The variety of the role of workers’ representatives according to the socio-productive contexts

This article examines the way in which local systems of industrial relations and the dynamics of the socio-productive contexts in which they are embedded are articulated. Combining a statistical and qualitative approach, it aims to identify original ways of understanding the different forms of employer domination, employee representation and social compromises that are made in companies. Beyond the effects linked to the militant capital of employee representatives, to the size and to the sector of the companies, the article shows to what extent the type of market, the profile of the workforce and the modes of work organization, which are characteristic of the different socio-productive models, structure differently what is the subject of conflicts and negotiation in labor relations, and the capacity of employee representatives to take them on.