Employment Relations in France

Thisbook is the fruit of a number of years of assimilating another culture and learning about the evolution of its institutions, altogether an incr- iblyrich andrewarding experience. Ihopetopassonto the reader some of that richness in the belief that, even in a globalizing context, learning about other nations and cultures is more and more necessary. The reasons andvalues behind this belief are perhaps evident,but I amconvincedthat they bear repeating here. To begin with, the hasty generalizations that often liebehind the cynicismand ultimately the violenceof ethnocentrism and xe- phobia are still being aired today and still need to be fought, even in unified and advanced regions of the world like Europe and the United States. The historical and social sciences disciplines need to be solicited constantly in this combat, even though they themselves are terrains of controversy and contestation. I personally have not lost faith in their progressive potential and character. Second, my belief is that only through this process of appeal to these disciplines and their findings can we resist a dangerous contemporary slide into simplisticand sensation- ist pictures of the worldviewpoints often associated with an implicit assumption that social and economic change are linear processes, so- how unfolding according to the same neat logic wherever they are at work.

Zusammenfassung
`Jenkins fills a large gap in international literature on France, and does so in a work that is clearly structured and highly readable.'
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 55:2
`Its main quality is its willingness to respect the complexity of this topic and the country's history. This Anglo-Saxon view of labor relations in France- and more generally of French society- provides even French sociologists with distance and fresh analysis of their country's reactions to globalization.'
Contemporary Sociology 31,2

Inhalt
Introduction: The French Exception.- The Reform of Work and the Evolution of Participative Management in France.- A Decade of Technological Moderization: Negotiation and Organizational Change During the 1980s.- Toward Quality and Process Redesign: The 'Lean' Revolution in French Industry.- Decentralized Bargaining and the Spread of Individualization in Employee Appraisal and Remuneration.- Employment Crisis, Restructuring, and Downsizing.- The Impact of New Flexibilities on Working Time and Contracts.- Conclusion: Crisis, Conflict, and Reform in French Work and Society.- Conclusion: Crisis, Conflict, and Reform in French Work and Society.