Fanny Lederlin is a doctoral student in philosophy, essayist, author of
The dispossessed of the open space,
Paris, Puf, 2020.
And one more protocol: the Ministry of Labor on Tuesday sent employers and unions a new health protocol in companies aimed at intensifying the use of teleworking to
"reduce the time spent on site as much as possible"
.
This document, which asks in particular that
"companies define an action plan"
which,
"in the event of an inspection, will be presented to the Labor Inspectorate"
, follows a note last February in which the Director General of Labor ordered that
"teleworkable tasks be"
, as well as to the many instructions, frequently asked questions (FAQ) and other questions and answers (QR) which have followed one another since the Ministry of Labor managed the health crisis.
Not without causing problems.
Because this inflation of recommendations attests to the interventionist, even normative inclination of the Ministry of Labor, and more profoundly to the managerial drift of the Government.
How indeed not to worry about the exorbitant power that the Ministry of Labor arrogates to itself by multiplying the injunctions to the companies, under cover of a variation of the obligation of safety of the employer?
Because the recommendations may not be imperative, they have a strong normative value, made evident by the reference to the Labor Inspectorate (and the sanctions over which it has the power).
It is urgent to note that this government interventionism in the legal order as in the organization of companies is done at the expense of respect for the law, the principle of consultation with social actors, the employer's power of direction and even the freedom to undertake.
It is urgent to note that this government interventionism in the legal order as in the organization of companies is done at the expense of respect for the law.
Moreover, this emancipation from the regulatory framework reveals the distraction of a government which seems to confuse the didactic rhetoric specific to the format of the “questions and answers” that it produces, with social dialogue and democratic debate.
However, if teleworking is undoubtedly an effective social distancing measure, it is not without raising questions that deserve such a debate.
Starting with this one: is teleworking without risk to the health of employees?
It turns out that more and more health professionals are worried about the physical and psychological consequences of the sedentary lifestyle of teleworkers.
But also this one: is teleworking a social progress?
It appears, after a year of massive experimentation, that teleworking risks transposing income inequalities, whether sexual or even generational, to working conditions since, depending on whether one lives in a small or comfortable space, whether you are a woman in charge of most of the housework or a man, and whether you are starting your career or you are already experienced and trained, it is experienced as a constraint or as an advantage.
In addition, it would be interesting to collectively question telework from an existential point of view, since the enthusiasm of the beginnings was followed by disenchantment on the part of many teleworkers, tired of chaining Zoom meetings and undergo a form of dispossession of their space, their time and their private life, in favor of a work which little by little "nibbles" all the spheres of their existence.
Finally, it would be legitimate to ask what society teleworking is helping to build?
Because, besides that it could cause a dualisation of the world of work - between those who can telework and those who cannot (and who happen to be the first and second lines to whom it has been asked for a year to "keep ») -, teleworking risks reinforcing the atomization of workers which has already been at work for decades and which is undoubtedly not for nothing in the social unbinding which erodes our democratic life.
Teleworking risks reinforcing the atomization of workers, which has already been at work for decades and which is undoubtedly not for nothing in the social unbinding which gnaws at our democratic life.
There is no simple answer to these complex questions, and it is obviously not a question of going back: telework is doomed to continue.
However, there are undoubtedly ways of supervising it which would make it possible to reduce its defects and increase its benefits.
For example, one could imagine, to fight against the inequalities attached to the homes of teleworkers - but also to revitalize work collectives -, the creation of local offices, kinds of public co-working spaces that could be financed and maintained. by local authorities, or by "office vouchers" (on the model of "meal vouchers")?
Even so, for ideas of this kind to be discussed, the government would have to leave room and organize the public debate.
However, instead of playing its political role in the health crisis, it seems to want to take refuge in its operational management, via the publication of protocols, notes and other "recommendations". As if, like the HRD of the “Start up Nation”, his mission was less to govern than to “manage” the country, directing companies as “business units” in the service of his project. This is clearly inconsistent with the spirit of a liberal democracy.
