This article deals with the career paths of people with invisible disabilities. It focusses on the episodes of vulnerability that these people identify as the most significant, in order to highlight the dynamics of development, in the face of adversity, according to Rabardel's conceptual approach to the capable subject. These dynamics refer to the processes of change, adjustment, and learning through which these people transform their resources, reconfigure their ways of acting, and redefine their relationships to themselves, to others, and to work contexts over the course of their trajectory. The method is based on a reflexive co-analysis: 13 people volunteered to participate in the research, and encountering a diversity of invisible disability situations, are guided through an analysis of their career paths and the episodes of vulnerability they have experienced. The focus of the analysis is on bifurcations, exploring the complex relationships between work and health and invisible disability. The results are a cross-sectional analysis of these episodes of vulnerability, which occur when people enter their first job and later in their career path, leading to the development of professional alternatives to remain in employment and to construct meaning. They highlight the (re)conceptualization processes, at the heart of developmental dynamics, involved in the construction of health. In conclusion, we examine the support provided to these people in light of our results.
This article examines how trade unions are using digital tools to address mental health issues in the workplace. While this topic has been gaining importance in France since the 2000s, the growing distance between employees, exacerbated by the rise of teleworking and the reform of Social and Economic Committees (CSE) in 2019, has weakened trade union action in this area. To address this, activists have intensified their use of digital tools by developing online resources for training activists, networking activists and dispersed employees, and using online surveys to assess working conditions and objectively assess actual work. The study thus highlights the ambivalent nature of digital tools, which produces a “pyromaniac firefighter” effect: while it is a lever for making suffering visible and politicizing it, simultaneously contributing to the dynamics of individualization, abstraction, and intensification that union action seeks to denounce and combat.
The deployment of digital platforms has contributed to the growth of a new type of self-employed worker. A survey of Uber drivers, the emblematic figure of platform workers, was conducted in Paris, London and Montréal. The professional bifurcations of racialized men, the majority of whom work in this profession, are analyzed in this article. Experiencing downgrading and being assigned to low-skilled or unskilled jobs, they initially saw it as a good bad job that would enable them to improve their lot. Their hopes were soon dashed, however. Their working conditions and pay deteriorated, and uncertainty increased. By examining the career paths of Uber drivers, we can understand how the company acquires the manpower it needs to grow.
This article studies the dangerousness of subcontracted work in France, based on the Working Conditions survey. First, it shows that all work-related accident rates are higher and on the rise between 2013 and 2019 for subcontracted work, whereas the rates of accidents leading to time off work have declined since 2016. The hypothesis of under-reporting of serious workplace accidents is also suggested. Second, subcontracting is analyzed as a specific factor in the risks experienced in the workplace, over and above the individual characteristics of employees and sectors of activity. However, prevention practices appear to be under-dimensioned in subcontractor establishments.
