accompany an ecological bifurcation, ecology must first be constituted as a “body” (2.2.1). Then, logically, we need to look at the company (2.2.2). Finally, insofar as an ecological bifurcation presupposes major changes in lifestyle, we need to consider how a social dialogue organised on the demand side (consumption) can balance and complement the existing dialogue, which is almost exclusively organised on the supply side (2.2.3).

2.2.1 Constituting a representative “body” for ecology

The question is rooted in the much more overall analysis aimed at viewing nature
as a subject of law (Serres 1990). Applied to social dialogue, it can be formulated as
follows: how can ecology be represented within such dialogue, how can it be
constituted as a “body”? There seem to be two options at the moment: integrate
NGO representatives into the various levels of existing social dialogue<fnref n="15" /> or entrust
employee representative organisations with the task of representing ecological
issues. This second option entails the inevitable risk of conflicts of interest when a
trade-off has to be made in the short term between ecology and employment or
income, and entails a significant “entry cost” for the social partners in terms of
taking ownership of the issues. However, this choice allows the social partners to
benefit from the resources they already have and guarantees that their immediate
interests will be taken into account in any negotiations. At the same time, the
appointment of NGO representatives (to be formed into a group of associations) is
tantamount to instituting players who are already organised and familiar with the
issues, but carries the risk of lacking legitimacy in the social field and, above all, of
splitting up the fields of negotiation between “social” and “environmental” issues.

To the best of our knowledge, neither of these options has yet been fully
implemented, which suggests that they do not constitute adequate responses on
their own.

Another option could be to include environmental and employee representatives
on company boards of directors, for example as part of a new form of co-
determination. However, such a development would be difficult to imagine
without changes to the nature of companies, creating opportunities for negotiation
that are currently non-existent.

<footnote n="15">15 The proposal made in France in 2007 during the Grenelle Environment Forum to include environmental representatives on works councils was rejected by the social partners.</footnote>
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### 2.2.2 Incorporating the ecological bifurcation into company objectives

First of all, there is an element of complexity and constraint which has not yet been addressed. With globalisation, shareholders have emerged as a third "actor" in social dialogue, without being recognised as such. Although they are only the owners of shares, shareholders have asserted themselves as company owners (Robé 2015), placing social dialogue under the permanent constraint of maximising short-term profits.

Greening production means reintroducing the long-term into public and private investment decisions and introducing ecology into economic decisions. This, in turn, presupposes a profound change in the behaviour of companies, and it is highly unlikely that this can be achieved without a change in their institutional nature. In this area, however, we are seeing the beginnings of progressive change. For a long time, voluntary action *via* Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was the only way of encouraging companies to take action in this area. By its very nature, this only concerns a minority of companies, and therefore it leaves the additional costs associated with such commitments to be borne by those who make (and keep) them. In 2017 in France, the "environment" was included in the law on the duty of care of large companies<fnref n="16" /> and a similar law was passed in Germany in 2021. In 2024, the European Union adopted a directive of the same name,<fnref n="17" /> requiring companies to draw up a transition plan in line with the Paris Agreement and creating legal liabilities for human rights abuses and environmental damage. Since 2019, the implementing and delegated act for Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 - SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) has put in place and strengthened a Europe-wide obligation for financial market players to disclose their exercise of environmental, social and governance responsibilities.

However, none of these changes radically alters the nature of the company, nor the objectives of its management. In France, a first attempt was made in 2019, by introducing "social and environmental issues" into Article 1833 of the Commercial Code.<fnref n="18" /> However, it is still too timid to combine the logic of profit maximisation with the consideration of ecological interests. Various tools, which are not mutually exclusive, are available to achieve this: changes to the articles of association, the status of a company with a mission, the proportionality of voting rights to the time spent holding capital in a firm, etc. Ultimately, these are based on a distinction, which is currently neglected, between the ownership of shares and the ownership of the company (Robé op. cit). As an unquantified objective naturally becomes a secondary objective for organisations, such a change also

<footnote n="16">16 Law on the duty of care of parent companies and contractors.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17 For EU and non-EU companies and parent companies with sales in excess of €450 million.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">18 Commercial Code, Art. 1833: "Every company must have a lawful objective and be formed in the common interest of its, members. The company shall be managed in its corporate interest, taking into consideration the social and environmental challenges of its activity".</footnote>
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implies the obligation to keep carbon or even ecological accounts (see Section 1 above).

The effects of such changes on social dialogue are easy to foresee: if companies were to be accountable for their ecological performance, then such goals, the means to achieve them and the way they influence life in the company would be part of the existing social dialogue. Symmetrically, it may be asked whether, in the absence of such developments, a social dialogue conducive to the ecological transition can indeed materialise.

Such changes would also give a boost to the ecological planning mentioned above (1.1). Although it was only indicative, French planning from the 1950s to the 1980s was operational because it involved a large number of nationalised companies (Rivier, 1969). The changes mentioned here would likely renew the operational capacities of a form of ecological planning. But its operational capacities still need to be (re)constructed, with such planning being less immediately directed by the State, and hopefully less bureaucratic and more participative than France's post-war planning (Veltz *op. cit.*).

### 2.2.3 Negotiating lifestyle changes

For several decades, many associations (representing consumers, tenants, users, etc.) have been promoting a form of social dialogue that is not considered as such, but which complements social dialogue on the demand side.

In France, in the fields of health and transport, these associations are federated respectively in "France Assos Santé" (with 20,000 user representatives)<fnref n="19" /> and the Fédération Nationale des Associations d'Usagers des Transports (Fnaut).<fnref n="20" /> In other fields (like housing, food and general consumption), national associations exist, but they are not (yet?) federated.

All these organisations are consumer associations,<fnref n="21" /> approved by the State to represent the users of goods or services. They therefore have an upstream role of providing information independently from suppliers, and a downstream role of defending consumers in the event of disputes or disagreements, as well as representing consumers in government decision-making bodies (Roux, Nabec 2016). So there is dialogue, but structurally it is much weaker than that on the supply side, because it is only based on information and consultation structures. It is funded by membership fees and state subsidies, with time spent on representation not being paid for (with some exceptions), while such dialogue takes place almost exclusively with public companies and administrations.

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ See https://www.france-assos-sante.org/presentation/qui-sommes-nous/</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ See https://www.fnaut.fr/</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ Some were founded by trade unions.</footnote>
Class actions were introduced restrictively in France in 2014 (and was the subject of a European directive in 2023). It constitutes one way of strengthening this dialogue, but its results to date have been disappointing (Gosselin, Vichnievsky 2021). Another possible approach, which is not exclusive but more far-reaching, is to give these organisations the power to negotiate.

Such developments would then have an impact on territorial social dialogue (TSD), the limitations of which we have already outlined (2.1). Increasing its orientation towards the expression of needs and the negotiation of their satisfaction in a given territory, for example by users of transport systems or of the health system, in conjunction with the productive units concerned, would make a very important contribution to the structural changes we have identified. But as things stand, these are scattered practices whose foundations and conditions for generalisation have yet to be established.

## 3. Capabilities and Career Paths

The various adaptive practices and initiatives we have just reviewed are clearly not on the same scale as the ecological challenge. The structural issues on which we concluded the previous section lead us to a very broad approach: that of directly challenging the entire economic and social system that governs the current unsustainable and unequal trajectory of economic and financial growth. This system has changed a great deal since the 1960s and 1970s, when Fordism took hold. To oversimplify, we can see that it has been transformed through “real existing globalisation”, particularly financial globalisation and without political integration (Billaudot 2021), into a neo-liberal regime of accumulation centred on growth conceived as the substrate for the growth of profits and “shareholder value”.

If this diagnosis is to be taken seriously, it will be necessary to break out of this regime, in particular by taking action on the nature of company and public governance (Gibert and Simon 2021). This opens up a vast range of analyses and recommendations, including, as we have seen, the revival of planning, the reorientation of international trade and the control of financial markets.

Without denying the legitimacy and interest of this overall approach, we must emphasise the risks it runs if it is pursued alone, by juxtaposing long-term radicalism, innovative practices that remain marginal, along with the prevalence of short-term, wait-and-see or even defensive practices. This is why it would seem just as legitimate and urgent to explore a second avenue, taking up and revitalising current initiatives based on social democracy and social dialogue, and focusing on the issues of changing lifestyles, quality of work, as well as worker security and mobilisation. Such developments would also help to rebalance power
in favour of labour, which is the aim of the radical proposals. The very purpose of
this text leads us down this second path.

A suggestive perspective in this sense can be found in the work brought together
in a publication under the aegis of the ETUI and centred on "transformative
ideas", aimed at ensuring that everyone has a "fair share of progress"
(Arabadjieva et al (eds) 2023). They include a wide range of proposals and
experiments, from the promotion of "commons" and "communities" to that of a
"European employment guarantee" and the promotion of "democratised
workplaces".

In reading this work, we can see one contribution, and two difficulties. By
substituting the word "progress" for "growth", the contribution directly targets a
desirable future likely to mobilise workers' initiatives. Moving towards it would
enable us to move away from "punitive ecology" and to move beyond the horizon
of growth and accumulation of products, with workers and with all citizens. This
is the perspective outlined in the entire book coordinated by Arabadjieva et al,
initially from the angle of income and employment guarantees, perhaps while
waiting for a "green post-growth" to take hold. The chapter presented by
Askénazy and Didry (2023) goes further, proposing the idea of "Ecological
embeddedness" to bring together a number of innovative workplace practices in
France that extend workers' struggles to climate issues, with workers and their
representatives appropriating ecological issues to transform their products and
modes of production *at the same time*. But we are still in the process of identifying
good practices that are suggestive and isolated, waiting to be systematised and
revitalised.

One of the first difficulties is therefore to give, beyond the necessary response to
the poverty and precariousness developed by neoliberalism, an identifiable and
mobilising content to the idea of progress. This needs to be understood here as
being compatible with the control of energy flows and the preservation of the
climate and biodiversity. What can no longer function as a desirable horizon is the
set of standards of living, consumption and progress associated with Fordism,
whether it be individual car transport, suburban housing or the constant renewal
of products with programmed obsolescence, such as successive generations of
mobile phones. If we want to unplug progress from the Fordist accumulation of
goods and services, what content and what basis can we give to the ideas of
quality of life and personal autonomy?

The second difficulty has already been encountered above: these authors rightly
point to the prospect of collective bargaining and social dialogue taking account of
these issues and possibly helping to redefine them. But we have seen – and they
acknowledge – that the existing social dialogue functions much more as a brake
than an accelerator in the current emergency, because it relays the legitimate
concerns and reluctance of the world of work. In a way, there is a prerequisite,
even a Gordian knot to be cut, that of taking into account head-on the issues
linked to restructuring and, beyond that, to career development, which is largely
absent from the above-mentioned book and limits its focus to safety nets or
voluntary initiatives carried out by pioneers.

We therefore propose to shift and extend this perspective of a “transformative idea”, firstly by pursuing the analysis of lifestyles and the ability of workers and citizens to act, and then by linking employment issues to those of work, by integrating the issues of restructuring and professional mobility into the analysis.

We begin by taking a theoretical, roundabout way, following a possible line of thought: the analysis of scarcity in economics, updating it to incorporate the uncertainties faced and generated by the ecological transition. The ecological bifurcation calls into question the priority given to economic growth. The normative objective must therefore be redefined: struggles against modern forms of scarcity must link well-being, emancipation and solidarity (3.1).

We will then return to the field of work and employment, and briefly present a normative approach likely to constitute a “transformative idea” of future developments in social dialogue, in the face of the ecological challenge. Centred on the capacities for action of workers at work, on the labour market and its surrounding framework, this approach makes it possible to redefine the objective of full employment. It combines “Transitional Labour Markets” (TLMs) and “capabilities”, and we discuss its relevance to the challenges of the ecological bifurcation (3.2).

3.1 Old and new scarcities: between urgency and interaction

We propose to return to an older line of thought, by going back to the various ways of conceiving of scarcity, the initial observation of which was at the very origin of economics at the end of the 18th century: in particular the representations of a stationary state by Malthus and Ricardo. To draw on one of Michel Foucault's major intuitions (Foucault 1966), and to oversimplify things, as Western societies became wealthier over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, we moved from the "consciousness of scarcity" to the "scarcity of consciousness".

This reversal can be observed and applied in three areas successively addressed by
economists during the 20th century, locating scarcity in the shortages of individual
subjectivity and no longer only in objective shortages in the face of nature's
supposed avarice (Gazier 2003).

Firstly, the scarcity of *time* in the face of increasing wealth: despite medical progress, life expectancy is hardly increasing at all, particularly life expectancy in good health. Secondly, the scarcity of *attention*: with increasing amounts of information available, the cognitive challenge of processing it for everyone has multiplied. Finally, the scarcity of *freedom*: the relevant author on this last point is A. Sen (2000). In particular, his study and critique of “adaptive preferences”: when faced with strong constraints, people change their preferences and give up their
initial aspirations. Sen thus shows that free choice is not a given but a complex social construct that needs to be constantly nurtured.

This progression from objective to subjective scar cities then “feeds back” into
worsening objective scarcity, because they reinforce each other: the poorest people
are often the least able to make relevant long-term decisions, which contributes to
locking them into their poverty. Sen’s classic study of the famine in Bangladesh in
the 1940s (Sen 1990) showed that the food deficit caused by poor harvests left
enough food to feed everyone, but that the grabbing strategies of dominant groups
exacerbated the shortage, pushed up prices and condemned the most vulnerable
part of the population to starvation.

Analyses and recommendations in terms of “capabilities” were developed prior to
the ecological crisis. But they can, as a first step, be applied directly to today’s new
challenges.

The sudden acceleration of the ecological challenge has intensified the issue of scarcity, now for all social groups: the various forms of scarcity are intensifying their interactions in the deterioration of the global situation and are helping to block our current ability to assess and counter it.

Three priorities for action flow from this: i) building consensus on the basis of shared expertise within the framework of information processes that are genuinely concerted;<fnref n="22" /> ii) thinking about and providing tools for personal and professional career management, particularly within companies; and iii) giving greater legitimacy to experimentation, particularly at local level, and giving priority to exploring reversible solutions.

These three priorities lead us to look for the bases of stabilisation that are broader
and more complex than current guarantees and that are consistent with an
ecological bifurcation. Specifically: social protection and employment protection
combining their defensive role with a *pro-active* role in favour of risk-taking and
quality of life, which can only be achieved, particularly for the most vulnerable,
within the framework of mobilisation and collective guarantees. The end result of
this approach is the construction of guaranteed jobs, incomes and career paths,
while maintaining existing jobs can no longer be the central demand.

Broadening the options available at each stage of personal and professional life
and restoring a long-term horizon are thus becoming prerequisites for the
organisation of collective bargaining and public policies, and necessary conditions
for effectively accompanying change in production and consumption choices
underway or to come.

Are these very general recommendations utopian? There are now numerous and
converging indications that they are beginning to find concrete support, in two
interrelated areas. The first concerns the changing preferences of citizens and
workers regarding the remuneration of work and the organisation of time. While

<footnote n="22">²² This includes the implementation of new forms of dialogue. France's Citizens' Climate Convention (*Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat*) in 2021 was a remarkable example of this.</footnote>
the joint fight for better wages and shorter working hours has long been the
central objective of trade unions and workers, there has recently been a shift, no
doubt accelerated by the Covid crisis of 2020-2021, in favour of more free time,
particularly among the youngest and most highly qualified workers
(Iribarnegaray 2021, Hall 2024, Schabram et al. 2023). The rapid growth of
sabbaticals is combined with the attractiveness of the firms offering them. It is easy
to interpret this trend using the grid outlined above: the balance between
consumption of products and free time has tipped in favour of the latter, whether
it is seen as a source of satisfaction in itself or as an affirmation of freedom to act
and emancipation.

We need to go further and move away from giving priority to the production and
accumulation of goods and services. Let us briefly mention the analyses of the
anthropologist Philippe Descola (Descola 2005) on the untenability of the split
between nature and culture as developed by the West, and his challenge to the
Western “heroic” myth of production, culminating in the model of the craftsman –
a creator and maker who is supposed to be an autonomous worker. The demand
for freedom to act, viewed according to the criteria of justice proposed by Sen (op.
cit.), which consists in making it possible for each person to lead the life she or he
has reasons to value, allows such disengagement in favour of the quality of work
and employment and a life of meaning and solidarity to occur, without imposing
it.

There is a second area in which this abandonment is foreshadowed: the
increasingly frequent demand, particularly from young workers, for meaningful
work (see Donaggio et al. (coord.) 2022, and Palier (coord.) 2023). But this needs to
find institutional support and effective guarantees if it is to go beyond the stage of
practices that risk once again remaining in the minority.

## 3.2 Systematic and negotiated support for personal and professional development

It is possible to think of the distribution of work activities and the labour market
within society as a mix of transitions and positions, which need to be understood
and managed. A series of works since the 1990s have explored this path of
“Transitional Labour Markets” (TLMs; Schmid and Gazier 2002; Schmid 2017).
This approach was linked from the outset to analyses and prescriptions in terms of
“capabilities” (Sen 2000). A recent synthesis by the ILO (Delautre et al 2021)
identifies three main criteria for guiding collective decisions on work, employment
and social protection: i) decent and meaningful work; ii) a standard of living that
guarantees the satisfaction of material needs (“freedom from want”); and iii) the
freedom to make one’s own choices in the labour market and in one’s personal
life, which becomes a goal in itself (“freedom to act”).
A dynamic representation of the labour market is the starting point of the TLMs, which consider all positions and work – paid or unpaid – in the course of personal and professional life sequences, including: initial training, domestic work, voluntary work, paid work, unemployment, retirement, etc. “Transitions” are then the passages from one position to another, more or less rapid, more or less efficient and more or less organised by institutions. The idea of a “transitional market”, far from referring to a permanent and individual process of adjusting supply and demand, refers to the periodic procedures for assigning and paying people to work in a particular temporary or permanent position. It is to be understood as complementary to the idea of the “internal market” formulated at the end of the 1960s (Doeringer and Piore 1971), theorising the organisation of careers within companies which have chosen to stabilise their workforce. On the one hand, the TLMs represent the “external” counterpart – the responsibility of the players regulating the labour market and social protection. On the other hand, they accentuate the dynamic content by focusing on the variety of internal careers. In other words, what is proposed is the securing of transitions between a more varied number of stable positions, rather than the passage from one job to another.

These arguments correspond first and foremost to a very large empirical field, and have accompanied the multiplicity of studies that have examined a given position-transition sequence, its contours, determinants and effects. But it is their normative dimension that is relevant here.

One of the four principles governing desirable transitions (Schmid and Gazier op. cit.) is empowerment in Sen's sense. Each transition must enable the people involved to increase their room for manoeuvre: the opportunities available to them and their capacity for autonomous decision-making. The three other principles are: i) solidarity with other professional and social groups (in other words: no "rich" transitions for the rich and "poor" transitions for the poor); ii) the search for efficiency through the specialised management of transitions specific to a given group in a given situation, through co-financing and periodic renegotiation; and iii) decentralised management through projects.

An example that is widely but unevenly used in everyday life is that of parental leave as understood and advocated from the “transitional” perspective. It should be of short duration (maximum 1 year, so as not to disrupt the employment and career dynamics of the beneficiaries), equal for both parents, and may lead to an additional leave, say for example, of 6 months if each of the two spouses has used her or his own quota. The return to work can then be supported in two ways: by an entitlement to temporary part-time work followed by a return to full-time work; or by a skills assessment followed by training if the assessment reveals a need for such training.

The “transitional” rights with which people need to be “equipped” complement social rights through the technique of “social drawing rights” (Supiot 1999): rights to career guidance, training, support, parental, training or personal leave, the right to part-time work and the right to return to full-time work, etc. These thus make it
possible to rebalance workers' bargaining power on the labour market, a power which we know is structurally biased in favour of employers.

The task of such a perspective is to deal with the variety of risks in and around the labour market: risks linked to the performance and intensity of work, job insecurity, the variability of working hours, etc. These risks whose intensification and multiplication are now appearing as an increasing trend and threat in the context of the ecological crisis.

Both TLMs and “capabilities” were developed without reference to the ecological crisis. But they can be mobilised to meet it, since they respond to uncertainties brought about by the crisis and the changes needed to be dealt with, through the promotion of pro-active institutions and guarantees.

# 4. Towards a Social Dialogue Linking Bifurcation and Emancipation

We now know that the prospect of indefinite growth is unsustainable. In addition to, and in support of, experiments in the workplace, it is necessary to seek new guarantees and new prospects for progress for the populations of workers, whether salaried or not, and their families, which can be summed up by the idea of a new form of full employment. The result is policies and negotiations aimed at decoupling full employment and growth (4.1). This perspective leads to the need to simultaneously equip social dialogue and the labour market to enable them to contribute fully to the ecological bifurcation (4.2). Accordingly, territorial social dialogue will play a greater role (4.3).

## 4.1 Broadening and renewing the idea of full employment

The traditional idea of full employment evolved considerably over the course of the 20th century, from the male-industrial model to the imperative of gender equality. Today it needs not only to be broadened but profoundly renewed. Firstly, it needs to be extended to new positions that are recognised as such, because they are useful to society and its development, such as bringing up children, caring for older relatives, or lifelong learning. Secondly, it has been extended to include an increase in free time in the form of both a reduction in working hours to enable people to reconcile their personal and professional lives, and, in the long term, a recognised right to time off (sabbatical or otherwise) to carry out their projects. Lastly, idea of full employment includes remuneration for these positions that is more or less equivalent to that provided by paid or unpaid work in the workplace.
Consequently, full employment cannot be defined as a situation in which everyone has access to any kind of job. It must be seen as a dynamic, lifelong process of voluntary, negotiated and financed sequences, of periods of training, of work (in the current restricted sense), the quality of which must be established and guaranteed, of domestic work shared equitably, of voluntary work and of chosen times of life. Volunteering has a special place here. It is useful to society, and must remain free in order to remain true to itself. But it must also be encouraged, for example, by the right to regular periods of voluntary activity and access to useful training.

In this new labour market, the criteria for autonomy and progression are redefined far beyond the traditional mix of hours and pay. The magnitude of the challenges posed by this expansion must be emphasised. The coherence of the Fordist system of accumulation consisted in bringing together the dynamics of mass production and consumption, with the whole serving as the basis of the social contract. In the search for a "post-Fordian" compromise, a necessary objective is emerging here, replacing that of growth: multidimensional progress in the quality of life within planetary boundaries.

Decoupling from growth can then be formulated in terms of a policy of intertemporal and negotiated sharing of working time (Bruggeman and Gazier 2022). Without going back over a debate that has included numerous initiatives in France (such as the laws on the 35-hour week) and has caused a great deal of ink to flow, we can confine ourselves to a few observations.

Negotiated and proactive collective control of labour markets exploits the possibility of creating bridges: transitional positions, some of which make it possible to manage both surpluses and shortages of workers. Many transitional tools have been developed and tested in Europe, and we will not go into details here (see France Stratégie, 2023): Danish job rotation, Swedish job security foundations, Austrian work foundations, etc. While their defensive dimension is clear, it is not the only one, as demonstrated by the well-known example of "job rotation": the replacement of workers during their leave by others who have been trained beforehand, which has been experimented with on a large scale twice in Denmark (from 1995 to 2000 and from 2010 to 2015). It has fulfilled two main functions in the short term, one being to promote the retraining and integration of workers without disrupting the operation of companies, and the other being to create a vacuum-effect in a labour market suffering from excessively high levels of unemployment. (Gazier and Bruggeman 2018). Initially formulated from a longer-term perspective, this scheme was designed to encourage parental leave, personal leave and long training leave. It can therefore be used for projects that directly involve changes to lifestyles or production methods within sectors seeking greater ecological sustainability.

The link to new, more sober lifestyles can thus be directly posed and explored, and its dimensions of equality, and in particular gender equality, as well as protection of the planet come to the fore.
This negotiated, egalitarian and reversible horizon is likely to accommodate
several versions of growth, whether slowing it down, immobilising it,
transforming it qualitatively or reversing it. The choices will likely differ,
depending on the resources of territories and communities. Collective
management of personal and professional transitions and positions therefore
needs to be organised.

## 4.2 Workers and companies: simultaneously equipping social dialogue and the labour market

Labour market adjustments traditionally involve prices and quantities (number of employees and working hours): i.e. the interaction between variations in wages (more or less flexible) and job openings and closures. These are either decided directly by companies or result from public intervention aimed at facilitating redundancies or directly removing a particular population from the market, for example through early retirement.

Criticism of these adjustments has long been known (Agell 1999) and has
consisted in pointing out, using the example of restructuring, that the workers
concerned were unfairly penalised by wage cuts or redundancies, while
companies likely to recruit were ineffectively penalised by the need to attract
candidates by means of wage increases. The choices made in particular by the
promoters of the "Swedish model" since the 1960s (a precursor model to what was
proposed by the Transitional Labour Markets, or TLMs) consisted in refusing to
engage in the wage game and in socialising, negotiating and subsidising mobility
and retraining.

As we have seen above (in sub-Section 2.1), this strategy is already being
implemented in one of the three main models of collective management of
restructuring (Gazier and Bruggeman (eds.) 2008), promoted in Nordic societies:
namely the one which emphasizes the narrowing of the wage range, organized
mobility and training/upgrading efforts. It can be systematised as an adjustment
model based on qualities and collective bargaining. These are the qualities of the
worker first of all, with her or his skills and ability to adapt and retrain. Secondly,
they concern the qualities of work and employment: here we draw on the research
that has sought to measure many dimensions of qualities since the 2000s (Erhel
and Guergoat-Larivière, 2016). Making the quality of work and employment a
dominant lever for adjustment in the labour market makes it possible to achieve
operational consistency between the renewed goal of full employment and the
rejection of "punitive" ecology, by putting the aspirations of workers and their
families first. It also makes it easier for companies to make the adjustments they
need to make, and to have the skills they need to improve their processes and
products.

Adjustments in the labour market therefore favour the collective and negotiated
dimension. This does not exclude wage and workforce adjustments, but limits
them, controls them and combines them with quality adjustments. Since quality
adjustments take longer than quantity and price adjustments to become effective
and produce their results, long-term anticipation plays a greater role.

By broadening the perspective, the “enabling” horizon (Sen op. cit.) in the
company goes beyond adapting skills to the needs of a particular job to promote
adaptation to the wider needs of the company and its workers. Learning and
participative management interact here to define an “enabling organisation”,
developing the emancipatory and collective dimension of employability
(Zimmermann 2021).

These features and requirements can be linked to the debates and practices on co-determination in its various versions (Clerc and Favereau 2020): involving workers in decisions that concern them makes the company more legitimate and the distribution of power within it more balanced. Taking account of ecological challenges has led to proposals for broader co-determination, including the proposal of having representatives of ecological organisations on the Boards of Directors of the large companies concerned (see para. 2.2.1 above).

By drawing on the expertise of social partners and ecological organisations, the issue now is to open up deliberations and decisions on the environmental characteristics of products and the way they are produced, and therefore on lifestyles, to new players (see Section 2 above). The work by Askenazy and Didry (op. cit., p. 157) referred to in Section 3 refers to the emerging practice in the United Kingdom of “green Reps” (union delegates for the environment), who complement the action of “learning Reps” (union delegates for training), taking direct responsibility for new priorities and relaying suggestions from the grassroots. In a way, the aim is to organise the emergence of a “reflexive” company, taking systematic account of the ecological consequences of its choices.

In this transformation, the role played by the variety of productive organisations
needs to be emphasised: in addition to traditional, private sector companies,
public companies and organisations in the non-profit economy.

At the company and industry level (see Table 1, level 2), collective bargaining
procedures should be introduced concerning the allocation of productivity gains.
The aim would be to allocate these to quality, both production quality and the
quality of life of employees: a reduction in working hours, as we have seen above,
but also better control of the intensity and pace of work, a better balance between
professional and personal life, and so on. The consumer society responsible for the
ecological crisis has given priority to quantity (particularly in the form of salaries
and mass production) and we need to change the trade-off between quantity and
quality, which presupposes, among other things, a structured dialogue between
the employing company and its employees.

4.3 Towards decision-making powers for a territorial social dialogue
We have highlighted the weaknesses of the existing territorial social dialogue (TSD). Yet it fulfils multiple roles, ranging from integrating marginalised players (employees and employers alike) to managing social services, restructuring and the coordination of schedules between public services and companies. At the same time, the various territories involved (regions, counties, cities, etc.) are relevant when it comes to identifying and tackling the concrete collective consequences of today's challenges (including climate, biodiversity, pollution, etc.), which reveal a very strong need for coordination and linkage with actual political decisions.

A renewal of the TSD is therefore a necessary complement to public policies and social dialogue centred on companies, and it should involve the recognition of decision-making powers, beyond the production of expertise and the formulation of recommendations. This is undoubtedly one of the main areas in which real change could take place, along with extended co-determination in companies. TSD cannot be about wages, because one of the major and justified fears of the trade unions is that by initiating a process of the territorial differentiation of wages, local bargaining would reinforce an unequal dispersion of pay and conditions, to the benefit of employers and to the detriment of workers' acquired rights (acquis). Moreover, we have seen that the wage lever is not the main lever here. On the other hand, negotiations must be held on employment and work, to anticipate change, by experimenting with innovations in processes and products, while guaranteeing income and security for the workers concerned. A key area could be working hours and how they can be coordinated and made compatible with collective lifestyles.

This approach is already envisaged in the form of “covenants” (multi-actor commitments), in the context of TLMs (Schmid 2015), and it is in line with the idea of new “territorialised social contracts” (Stiegler et al. (2021) p. 100) in which environmental associations could combine their efforts with the various territorial communities, including regions, municipalities and social partners. By networking both nationally and internationally, these “reticular” (or net-like) territories would be tasked with ensuring the emergence of various “coalitions of the commons” (Duverger 2021).

## Conclusion

Have we made any progress in tackling the blockages in the decision-making processes identified in the introduction and in Section 1?

The tools exist and there are many of them, but the question is how to render them consistent and which social mode should emerge.

We have explored the idea that by linking the transformation of social dialogue, the emergence of a new social model and the transformation of the labour market, we can attempt to systematise what are currently disparate practices and
incremental changes in France and Europe, to open up the prospects for a more coherent and dynamic mobilisation.

Several points emerge from our analyses. First of all, we share with others the idea that the priority of securing workers in the face of future restructuring is an essential prerequisite. However, we need to go beyond this, because it locks us into the categories of the greening option and does not open the door to any future. From the perspective of the bifurcation, it is therefore the very notion of progress that needs to be questioned. Various indications show that the very preferences of workers and citizens are beginning to shift and redirect the priority of growth and production towards quality of life and autonomy. These indicators are important, in a context where dealing with the ecological crisis presupposes the acceptance of a form of sobriety. They open up the prospect of continuing the fight against scarcity in other forms, going beyond quantities, and renewing the idea of progress around the notion of quality. Finally, equipping social dialogue and the labour market must be understood in a "proactive" sense, liberating initiatives and risk-taking.

Four enlargements and renewals have thus come to the fore: i) the very horizon of full employment; ii) co-determination within companies; iii) industry-level negotiations on the nature and distribution of productivity gains; and finally iv) local and regional social dialogue.

This systematic approach could help to dispel some of the concerns and reticence in the world of work and make possible a rapid process of learning and experimentation.

Among the limitations of this exploratory study is the fact that it focuses very much on Europe and does not address the very important issue of the heterogeneity of trade unions and employers' representatives.

We then observe that all the factors brought together, whose interaction remains to be constructed, are not likely to eliminate or resolve the conflicts faced and generated by the ecological transition, conflicts which we have seen are acute and often inevitable.

But they do converge on "transformative ideas" (Arabdjieva et al. (eds) 2023) that could help "the flourishing of modes of conciliation and types of pressure" that redefine the living together referred to by Philippe Descola (op. cit. p. 689). This contrasts with the gradual erosion that threatens social dialogue today, and which is increasingly confined to a purely defensive or consultative role.

Can we go further than this, and envisage transforming social dialogue into an accelerator of the ecological transition? Given the current state of social relations, such a prospect is unrealistic, but that does not rule out the strategic role - the sine qua non, one might say - of social democracy.

Shocks and crises may be able to change things, and make it possible to mobilise workers and citizens, in contrast to authoritarian adjustments, to support and give impetus to public policies (as occurred with the New Deal), while providing the
resources for a deepening of democracy: a democracy of appropriation
(Rosanvallon 2020), and building a “desirable economy” (Veltz op. cit.). Within
such change, social dialogue is essential, as we hope to have shown, because it
gives individuals whose interests are at stake the opportunity to form collectives
capable of negotiation. In turn, negotiations, in conjunction with the deepening of
democracy, will contribute to the concrete construction of the ecological transition.

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