Des trajectoires irréversibles renversées

Abstract

During the second half of the nineteenth century, a paternalistic textile industry, Saint Frères, settled in the Nièvre valley in the French department of the Somme, by planting many factories and employers' institutions. These establishments offered a « lifetime employment » to thousands of inhabitants, thus defining their daily lives. With the crisis of 1929, the company turned to part-time work and redundancies. At the dawn of the crisis, on June 30th, 1931, 9 448 workers were employed in 14 production units in Somme. On June 20th, 1932, we count no more than 7 924. For some of them, this came comes as a real break-up and not as a discontinuity in their life course, which they had previously considered irreversible. This erosion of the « temporal borders » is more or less important depending on whether one belonged to the redeployed group, topart time workers, or completely unemployed people (« passengers », « put aside », « excommunicated ») and on their place of residence (« from the inside » or « from the outside »). As a background for these ill-assorted experiences of unemployment, there are differentiated ways of living a labor condition, that worsen class unity.

Keywords

• industry
• crisis
• paternalism
• restructuring
• part time workers
• completely unemployed persons