The book begins with the observation of a profound crisis in the perception of work by our contemporaries. In the past, work was considered part of the human condition, earning a living by the sweat of one’s brow. It was then experienced as everyone’s participation in a collective progress that could benefit everyone. Today, the worker feels tossed about in the midst of non-negotiable considerations and changes, suffered rather than chosen. The social and moral context marked by the weakening of all collective benchmarks and the predominance of self-referential individualism only aggravates the malaise generated by deindustrialisation for nearly 30 years, and now the prospect of an AI that will apparently further reduce the need for human work.
The authors then set out to show that the end of work is a chimera (as much a chimera as the end of history that was announced thirty years ago). They describe how and why, despite the desire to “restore the value of work” and other slogans, collective, political, fiscal and social choices have had the effect of discrediting work, hindering it and taxing it without helping companies to share a unifying quest for meaning with their employees.
All in all, a book written by practitioners, Bertrand Martinot is a specialist in the issue of unemployment, employment policies and social dialogue. He received the 2014 Turgot Prize for a previous book Chômage: inverser la courbe (Unemployment: reversing the curve). He was social adviser to the Presidency of the Republic from 2007 to 2008, general delegate for employment and vocational training (DGEFP) from 2008 to 2012, then deputy director general of the Ile-de-France region in charge of economic development, employment and training until 2019. Franck Morel is a labour law lawyer. Advisor to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and four labour ministers (Xavier Bertrand, Brice Hortefeux, Xavier Darcos and Eric Woerth). Both authors are associate experts at the Montaigne Institute.
Hubert Rodarie