The COVID -19 pandemic has shaken up the way we work. By breaking in, it propelled teleworking into the lives of the French, which the leaders did not want. The latter has proven essential to limit contagions. This development, widely welcomed by millions of employees seeking a better balance between professional and personal life, has therefore become a lasting one.
The unions which massively support this demand face in this context four major paradoxes which can affect their regulatory function but also their representativeness.
Competition
Teleworking such as RTT or the week organized over 4 days contribute to reducing the close ties between union activists and employees. The leader of a large trade union organization recently told me “ with teleworking we meet employees but we no longer really meet them, we must be concerned about this distance which could leave room for others and to do so reinvent ourselves “.
And in fact, trade unionism regularly sees itself in competition with various more or less ephemeral collectives, we saw it with the yellow vests and more recently in the form of “gaseous corporatism” at the SNCF where the mobilization was born from a social network bringing together 4,000 controllers before being supported by the only unions authorized by law to file strike notice.
Atrophy
Traditionally, during rounds of negotiation, unions have relied on the physical mobilization of employees to exert significant pressure on employers. However, with teleworking, this dynamic weakens.
The geographic dispersion of teleworkers reduces opportunities for physical exchange and gathering, which in reality atrophies traditional levers of mobilization. Workers, far from the usual work centers, are less inclined to participate “in person” in collective actions.
Teleworking tends to reinforce isolation and a form of individualism if not a relocation of certain activities. What's more, in the event of a transport strike, site paralysis or strong social tensions, teleworking offers employers an opportunity to circumvent these constraints by massively promoting this practice to ensure continuity of economic activity and support a relationship. of strength in negotiations with elected staff members.
Another paradox is that teleworking creates a division within collectives, between those who can benefit from it and the others. This dichotomy complicates the task of unions, which work for fairness in their actions, while representing all employees. Before March 2020, teleworking concerned around 7% of the active population, mainly executives in the private sector and the state civil service.
Now more than a third of the approximately twenty-six million employees and public officials – or around 8 million people – can potentially access it. However, two thirds remain excluded because of their professions or functions.
This greatly complicates the task of union representatives. This is also one of the reasons which push them to act for the establishment of the 4-day week in order to find compensation and a certain equal treatment for all.
Finally, this distancing and this disintegration of links takes place in an increased context of fragmentation of contractual relations. In fact, atypical work has become the majority in the country.
Atypical forms of employment prevail
Everyone imagines that the majority of workers work from Monday morning to Friday at the end of the day according to a traditional model of full-time employment under a permanent contract (CDI) with a single employer. But this representation is largely erroneous. From now on, atypical forms of employment prevail.
Fixed-term, part-time, temporary employment contracts, night or weekend shifts, alternating shifts, or early mornings or late evenings make up a complex mosaic of employment relationships. The geospatial distancing induced by teleworking exacerbates the diversification of working hours and makes the action of union representatives even more difficult.
The latter must now deal with a workforce with varied rhythms and needs, in a context where the orders of September 22, 2017 have weakened them due to the attrition of the number of staff representatives and the disappearance of important prerogatives, particularly in prevention, it should also be noted that the loss rate has increased since then in companies.
Dares, a research organization of the Ministry of Labor, noted a form of “apathy among employees towards unions”. For years the level of unionization has been fixed at around 10% for the private sector (apart from VSEs) and 16% for the public.
This despite an image among the French which remains positive at 40%. It is even more so if we compare it to that of the political parties also responsible for social mediation which are stagnating at 20%.
Unions, you have to be around them to love them
In short, employees consider unions useful, especially when they come into contact with them. When employment, working conditions and/or remuneration are called into question, they are then experienced as “ambassadors” or as “Jokers in case of hard times”.
But there is no inevitability to decline. The majority of union leaders do not look at the past with nostalgia and look forward to the future. With the Technologia teams, we are seeing within various professional circles a number of resilient initiatives from trade union organizations which are adapting to this new “geospatial” context through mastery of digital technology.
In order to establish more lasting relationships with employees and public officials, they are adopting a proactive and innovative digital approach by using various “virtual” channels to reach workers.
This “multichannel” strategy has of course included for a number of years, social networks, emails, telephone calls, face-to-face or remote meetings as well as the distribution of leaflets without forgetting publication on union websites but above all, A major development, thanks to mobile phones, is the development of Adhoc applications which encourage the creation of responsive communities by maintaining a recurring and permanent link with employees.
Tracks
Everyone knows that 80% of communication now takes place through smartphones to transmit relevant messages. Unions thus unify work collectives and create new virtual links with these applications to:
– Ensure more direct contact through instant messaging, online forums, or regular question-and-answer sessions.
– Break the asymmetry of information with employers: in several companies, unions provide “the rules of the game” which govern daily activity. The vast majority of workers are unaware of their rights. In the form of frequently asked educational questions (FAQ), these applications present laws, case law, collective agreements and company agreements. These rules are then easily accessible to employees via these mobile applications.
– Do not rely on the illusion of knowledge. So to assess the real needs of employees in a context that has become very complex, as we have seen, unions use these dedicated applications to create surveys. The collected data is then carefully analyzed to identify trends, recurring concerns and areas where corrective action is needed.
These data analyzes allow unions to refine their strategies and demands based on the real needs of workers. Using information gathered from surveys and interactions with employees, unions tailor their communications to meet the specific needs of the different groups represented.
In the era of infobesity where everyone protects themselves as best they can from the influence of this incessant flow of information, not communicating “blindly” is considered essential. This personalized communication strengthens employees’ trust in unions, who thus demonstrate a deep understanding of their concerns and challenges.
By integrating these applications into their strategy, union organizations are gradually returning to the center of the game. When an application is downloaded by a majority of employees in a company, everyone understands – in particular the management – that the elected staff members have created a relational system stronger and more dynamic with workers, thus strengthening in a constantly evolving world of work, their relevance and their influence in the game of negotiation. Digital technology thus makes it possible to partially recreate the links weakened by teleworking.
