Transforming social dialogue in order to accompany the ecological turning point ; Transformer le dialogue social pour accompagner la bifurcation écologique

This paper presents and discusses the idea that political democracy and social democracy must be coupled in order to successufully deal with the challenges of a necessarily radical ecological turning point. We face a double paradox here, because social dialogue nowadays is patchy and weakened, and because unions mainly relay the legitimate concerns of the workers, fearing the job losses and impoverishment risks stemming from the ecological crisis as well as from the measures implemented to address it. However it is more than ever necessaryto actively involve all the stakeholders, especially the workers. The paper argues that in order to do so, social dialogue must be enlarged and renewed. We proceeed in four steps. First, we analyse the present difficulties of the political process and suggest that overcoming them implies among others to set out a new social contract, replacing the previous fordist one. Second, we examine the concrete ways through which the actors and stakes of environment are currently introduced in the social dialogue as it is practiced in Europe, and we show that such an introduction does not come up to the challenge. Third, we introduce a theoretical perspective, enlarging the picture and focussing onworkers’ « real freedom » and on the old and new forms of scarcities that our societies confront. Fourth and last, we go back to social dialogue and discuss the important trasformations it needs in order to simultaneously foster workers’ emancipation and the ecological turning point. ; Cet article explore l’idée selon laquelle un éventuel engagement dans une bifurcation écologique nécessite un couplage entre la démocratie politique et la démocratie sociale. Ce recours au dialogue social est doublement paradoxal. D’une part il est très inégalement développé, et dans l’ensemble affaibli depuis les années 1970. D’autre part, les syndicats relaient principalement des inquiétudes des travailleurs face à des menaces de pertes d’emplois et d’appauvrissement venant tant des manifestations de la crise ...